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The California Legislature gets back to work today, starting a one-month sprint to adjournment on Aug. 31. Lawmakers have a lot to finish up: More than 1,300 bills are still in play, though many will not reach Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk. One high-profile measure is Assembly Bill 1825, which would prohibit library review committees. As […]

Dear Inequality Insights reader, If state legislators don’t act fast, a program that protects children who immigrate to California by themselves will soon run out of funds. Without an attorney to represent them in immigration court, the vast majority of children are ordered removed. One minor helped by the project told us he was unable […]

Many landlords in California can only raise the rent a certain amount. Thursday, they — and their tenants — found out how high.  A 2019 law caps how much landlords can bump up rent, starting each Aug. 1: Either by 5% plus inflation, or by 10% (whichever is lower). In California, the average median rent […]

The November election is less than 100 days away, and CalMatters will have the lowdown on each of the ballot’s 10 propositions. Today we’re highlighting Proposition 32, which seeks to raise California’s minimum wage, as well as Prop. 35, which proposes to ensure that a tax on health care plans is spent on low-income patients. […]

Ballooning to more than three times the surface area of Lake Tahoe, Park Fire is now the fifth largest fire in California’s history. Last week, investigators arrested a 42-year-old Chico man suspected of starting the blaze by pushing a burning car into a ravine. But that’s not the most unusual way some of California’s destructive […]

Gov. Gavin Newsom is picking and choosing his political friends and foes, depending on the day. On his black list at the moment: Billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk, who threatened to move the headquarters of X (formerly known as Twitter) and SpaceX from California to Texas after Newsom signed a law earlier this month prohibiting […]

Park Fire — the largest wildfire in California this year, and one of the largest fires in the state’s history — continues to rage, burning more than 360,000 acres. The conflagration began last week near Chico, and Gov. Gavin Newsom has declared a state of emergency for Butte and Tehama counties. Evacuation orders or warnings […]

One dollar a day. That’s how much immigrant detainees in GEO Group-run ICE facilities in Kern County earn scrubbing bathrooms and cutting hair, reports CalMatters’ Jeanne Kuang. Detainees at the Mesa Verde and Golden State Annex ICE facilities told Kuang they started their second labor and hunger strike in two years to protest poor working […]

Gov. Gavin Newsom is pressing for direct action, nearly a month after the U.S. Supreme Court gave cities the green light to clear homeless encampments and arrest or fine unhoused people for sleeping in public spaces. As CalMatters homelessness reporter Marisa Kendall explains, the governor on Thursday issued an executive order directing state agencies to […]

From CalMatters Capitol reporter Jeanne Kuang:  After years of delay, a new California regulation to protect indoor workers from extreme heat is now in effect.  A workplace safety board approved the rule in late June, and asked other state administrative agencies to fast-track putting it on the books. The rule went into effect Tuesday as […]