WhatMatters

To identify student work written by artificial intelligence tools such as ChatGPT, many California colleges and universities rely on Turnitin, a plagiarism detection service. But the company’s tools aren’t always accurate, and when it falsely flags work done by humans as AI-generated, students are caught in the crossfire. As CalMatters’ Tara García Mathewson explains, in […]

California courts have failed to report hundreds of vehicular manslaughter convictions to the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles over the past five years, allowing deadly drivers to improperly keep their licenses, a CalMatters investigation has found. Drivers like Marvin Salazar. Salazar was convicted in May 2023 for felony vehicular manslaughter after a crash that killed […]

Honey bees across the country are under attack from tiny, eight-legged parasitic mites. These mites burrow between the segments of the bees’ adult bodies or invade their larvae and infect them with viruses — deforming their wings and leaving them flightless. That’s not only problematic for the bees — whose entire colonies can collapse from […]

As immigration raids continue to rattle California small businesses, farms and communities, CalMatters’ Ben Christopher and Mikhail Zinshteyn take a look at how public sentiment towards immigration has changed dramatically in California over the past few decades — and what that could mean under a federal administration that pledges to conduct the largest deportation campaign […]

Scheduling note: WhatMatters is taking Juneteenth off and will return to your inboxes on Monday. From CalMatters technology reporter Khari Johnson: When Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed California’s most high-profile artificial intelligence regulation last fall, he simultaneously asked the state’s deep bench of AI researchers to recommend guardrails that balance safety and innovation. The result of […]

From CalMatters Capitol reporter Jeanne Kuang: The California Senate voted this week to reverse course on the state’s calls for a constitutional convention, one of which many Democrats supported just two years ago at Gov. Gavin Newsom’s urging.  With the President Donald Trump administration at the helm and Republicans running Congress, Sen. Scott Wiener, a […]

It’s been more than a week since President Donald Trump deployed the California National Guard in Los Angeles without the consent of state officials, and the battle over who has control of the troops is still winding its way through the courts, reports CalMatters’ Mikhail Zinshteyn. Three judges from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of […]

A week after President Donald Trump sent the military to Los Angeles, tens of thousands of Californians took to the streets Saturday to protest his policies on his birthday. Known as No Kings Day, the rallies took place in the northern part of the state including Shasta County, as well as Sacramento, the Bay Area, […]

During a news conference held by U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem in Los Angeles on Thursday, California Sen. Alex Padilla was forcibly removed by federal agents after entering the press briefing and attempting to ask Noem a question. He was later forced to the ground and handcuffed, but was not detained. At his […]

In March 2024, voters narrowly passed Proposition 1 — a mental health measure championed by Gov. Gavin Newsom that included a $6.4 billion bond to pay for the creation of housing and treatment facilities.  More than a year later, how has the money been spent? As CalMatters’ Marisa Kendall and Jocelyn Wiener explain, $4.4 billion […]