California still does not have enough capacity to test for coronavirus, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Sunday, despite furious efforts by private, university and government laboratories to scale up to handle thousands of more patients. To help triage the crush of Californians in the Bay Area who want to be tested for...
Quarantine Grandma? California Families Scramble as Coronavirus Hits
“Social distancing.” In this time of coronavirus, it sounds straightforward: Avoid crowds. Don’t shake hands. Shield the elderly and infirm from infection. If necessary, go home and hunker down. In the complex real lives of California families, however, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s policy advice this week looked more like Michelle Cescatti...
Wiener’s New Housing Bill Would Still End Single-Family-Only Zoning — but More 'Gently'
For three straight years, state Sen. Scott Wiener has tried to force California cities to swallow more apartment buildings near public transit, arguing it’s the only way the state can fill its crippling housing shortage and meet its ambitious climate goals. For three straight years, a shifting coalition of local...
Water Is Life. It’s Also a Battle. So What Does the Future Hold for California?
Water plays a lead role in the state’s political theater, with Democrats and Republicans polarized, farmers often fighting environmentalists and cities pitted against rural communities. Rivers are overallocated through sloppy water accounting. Groundwater has dwindled as farmers overdraw aquifers. Many communities lack safe drinking water. Native Americans want almost-extinct salmon...
California Is Taking Aim at Uber and Lyft’s Outsized Climate Consequences
To understand California’s climate change challenge, look no further than its popular ride-hailing companies. Uber, Lyft and other companies make up a tiny piece of the biggest greenhouse gas polluter in the state: transportation. Yet their contribution to climate-warming emissions is outsized, drawing attention from researchers and lawmakers and raising...
California Schools Brace for a Coronavirus Disruption
Early reports indicate children infected by the coronavirus experience a milder response than older adults. But as it arrives in Northern California, school and college officials are preparing for a growing likelihood that the highly contagious virus will disrupt learning and spark panic in young people and their naturally protective caretakers. As...
Latino Small Business Owners Are Fastest-Growing U.S. Entrepreneurs
On the weekends, Salinas food truck owner Orlando Osornio, 30, and his wife, Denise, sell mile-high tortas, filled with California fusion-inspired ingredients: hot Cheetos, bacon, mango-habañero sauce, or pineapple. Some come for the birria torta or the chicken-bacon-alfredo torta. A line of customers winds its way around the side of...
State Opens Investigation Following CalMatters’ Report on Tech Foundation
California’s political watchdog is investigating fundraising practices by Democratic Assemblyman Evan Low after CalMatters reported that he had stopped disclosing donors to a nonprofit organization affiliated with the Legislature’s technology caucus, which he chairs. The chief of enforcement for the Fair Political Practices Commission wrote in a letter to Low that she had begun...
California Low on Test Kits and Face Masks in Its Battle Against Coronavirus
Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday that the state is monitoring 8,400 people who may have been exposed to the coronavirus and has only 200 kits for diagnosing it, even as California is addressing the problem with urgency. Other officials said the state may not have enough face masks to protect...
Governor: Coronavirus Changing 'By the Hour' in California
As the number of cases and urgency around the coronavirus increases, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday that California is on high alert and working closely with the federal government on the return of Americans from overseas. But in a state that has more people in quarantine than any other, many...