California Voices

Playa Vista, a West LA community that took decades to build, is an extraordinary accomplishment in a city where housing is notoriously difficult to create. Yet one piece remains: the wetlands restoration. It's being blocked, paradoxically, by environmentalists.

A chronic highway bottleneck between Sacramento and Davis plagues a portion of Interstate 80, one of the nation's most important transcontinental routes. Environmental groups are trying to derail a project to address it.

The battle between two very flawed presidential candidates, Joe Biden and Donald Trump, symbolizes the nation's polarized and dysfunctional politics.

Police helicopters have long evaded oversight and accountability. Recent scrutiny of the LAPD's Air Support Division shows that law enforcement helicopters perpetuate bias against certain communities and squander taxpayer dollars.

California's gas taxes increased this week, but the larger issue is what happens to gas prices and tax revenues as the state attempts to reduce greenhouse gases and move away from fossil fuels.

A wave of last-minute deals, mostly negotiated in secrecy, has changed the lineup of measures that will appear on California's November ballot.

By deciding that unsheltered people have no constitutional protection to camp on public property, the divided Supreme Court reflects the political polarization around homelessness — where everyone is correct depending on which side of the glass they choose to look through. What if the legal, moral and policy choice was different?

Homelessness has plagued Gavin Newsom's political career ever since he was mayor of San Francisco. Under his governorship, it has continued haunting him.

A cosmetologist who relocated to Davis after a family tragedy spent six months trapped in state bureaucracy before she could legally resume her trade in California. A legislative fix could make it easier for others who relocate to California, she says, especially those without loved ones to provide cover.

Proponents of a ballot measure to limit tax increases claimed the California Supreme Court had political motives in a recent ruling that removed it from the ballot. A careful reading of the decision indicates otherwise.