Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
SACRAMENTO >> California has a long tradition of adopting bold, far-reaching policies that other states scramble to follow, and the work lawmakers accomplished during the two-year legislative session that ended early Thursday is sure to add to that list. While Democrats acknowledged falling short in their quests to fix the state's crumbling roads and tackle an affordable housing crisis that has crippled the Bay Area, they still strengthened a commitment to fight climate change, boosted the minimum wage to $15 an hour and tightened rules for gun owners following two high-profile mass shootings.
California delivered on its reputation as a testing ground for liberal ideas as state lawmakers wrapped up a legislative session that extended the nation's most ambitious climate change programs, raised the minimum wage to $15 and toughened gun laws. While they failed to address some of the maddening challenges afflicting Californians' daily lives - most notably, skyrocketing housing costs and crumbling roads - lawmakers advanced top priorities for the labor, environmental, gun-control and anti-tobacco movements.
Standing beneath the forest-green peaks of the Sierra Nevada, President Barack Obama drew a connection Wednesday between conservation efforts and stopping global warming, describing the two environmental challenges as inseparably linked. Obama used the first stop on a two-day conservation tour to try to showcase how federal and local governments can effectively team up to address a local environmental concern like iconic Lake Tahoe, which straddles California and Nevada.
A bill that would further limit interactions between California law enforcement agencies and federal immigration agents is getting a mixed reception from Southern California Assembly members, with at least several still undecided. The bill, SB 54, passed the state Senate in April.
Twenty-eight U.S. Postal Service employees, mostly in Southern California - including the former president of the Mail Handlers Union - have been charged with crimes including mail theft, embezzlement, bank fraud and conspiracy, the U.S. Department of Justice said Friday, Aug. 26. The 28 are among the 33 people charged as a result of an investigation by the U.S. Postal Service's Office of Inspector General. Most were charged in indictments handed down by federal grand juries this week.
Hillary Clinton raised over $19 million during a three-day, nine fundraiser swing through California this week, putting the former secretary of state on pace to make August the largest fundraising month of her 2016 campaign. Clinton headlined a series of star-studded events in Southern and Northern California this week, hobnobbing with celebrities, Hall of Fame athletes and tech billionaires, all while filling her campaign's coffers with needed cash for the final months of her race against Donald Trump.
The FAA has established 12 Centers of Excellence to pursue research into safety, alternative fuels, airport operations and other aviation... EAA's 2 millionth Young Eagle, plus three others in the count around the milestone, received their memorable airplane rides at... Before you can fly an F-35, you're going to spend time in the T50a simulator.
Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez, one of two Democratic candidates for the California U.S. Senate seat, talks with a reporter at Cocina Cortes in Chico on Friday. The race for the California Senate seat this year is an unusual one, with two Democrats running against each other for the first time, and two minority women at that, to replace retiring fourth-term Sen. Barbara Boxer.
Democrat Bob Derlet, of Sonora, will challenge Republican incumbent Rep. Tom McClintock, of Elk Grove, in California's GOP-leaning 4th Congressional District, which covers Tuolumne, Calaveras and five other Sierra foothill counties. The Democratic candidate who is challenging the Mother Lode's incumbent Republican congressman, Rep. Tom McClintock of Roseville, issued a statement Friday questioning whether McClintock is "dodging" constituent concerns about the tree mortality crisis that has killed 66 million trees in the Sierra Nevada.
Gov. Jerry Brown has taken the national stage to tout California's fight against global warming, telling cheering throngs at the Democratic National Convention that the state has “the toughest climate laws in the country.” Yet inside the state Capitol, the fate of the policy's centerpiece - legislation to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions - is in peril. One ominous sign: Brown on Thursday opened a fundraising committee, taking the first step toward putting an environmental initiative on the 2018 ballot in case the bill fails in the Legislature.
In 2003, the year Californians swept Arnold Schwarzenegger into the governor's office, a Democratic friend shared a theory on why poor Gov. Gray Davis had been recalled. "Some years, people want a plumber," he shrugged, "and some years, they want glamour.
Standing in the driveway to his home on Sacramento Street in Stockton, California, 13-year-old Rashawn Harris says goodbye to his daddy. Moments later bullets from a gun owned by Anthony Silva , the Mayor of Stockton, tear through his body, killing him instantly.
California's June presidential primary election is now just a memory, long ago subsumed in the news by vice presidential derbies, political conventions, politicians' gaffes and violence at home and abroad. But one question lingers on: Why did taxpayers have to cover the primary election costs for those political parties that did not let any voter who liked cast a ballot in their contests? In June, Democrats and Greens allowed anyone registered as either a Democrat or without party preference to vote in their primaries, although there were a few hoops for non-Democrats to jump through.
Scorching July weather may have many in the Ohio Valley deciding between cranking up the air conditioning and keeping electricity bills within reason, but it turns out consumers in West Virginia and Ohio are running at about the middle of the pack, in terms of nationwide energy costs. Financial research firm WalletHub analyzed monthly energy bills in all 50 states, and Washington, D.C., using a formula that considered electricity, natural gas, motor fuel and home heating oil.
As they come of age and register to vote, Millennials - that enormous generation born since 1981-are surging so fast they're on the verge of overtaking the Baby Boomer behemoth as a share of the California electorate. And new evidence confirms that, so far at least, the GOP is losing them.
The public will get its first glimpse of the Connecticut school built to replace the one where 20 first-graders and six educators were massacred. The new Sandy Hook Elementary School, built to replace the one demolished after a massacre that took the lives of 20 children and six educators, features three courtyards, study spaces designed to look like treehouses and... Hillary Clinton capped off a four-day convention celebration with a plea for national unity and tolerance.
Erica Torres is one of the estimated 1.4 million Californians who live without health insurance largely because they are undocumented. She was hopeful when President Barack Obama expanded deportation-relief programs for undocumented immigrants - a controversial move that would have put government-subsidized health care within her reach.
As the old saw goes, all politics is local -- and that's true even when it comes to this week's Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. Joining Hillary Clinton, Sen. Bernie Sanders, First Lady Michelle Obama and about 4,700 convention delegates was one of Mountain View's own politicians, City Councilman Lenny Siegel, who said he considered himself lucky to land a spot at the event.
Gallery: California delegates hold up signs as they cheer for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton during the final day of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, Thursday, July 28, 2016. Gallery: The Democratic women of the US Senate waves to delegates during the final day of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia , Thursday, July 28, 2016.
As California fires continue to rage north of Los Angeles, authorities are releasing more details on the discovery of a burned body of a man found outside a home in Santa Clarita. Two massive wildfires raged in tinder-dry California hills and canyons Sunday, leaving thousands of homes evacuated and authorities to investigate a burned body found in a neighborhood swept by flames.