California Insider

For many people, a car is their largest purchase after a home. In California, the advertised price can be thousands of dollars below the final bill. New state rules now govern what a dealer must include in the advertised price. Karl Brauer, executive analyst at iSeeCars explains what the new rules change in a car deal and what determines the final bill. *Views expressed in this video/article are o...

For many California households, wildfire shows up in monthly electricity bills and the cost of insuring a home, even far from the fire line. For survivors of recent fires, the pressure is more direct as they work to rebuild what they lost. How wildfire costs get paid is part of that rebuilding challenge. Jeff Ball, president and CEO of the Orange County Business Council, draws on his banking backg...

In California, renters outnumber homeowners until age 47—about a decade later than in the rest of the country. For many middle-class families with steady jobs, the step from paying rent to owning a home keeps moving further away. Saving for a down payment is one barrier. Another concerns what kind of housing gets built in California and who it’s built for. Bob Hertzberg is a former California Sena...

California cities must plan for more housing, and proposals for new homes often bring worries about traffic and strained local services. In Irvine, many police officers and teachers who serve the city live far away because they cannot afford a home nearby. Meeting those requirements means deciding where growth can fit and how a community will support it. The next round of housing targets is alread...

For most California homeowners, the house is the largest asset they own. Some owners learn something is wrong only when a foreclosure notice arrives on a loan they never took out. Jay Hibert spent 25 years in commercial banking and now consults for title insurers and lenders through JBH Real Estate Experts when these cases reach litigation. He joins us to explain why paying off a home does not rem...

Santa Monica is known around the world for its beaches and downtown shopping, yet safety on its streets has become a concern for residents and local businesses. What can the city do when its response to homelessness depends partly on decisions made outside its borders? We sit down with Santa Monica City councilmember and former mayor Lana Negrete to discuss how she sees the region’s role in Santa...

Southern California businesses have arranged hotel-style maternity stays for women traveling from China to give birth in the United States. Clients from China have also hired American surrogates, some of whom entered those arrangements believing they were helping someone build a family. In one case, a surrogate learned that the intended father was a billionaire in China who allegedly has dozens of...

California counties begin mailing November ballots by Oct. 5. This year’s ballot carries 14 statewide propositions, and several of them deal with taxes. Some proposals revisit earlier decisions, such as whether an income tax increase first approved as temporary in 2012 should become permanent. Others are new, including a proposed one-time tax on the state’s billionaires. Susan Shelley, vice presid...

California’s 2026–27 budget provides more than $150 billion for TK–12 education. School districts still say they are underfunded, and many parents are asking what that level of spending delivers for students. University of California faculty have documented a growing number of incoming freshmen who arrive with strong high school math grades yet need remedial math once they reach campus. That leave...

For many California households, including families with two working parents on a median income, buying a home is out of reach. A bill to make townhomes easier to build would open another route to ownership, and how far it lowers prices for buyers is part of the conversation. Proposition 45, a measure on the November ballot, would set deadlines for reviewing and approving projects. That process dec...

Patients in California can enter a hospital without knowing what their care will cost. For people covered by Medi-Cal, another problem can come earlier, when they face long waits or struggle to find a physician who accepts the program. Few other purchases are made without knowing the price, which leaves patients with little to compare before deciding where to go. Sally C. Pipes is president and CE...

For many people in California, buying a home remains out of reach. Prices stay high, while limited listings leave buyers with fewer choices. California is changing where and how new housing can be built, with laws intended to increase supply. Whether more approvals will lead to homes at prices buyers can manage remains unsettled. Jim Righeimer, a former Costa Mesa mayor and housing developer, and...

California’s prison system is changing. The state is closing facilities, moving incarcerated people between institutions, and continuing to invest in rehabilitation. Inside prison, that goal meets a culture with its own long-standing rules, where choosing a different direction is rarely as simple as deciding to. Nhut Vo and Oscar Rodriguez entered California prisons as teenagers and spent decades...

San Diego County voters will decide this November whether to change some of the rules governing accountability and oversight inside county government. The proposal comes as public spending and how that money is tracked remain part of a broader accountability debate in the county. The charter reform would change parts of a system most residents rarely see, including oversight and the relationship b...

When people in California surrender a pet to a shelter or send an animal to a sanctuary, they expect that animal to be cared for. What happens after that can remain largely out of sight until something goes wrong. In several recent cases around California, problems inside animal rescues went on for a long time before outside organizations were able to intervene. In this interview, we look at what...

California families can spend years preparing a student for college, only for that student to reach graduation with little idea of what the work on the other side will actually be like. With the cost of going to college being so high, finding out too late that a career is the wrong fit can be an expensive lesson. Students are also entering a labor market that has changed since their parents entere...

Los Angeles is heading toward a mayoral runoff with public safety, homelessness, housing affordability, and the city’s finances still weighing on the race. Karen Bass and Nithya Raman are the two names left on the ballot, but the November electorate may look different from the one that put them there. A significant group of voters backed someone else in the primary. Whether those voters return, an...

Street takeovers can form quickly, leaving drivers, bystanders, and police facing a dangerous situation in the middle of a public road. In California, large groups can appear before authorities have much time to respond. Some of these gatherings can form and disperse within a short window. By the time police can mobilize, much of the event may already have played out. Heather Mac Donald, the Thoma...

In the Bay Area, AI is bringing renewed attention and investment to Silicon Valley at the same time that many technology companies are expanding outside California. The region can remain important to a company even when more of its growth happens somewhere else. The movement out of California is only part of the story. Companies can remain closely connected to Silicon Valley as they grow their hir...

Crime statistics say things are improving in California, yet for some residents, that reading does not square with what they notice in their own communities. When the official numbers and what people experience seem to point in different directions, it becomes harder to know what each is telling us. Part of the difficulty is what never enters the official record. Some victims choose not to report...

California voters can read a ballot title and still be left wondering what a measure would mean in practice. This November, 14 statewide propositions put some consequential policy choices into just a few lines of ballot language. A title can do more than summarize a measure. A name that sounds reassuring can influence a voter’s first impression before they read what the proposal would change, givi...

For families struggling to find a home they can afford, an available affordable unit can mean stability after months or even years of waiting. Yet in parts of California’s affordable housing system, some units are sitting empty while the need remains high. That gap affects more than housing statistics. It reaches the families still waiting and focuses on a harder issue: what happens after affordab...

When a major industrial fire burns near a community, the danger is visible at first. Once the flames are put out and the smoke begins to clear, residents can still be left wondering what was in the air and whether the risk has passed. That can become harder to judge when the effects reach beyond the immediate fire site, and residents do not always have clear information about their level of risk....

Security guards have become a more visible part of daily life in California, and the job itself has grown more demanding. Most people pass them at hospitals and businesses without thinking about what it takes to put someone there. Now something is being decided about what that protection costs and how it gets provided. For an industry this large, a change meant to help can carry consequences that...

Families often choose communities like Ladera Ranch because they want a safe place to raise their children. In this Orange County community, several families have reported normally rare cancers affecting young people, with some only learning later that other families nearby had faced similar cases. As more families came forward, the community was left with a question that remains unanswered: are t...