KQED's The California Report

After a 17-month labor battle, a North Hollywood strip club has reopened as the only union strip club in the U.S. But it's not the end of the road. The dancers may have union representation, but they still don't have a contract. Reporter: Robin Estrin, KCRW The world’s largest known octopus garden is in California coastal waters, just 80 miles south of Monterey. A new study confirms these deep-sea...

A gunman killed three people and wounded six in a mass shooting in Orange County last night. It happened around 7:00 p.m. at Cook’s Corner, a bar popular with motorcyclists located in Trabuco Canyon in east Orange County. The shooter also died at the scene, likely killed, law enforcement says, by responding deputies. West Coast cities, from Seattle to San Diego, have housing shortages that are dri...

A state legislator wants to create a new state agency that might one day administer reparations to the descendants of slaves. Reporter: Guy Marzorati, KQED Southeast Asian refugees could get protection from deportation under a bill reintroduced in Congress this week by a Los Angeles area Democrat. Reporter: Tyche Hendricks, KQED When you visit the Los Angeles La Brea Tar Pits you see an enormous v...

Tropical storm Hilary brought lots of rain to parts of Southern California. In San Diego County that will help ease the risk of wildfires in the short term. Reporter: Erik Anderson, KPBS In the Northern California town of Paradise, many survivors of the devastating 2018 Camp Fire have been watching news of wildfires in Maui with a sense of disbelief. The blaze that destroyed Lahaina has now surpas...

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department advised Catalina Island residents and visitors — especially the medically vulnerable — to leave the island as soon as they could as a precaution. A big and unusual tropical storm isn’t the only worry nature is throwing at Californians. On Sunday afternoon, a magnitude 5.1 earthquake struck near the Ventura County community of Ojai and was felt in Los Ang...

Hurricane Hilary, which is growing down around Baja right now, strengthened to a Category 4 storm this morning. The system had maximum sustained winds of 145 miles per hour, according to the National Hurricane Center. In the coming days, the hurricane could head toward Southern California, bringing threats of major flooding. Reporter: Jacob Margolis, LAist San Francisco is calling on state regulat...

The largest is the Head Fire, which is estimated to have burned about 3,500 acres so far. Evacuation shelters have been set up for both people and animals who have been displaced by the fire. Reporter: Jane Vaughan, JPR Southern California’s Hawaiian community is leading local fundraising efforts for Maui after its deadly wildfires. Reporter: Josie Huang, LAist Kids across California are returning...

The Newsom administration says crews made up of more than one hundred people from California will be in Maui to aid in the search and recovery efforts. That includes forensic anthropologists, specialists in urban search and rescue, wildfire debris removal and hazardous waste experts and K9 teams. Reporter: Angela Corral, KQED In San Francisco, immigrants' rights lawyers are gearing up for a courtr...

The Department of Energy has announced $100 million in funding for 19 carbon capture projects nationwide. One of those projects is destined for the Kern County foothills, near Taft.  Reporter: Joshua Yeager, KVPR It’s been one year since a Sonoma County sheriff’s deputy shot and killed local farmworker, David Pelaez-Chavez. His family and community members are calling on the District Attorney to b...

At the Aloha Festival in San Mateo over the weekend, members of the Bay Area's Asian American and Pacific Islander community came together to celebrate Polynesian culture and find ways to help people in Maui. Reporter: Billy Cruz, KQED Thousands of low-income California workers shorted on their paychecks may never recover that money, even when they’ve won claims with state regulators. That's why o...

At least 55 people are confirmed dead from the wildfires that devastated the historic Maui town of Lahaina. One resident from the Central Valley moved to the popular tourist town ten years ago to open a bar that's now completely demolished.  Reporter: Izzy Bloom, KQED  Drive-In theaters are a staple in American history. But over the years the number of these outdoor movie theaters has diminished....

The Murrieta Valley School Board will discuss a policy this evening to notify parents if their child identifies as transgender. This comes after the Chino Valley school board passed a similar policy last month.  Reporter: Madison Aument, KVCR More than 100 unionized healthcare workers disrupted a Fresno County Board of Supervisors meeting yesterday. The union is demanding higher wages and healthca...

