Lea este artículo en español. Since California health officials decreed the end of the mask mandate for restaurants and grocery stores last week, frustrated parents have been asking: When can their kids take their masks off at school? They didn’t get any answers during a much-anticipated press conference Monday hosted by California...
Arambula’s Bill Eliminates All Premiums for Medi-Cal Recipients
Medi-Cal, the state’s safety net health program, isn’t free for everyone. More than half a million of California’s lowest-income children, pregnant individuals, and working disabled adults are required to pay health insurance premiums, ranging from $13 a month to as much as $350. That may change this year under...
Shocker: Less Than Half of Funds for CA College Volunteer Reward Program Goes to Students
Lea este artículo en español. A new California program to financially reward college students for volunteering has drawn national attention — but less than half of its budgeted money is going to actual student aid. The California Volunteers College Corps program, backed by $159 million in mostly state money, promises to award up to $10,000 to...
Does Fresno’s New Law Make It Harder to Help Homeless People?
A new coalition of homeless advocates plans to take legal action against the city of Fresno and a new ordinance members say places unnecessary restrictions on advocates working to help the homeless living in encampments. The new ordinance, which was approved on Jan. 27 and authored by Fresno City Councilmembers...
Budget Surplus Provides Perfect Opportunity to Fund Critical Water Projects
Over the past 40 years, California has not completed a major water storage project of statewide significance despite the state’s population nearly doubling. Without substantial new investments and commitments to capture, store and move water throughout the state, whole communities will be subject to water scarcity and farmers will...
What Are Next Steps in Fresno’s Effort to Reduce Homelessness?
The city of Fresno has added hundreds of shelter beds to provide emergency and temporary shelter, as well as transitional housing, to unhoused residents amid the pandemic, according to local leaders. It also provided homelessness services to thousands of people between July 2019 and December 2021, they said. But...
Farmworker Union Membership is Statistically Zero: UC Merced Researchers
When the nation’s high court effectively forbade union representatives from accessing fields and orchards to recruit workers last June, the United Farm Workers union turned to Sacramento for help. The union found a lawmaker from a coastal agricultural district willing to carry a bill that would allow California farmworkers to vote for a...
This Water Proposal Is Good for All of California: Opinion
Silicon Valley is known for its startup culture where so-called angel investors provide financing to launch companies that aspire to change the world. Innovations spawned in Silicon Valley have indeed changed the world, and in the process, made the San Francisco Bay Area home to thousands of near-billionaires and...
Should State Negotiate Wages, Hours, for CA Fast Food Workers?
By Jackie Botts and Jesse Bedayn Amid growing awareness of inequality and jobs that don’t pay enough to cover child care and housing, California is considering a radical proposal: Allow the state to negotiate wages, hours, and work conditions for an entire industry. Proponents in the state Legislature say one solution...
Dem and GOP Lawmakers Draw a Bull’s-eye on Prop 47
Little did California voters know, when they approved a 2014 ballot measure that reduced penalties for certain theft offenses, that their decision would still be making headlines in 2022. On Tuesday, Democratic Assemblymember Rudy Salas of Bakersfield introduced a bill that, if passed by state lawmakers and a majority of voters, would reverse...