California in Focus

Technology group NetChoice filed for an emergency injunction Monday to block California's new social media law before it takes effect January 1, arguing the requirement that platforms verify users' ages would effectively end anonymous speech on major social media sites. The law requires platforms to obtain parental consent for minors to access personalized feeds and limits minors' social media use...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom is in the nation’s capital seeking federal waivers for eight of California’s emissions policies. Without the Republican-opposed waivers, California could be unable to enforce its multi-state emissions policies that are more strict than the federal standard. The United States Clean Air Act authorizes California to set and enforce emissions standards more strict than the...

Makers of electric vehicles, such as Rivian and Tesla, are taking a central role in the $162 billion fuel cost hike being voted on in California in Friday, which will largely be paid for by poorer drivers who tend to live farther from work due to the state’s high cost of housing. The Low Carbon Fuel Standard program provides credits to EV makers when drivers use the makers’ home charging systems a...

Californians voted by wide margins to crack down on theft and drug crime, passing Proposition 36 and replacing Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon with former U.S. federal prosecutor Nathan Hochman. Prop. 36, which passed with the support of 70.4% of voters as of the time of publication, allows for prosecutors to pursue felony charges for serial thieves and major drug crimes after Prop. 47...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced his plan to more than double the state’s tax credits for film and television, aiming to raise the refundable credit by $420 million. The state’s own studies have found half of the projects that apply for but don’t get film subsidies end up staying anyway. In 2023, Newsom made the program a refundable credit, meaning that if the credits exceed owed taxes, a re...

A California regulatory agency says it won’t release new information on a new carbon credit proposal that it said earlier could raise the cost of each gallon of gasoline by 35 cents next year, and significantly raise the costs of goods shipped through California, and airline tickets leaving or entering California. The California Air Resources Board is voting on November 8 on whether or not to adop...

A major study involving Children's Hospital Los Angeles - the second-largest provider of child medical gender reassignment interventions, and largest youth gender clinic in the country - is currently being withheld from publication due to the author's fear its results could be "weaponized" against the practice of giving children sex change hormones. The nearly $10 million study, the New York Times...

United States Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told voters today's children will be the first to not know an America without high speed rail. But with the California government's $135 billion high speed rail program approved by voters in 2008, children born then are now old enough to drive and the first section of the project is nowhere near complete. Though the Biden administration is prom...

A federal judge is allowing most claims to proceed in a lawsuit against San Francisco, declining to dismiss allegations that the city-county turned the Tenderloin neighborhood into a drug and crime "containment zone." The lawsuit, which the City and County of San Francisco sought to dismiss, alleges that government actions encouraged addicts and dealers to come to the area. Support this podcast: ...

California spent an average of $1.7 million housing and treating each "sexually violent predator" discharged from state mental hospitals and in the process of transitioning to the community under care and supervision from a third-party contractor, a new state audit found. About one third of those let out under supervision were ordered back to mental hospitals for noncompliance. Support this podcas...

The Democratic governor of Arizona, Republican governor of Nevada, Chevron, and California Republicans are ringing the alarm on California Gov. Gavin Newsom's steadily advancing refinery regulations, saying they'll reduce energy supplies and raise prices. Newsom called a special legislative session to require refineries to maintain more than two weeks' worth of inventory, and give the state author...

A California school district allegedly had a teacher teach a lesson and read a gender identity book to fifth graders, then have those fifth graders watch a video version of the book with their kindergarten mentees and teach them the lesson they just learned. Outraged Encinitas parents are now suing the school district and demanding a notification and opt-out program for all objectionable content;...

A new Sacramento unrestricted cash welfare pilot program that will distribute $725 per month to selected low-income parents or guardians of black or indigenous children allows individuals to apply regardless of immigration status. The program does not provide an option for parents of white, Asian, or Hispanic children, leading critics to wonder why the county adopted racial restrictions when a nee...