Standing water in Kings and Tulare Counties in the San Joaquin Valley has led to a proliferation of mosquitoes. As a result, big bucks are being spent on abatement. Reporter: Kerry Klein, KVPR For a lot of parents, having no one to care for their children means they often just don’t go to work, which can be bad for their employers. One study found that businesses lose $23 billion every year due to...

Los Angeles city workers including sanitation workers, LAX employees, lifeguards at city pools and traffic officers are participating in a 24-hour strike today over unfair labor practices and bad-faith bargaining. California is one of the few states with heat standards aimed at protecting outdoor workers. But heat protections for indoor workers are limited, despite documented risks.  Reporter: Nic...

In Sacramento, a budget deficit limited what California state lawmakers could fund in this year’s budget. Now, lawmakers are looking to bonds as a different strategy to pay for things like climate infrastructure, mental health beds and affordable housing. Reporter: Nicole Nixon, CapRadio A controversial Farmer John slaughterhouse in the L.A. County community of Vernon closed earlier this year afte...

A Biden Administration program to monitor asylum-seeking families and subject them to a curfew is set to expand to several California cities next week. It’s part of an effort by the Biden Administration to signal a tough but humane approach to border enforcement. Reporter: Tyche Hendricks, KQED  Following the state’s record-breaking rainfall in the winter, and now its dry heat, public health offic...

After days of triple-digit heat, areas of the San Joaquin Valley, flooded from winter storms, are drying up, little by little. That includes Tulare Lake, which is receding after peaking at more than 170 square miles in size. But for many, the return to dry land doesn’t mean a return to normalcy. Reporter: Kerry Klein, KVPR A coalition of environmentalists and social justice groups have launched a...

The York Fire, California’s largest wildfire this year, is currently burning in the Mojave National Preserve along the border of California and Nevada.  The fire is also the largest on record for the Mojave Desert, where wildfires are rare.  Guest: Jacob Margolis, Reporter, LAist Former President Donald Trump will campaign in California next month, speaking at the state Republican Party’s fall con...

In recent months we've seen an explosion of strikes and worker protests in California -- by hotel employees, Hollywood writers and actors, port workers, UC grad students in teaching positions, and health care professionals. But when you take them all together, what do these actions say about the state of organized labor in California?  Guest: Lorena Gonzalez, Executive Secretary-Treasurer, Califor...

In Los Angeles, the strikes by film and television writers and actors continues, with no end in sight. That's brought production to a standstill. And with each passing day, the wider economic toll of the strikes continues to mount. Reporter: Saul Gonzalez, The California Report In San Diego, police will begin enforcing a controversial new municipal ordinance banning outdoor camping. Under the ordi...

More than 250,000 Californians are still waiting on pandemic rental assistance they applied for through the state. As they wait, eviction protections are continuing to expire.  Reporter: Ben Christopher, CalMatters   With inflation cooling, renters in Los Angeles and Orange counties are about to get a slight reprieve from large rent hikes. The statewide Tenant Protection Act uses inflation to dete...

California bans state-funded travel to other states that discriminate against LGBTQ people. That list has ballooned as legislation targeting trans people sweeps the country. Now Democratic lawmakers want to change tactics. Reporter: Nicole Nixon, CapRadio Residents in Orange County’s Anaheim Hills are voting on a self-imposed tax that would fund a groundwater pump system. That pump system has prot...

Legislative staff in California’s State Capitol have long been banned from unionizing.  In recent years, efforts to grant them that right have been shot down. But another bill to allow staff to unionize is making its way through the state legislature. Reporter: Laura Fitzgerald, CapRadio Advocates rallied Tuesday in support of a bill California lawmakers are considering that would let workers take...

The Hollywood strikes this time are different from those of the past, and not just because the technology has changed. Silicon Valley has taken over Hollywood, and Big Tech has an established anti-union bent. Reporter: Rachael Myrow, KQED New data shows California has taken 1 in 5 people off Medi-Cal in its first month of the renewal process. Medi-Cal is the state’s health insurance program for it...

This year, there's no fresh, locally caught salmon. The season was closed. So few adult fish are now in the ocean off the California coast, fisheries managers decided they all were needed to return to their natal streams and spawn. Guest: Danielle Venton, KQED Science Reporter Much of California continues to buckle under a sweltering heat wave with no end in sight. But the state’s epic snowpack is...