Politics

Infrastructure may be one of the rare opportunities for the Trump administration and California to clinch each other. Trump has signaled support for spending up to $1 trillion on an infrastructure initiative and already, California officials have sent a $100 billion wish list of 51 projects for federal funding to repair roads and bridges, improve transit and water storage, and update military and emergency facilities.

Included in the president’s proposed infrastructure priority list is $250 million for the Cadiz water project in the Mojave Desert. The controversial project would pump groundwater from the Mojave Desert and deliver it via pipeline to Southern California customers. It has so far been blocked by the federal Bureau of Land Management. That might change.

Planned Parenthood is prepping for a battle. The organization, which has 115 centers in the Golden State and serves 850,000 people annually, receives Medi-Cal and Title X family planning funding and attributes about 40 percent of its revenue to federal dollars. But Congress and the Trump administration are vowing to strip the organization of hundreds of millions of federal dollars.

A three-judge federal panel blocked President Trump’s controversial executive order banning travel to the United States from seven predominantly Muslim nations. The decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, was celebrated by prominent Democratic leaders across California. Today’s action is a positive one. It allows for the […]

Five things to know about sanctuary status for at-risk immigrants

The U.S. Senate has voted largely along party lines to confirm former Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions as the nation's Attorney General. The 70-year-old Sessions has been a vocal critic of marijuana decriminalization for much of his political career—calling legalization a “tragic mistake” and vigorously criticizing the Obama administration’s hands-off attitude toward marijuana enforcement.

With a historic assist from the vice president, the U.S. Senate today narrowly approved Betsy DeVos to lead the Department of Education after a series of tense hearings sparked protests and exposed bipartisan fear about her fitness to oversee the nation’s public schools.

In a pre-Super Bowl interview with FOX News host Bill O’Reilly, President Trump said “California is in many ways out of control” and that a potential weapon of his would be to seek to “defund” the state because of sanctuary status. State Democratic leaders pushed back, given that California pays more in than it receives back from Washington.

Los Angeles Democratic Senator Ricardo Lara introduced a bill to prohibit any state agency or institution from sharing information about any applicants, including undocumented immigrants.

California would be forced to allow out-of-state gun owners to pack concealed handguns if a bill with strong GOP backing clears Congress and is signed by President Trump. He has likened concealed-carry gun permits to drivers' licenses that should be honored across state lines.