California in Focus

A federal magistrate issued a report and recommendation to a district court judge, calling for a preliminary injunction against the California community college system’s diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility mandate for hiring, training and evaluating professors. Plaintiff Daymon Johnson, a full-time history professor at Bakersfield College, contends that the state community college syste...

According to the latest quarterly analysis from the California Association of Realtors, only 15% of Californians can afford to purchase the median-priced home, a decline of 1 percentage point from the quarter before and 3 percentage points from the year before. California homes are now the least affordable they've been since the peak of the housing market in 2007 before the Great Recession. The an...

A major section of one of Los Angeles’ most busy freeways will be shut down for repairs for the next three to five weeks for a fire that California governor Gavin Newsom blames on arson. The late-night blaze consumed a  storage site under the freeway formerly leased out to an entity in arrears that appears to have sublet the space out to other entities to store, among other items, pallets, hand sa...

 California governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order giving 270 days for the approval of the environmental impact report holding up construction of the Sites Reservoir. The Sites Reservoir, considered by water experts to be a top priority, is 1.5 million acre-feet, $4 billion reservoir funded by voters in 2014 with water infrastructure bond Proposition 1, which is yet to have brought a sing...

 California is piloting its first state-led universal basic income program as new analysis finds the state has the highest poverty rate in the nation. While state Democrats use figures like these to demonstrate the need for more social spending, critics say these programs ultimately make California more expensive and increase poverty in the long run. The two “Guaranteed Income Pilot Programs’ will...

The Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon’s office is reviewing its prior decision to not pursue felony charges against a homeless man videotaped attempting to rape a passing woman in broad daylight. Following significant media coverage, and a letter from the local city attorney requesting a felony charge, the district attorney is now reviewing further evidence and a witness who was l...

 Homeschooling in California increased by 78% in the five years between the start of the 2017 and 2022 school years, according to a new analysis from the Washington Post. This analysis follows a report from earlier in October from the California Department of Education that found that most of the state’s public school students do not meet basic math, science and literacy standards, suggesting the...

Los Angeles is in crisis as public prostitution becomes normal across vast swathes of the city and police can do little to stop it under new California laws, according to a new report from the New York Post. City officials told The Center Square while the Figueroa Corridor in South Central is gaining the most national media attention, major public prostitution scenes in the Hollywood and  Century...

President Joe Biden called upon Congress to provide $310 million in emergency funding to expand the treatment of raw sewage from Mexico causing beach closures, stench, poor air quality, and even illness to San Diego residents. According to academic research from UC San Diego, approximately 34,000 people swimming at San Diego’s Imperial Beach next to the border got sick with just norovirus in 2017,...

According to a new annual report from the California Department of Education, the majority of public school students in California are not meeting standards in the three main subjects tested by the state. 53% of students don’t meet state literacy standards while 65% don’t meet math and 70% don’t meet science standards. California Department of Education officials celebrated the numbers as an impro...

According to newly released FBI crime statistics for 2022, violent crime decreased nationwide but sharply increased in California. Between 2021 and 2022, the violent crime rate per 100,000 people increased from 481.2 to 499.5 in California and decreased from 387 to 380.7 nationwide. At the same time, statewide arrests decreased significantly from pre-pandemic levels, a statewide phenomenon not loc...

 California governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill into law that expands the definition of “gravely disabled” to cover not just mental illness, but also substance use disorder and those “unable to provide for their personal safety or necessary medical care” to get more homeless individuals into state-mandated treatment programs. SB 43, authored by State Senator Susan Eggman, D-Stockton, reforms the L...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill ending “willful defiance” suspensions in TK-12 public and charter schools, a move that experts say could bring disaster amid already declining academic performance, behavior, and attendance. Under SB 274, schools would have to offer “interventions or supports” instead. Willful defiance is defined as “disrupting school activities or otherwise willfully def...

A new report from California YIMBY has found California must build 3.5 million homes by 2025 to address its housing shortage, and that governor Gavin Newsom's housing production efforts have failed to sufficiently increase housing production, which in 2022 was just 116,000 new units of housing. The report focuses on the relative housing underproduction rates across the state by calculating a “conv...

Crime and homelessness have converged in San Francisco to allow homeless individuals who some have called "pirates" to settle offshore into small, cheap boats that anchor illegally and roam the bay looking for property and even other boats to steal.  According to research by the San Francisco Standard, seven boats were stolen in August in the waters between Alameda and Oakland in San Francisco Bay...

Federal judge Roger Benitez overturned California's ban on standard-sized ammunition magazines, with California Attorney General Rob Bonta filing an immediate notice of appeal. The injunction on the ban will be stayed for 10 days, which means that the ban's overturn will likely not take effect as the decision is appealed. Standard-capacity magazines have been illegal to manufacture, import, keep o...