While coronavirus cases are surging across California and overwhelming intensive care units, the country’s top infectious disease expert said today he’s “cautiously optimistic” that college students can return to campus in the fall. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said he anticipates that...
Who Will Pay for All of California’s Unemployment Fraud?
A 1-year-old in Fresno raking in $167 a week. An ex-state employee stealing $200,000 from California’s unemployment system, some by impersonating Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Another $1.2 million swindled by a rapper who bragged about it on YouTube, $1 billion drained in the name of state prisoners, and $2 billion in jobless benefits siphoned off state-issued debit cards. If doing the...
Whack and Stack: PG&E’s Toppling of Trees Creates New Hazards
Kristi and Brian Anderson have some thoughts about how the first year of California’s “get-tough-on-utilities” approach to preventing wildfires is going: Badly. Very badly. The Andersons, who live in Bonny Doon, nestled in the mountains near Santa Cruz, lost their home four months ago in the CZU Lightning Complex fires. But their...
Opinion: California Small-Business Grant Program Is Right Thinking, but Flawed in Execution
Small businesses owned by Black, Indigenous and People of Color are being disproportionately crushed by the weight of the pandemic – and many aren’t positioned to survive the next few months. So, when Gov. Gavin Newsom announced $500 million in grant funding and a temporary tax relief package for small businesses last...
What the Federal Stimulus Package Means for California
The federal stimulus package that lawmakers in Washington have agreed to is “very encouraging news” for California, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday as he outlined how much of the $900 billion federal package is likely to flow to the Golden State. “While it’s a lower number than we had hoped for, it...
Opinion: California Farmers Looking for Regulatory Sanity
In his sequel to “Alice in Wonderland,” Lewis Carroll depicts a fantastical world in which his heroine finds that, like a reflection in a mirror, everything is reversed, including logic. Since “Through the Looking-Glass” was published in 1871, the idiom has come to describe situations where you find the opposite...
Opinion: Don’t Fall for Fossil Fuel Propaganda
The consequences of climate change do not impact all Californians equally, and here in the San Joaquin Valley, community members and agricultural workers are on the frontlines of the air pollution, water scarcity and increased heat that are inextricably tied to climate change. Our health, well-being and future prosperity depend...
A Bumpy Ride for California Amtrak as Pandemic Surges
Gabriella Choe has been a regular Amtrak passenger for the past four years, traveling from Oakland to Sacramento to see her parents. Before the pandemic, she rode the train nearly every other weekend. But as the pandemic worsens, her visits are now infrequent, and she doesn’t plan on traveling for...
Can California Protect COVID-19 Vaccine From Cheaters and Fraudsters?
What seemed like a Herculean task just months ago is now here: the COVID-19 vaccine. For the next several weeks, vaccines will be available in limited amounts in California and across the nation — and only to high-risk individuals, with supply expected to ramp up in the months to come....
What Does Poll Show About Vaccines, Mask Mandate and a Replacement for Harris’ Senate Seat
Californians overwhelmingly want Gov. Gavin Newsom to appoint the best person possible to fill Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’ Senate seat regardless of race or sex, and people are more overwhelmed by living with COVID-19 than they expected, according to a recent poll by Public Policy Polling. Though the governor wrestles with whom...