California officials have pursued Gilbert Hyatt for nearly three decades, trying to force him to pay state income taxes on royalties he began receiving in the early 1990s from his groundbreaking technology inventions. Hyatt moved from Southern California to Las Vegas just before the royalty payments began rolling in, clearly...
FEMA Head Brock Long, Investigated Over Vehicle Use, Resigns
WASHINGTON — The head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency resigned Wednesday after a two-year tenure in which he managed the response to historic wildfires and major hurricanes but was dogged by questions over his use of government vehicles. Brock Long said in a letter to FEMA employees that he...
Watchdog: 4 Mar-a-Lago Trips in 2017 Costs Taxpayers $14M
NEW YORK — President Donald Trump's four trips to his Mar-a-Lago resort in early 2017 cost taxpayers nearly $14 million, a watchdog report Tuesday said. The Government Accountability Office said travel and accommodations, Secret Service expenses, deployment of bomb-sniffing dogs and other costs for the trips between February 3 and...
Joel Fox: Changing Prop. 13 Could Worsen Housing Crisis
For four decades, Proposition 13, the property tax reform that passed in 1978, has been blamed for many of the ills that have befallen California. Working with Howard Jarvis, a Proposition 13 co-author, and later running his taxpayers association, I have followed the multiple attacks on the measure, many silly...
Jerry Brown: Cal Democrats Likely Will Overspend
SACRAMENTO — Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown helped make his party even more powerful in California during the last eight years and now, less than a month before leaving office, he predicts that dominance will make it difficult for his successor to control Democrats' hunger for spending and regulations. The leader...