June 13, 2022

Beating a Wednesday deadline, Democratic legislators pushed through a plan to spend the record California budget surplus, but key negotiations remain with Gov. Newsom. There are major differences on gas tax relief, education, climate change and more. Republicans, meanwhile, complained about the process.

En resumen Después de 10 años, el sistema primario de California, que ocupa los dos primeros lugares, está nuevamente bajo fuego, pero los problemas pueden tener más que ver con el juego político. Una estrategia en un distrito del Senado estatal parece haber fracasado. Read this article in English.    Si necesita un ejemplo de cuán confuso […]

Cal Fire faces a mental health crisis. As wildfires burn year-round, thousands of overworked California firefighters carry a heavy load of trauma, pain and grief. They leave a fire but the fire never leaves them.

The debate over how much of the state’s budget surplus to spend is a dangerous red herring. California should not be spending the surplus at all.

Strong and stoic, a Cal Fire captain fought wildland fires and helped retrieve the bodies of despondent people who had jumped off a remote bridge. When the bridge beckoned him, he couldn’t keep fighting.

Despite an unprecedented budget surplus, funding to meet the state's goal of expanding Head Start programs has remained elusive. Instead, hundreds of Head Start classrooms statewide are closed because of the inability to hire staff to serve children.

After 10 years, the top-two California primary system is under fire again, but the problems may have more to do with political gamesmanship. A strategy in a state Senate district appears to have backfired.

“I felt trapped.” For months, a firefighter kept reliving her colleagues' screams when a Mendocino County wildfire encircled them. On the day she planned to take her life, she got help instead — just in time.

About 10% of Cal Fire’s workforce quit the agency last year. “We are at critical mass, guaranteed,” one Cal Fire captain said. Workers’ comp cases for PTSD are routinely denied, and many crews are fatigued from working weeks at a time with no time off.

A smoldering crisis has emerged at California’s firefighting agency, Cal Fire.  As blazes intensify and California’s fire season grows longer, firefighters are increasingly fatigued, traumatized and overworked. In her stunning five-month investigation Trial by Fire, CalMatters reporter and Pulitzer Prize winner Julie Cart uncovers a severe and unaddressed mental health crisis at Cal Fire.  Despite […]