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill legalizing "cannabis cafes" and allowing commercial events there. The American Cancer Society condemned the law, noting secondhand marijuana smoke is often just as bad, if not worse, than cigarette smoke. California banned indoor smoking at entertainment venues in 1998, making this bill a major reversal in state policy. It's unclear if the law will allow individuals...

After decades of promoting plastics recycling, California adopted a total plastic shopping bag ban and filed a lawsuit against ExxonMobil, claiming plastic recycling is a “public relations stunt.” With the state’s outbreak of fecal-transmitted hepatitis among homeless individuals correlated with the onset of the state’s first single-use plastic bag ban that required reusable plastic bags to be pur...

While California Governor Gavin Newsom touted California’s fast food jobs growth in a Fox News opinion column Wednesday, seasonally adjusted federal employment data contradicts the governor’s claims, finding that overall fast food employment is down since the start of the year. The $20 per hour fast food minimum wage is credited by businesses as driving cuts on available shifts and employment, and...

As California’s homeless population rises to a CalMatters-estimated 186,000, Republican legislators are demanding that Gov. Gavin Newsom sign a bill requiring the state to track homelessness spending and outcomes. AB 2903 by Assemblymember Josh Hoover, R-Folsom, passed without any opposing votes, and would require any “state agency or department that administers one or more state homelessness prog...

Chipotle Mexican Grill announced it is piloting an automatic avocado peeler and pit remover at one California location, and an automatic bowl and salad machine at another as higher minimum wages increase relative yields from automation. Earlier this year, Chipotle raised its prices up to 7% in California to account for the state’s new $20 per hour minimum wage for fast food employers. Chipotle say...

The California Public Utilities Commision is voting later this month on whether to allow illegal immigrants to use the state’s cellphone subsidy program that makes most cellphone service plans either low cost or free, and self-fund and provide the additional federal subsidies undocumented immigrants are unable to qualify for. If adopted, the new plan would allow individuals to use Mexican voter re...

San Francisco’s former district attorney is leading a class action lawsuit requiring the state to follow through on a 1973 statute signed into law by then-governor Ronald Reagan to pay prisoners who have served more than six months $200 upon their release as “gate money.” Including interest, the case could cost taxpayers $5 billion. With former SF DA Chesa Boudin, now Executive Director at UC Berk...

A federal appeals court sided with Elon Musk and X Corporation against a California law requiring companies to report and create definitions for a wide variety of speech violations, finding the law violates the First Amendment by unlawfully compelling companies to provide opinions on contentious matters, including defining what hate speech or misinformation is. The Ninth Circuit Court reversed a l...

 A judge in Los Angeles County ordered the county to rapidly produce court-ordered homelessness program audit data, saying, “If there isn’t documentation of work being done, it’s not being done.” Judge David O. Carter is overseeing a settlement from two years ago between the LA Alliance for Human Rights and both Los Angeles County and the City of Los Angeles. The City of Los Angeles’ separate sett...

Shake Shack announced the pending closure of nine locations nationwide, six of which are in California, writing, “These Shacks are not projected to provide acceptable returns in the foreseeable future,” in a SEC filing. While Shake Shack did not respond to requests for comment regarding the impact of California’s $20 per hour fast food minimum wage that took effect earlier this year, high commerci...

The California legislature passed a bill allowing undocumented immigrants to make use of the state’s $150,000, 0 down, 0 interest home “loans.” The bill now goes to the governor’s desk, where he must either veto or approve the bill by the end of September. California has one of the worst home shortages in the nation, with an estimated 4.5 million home shortage, and a nearly $1 million median home...

California government officials and Big Tech are nearing an agreement to jointly provide at least $242.5 million in funding for journalism, including local and ethnic outlets. The agreement, first reported on by KCRA, would put an end to bills that would require tech companies to pay newsrooms a portion of their search and display revenue. Under the California Journalism Preservation Act, which th...