Kern County

A California grandmother fights to retrieve $30,000 taken by San Diego County from her grandchildren's survivor benefits. Counties take millions of dollars in federal benefits from foster children, says a lawmaker trying to stop it.

Newly acquired state data shows that the Corrections Department transferred patients with serious mental illnesses an average of five times over a six-year period, underscoring a CalMatters’ investigation this year that revealed the practice and raised questions about the harm it could cause.

A new report from a prisoners’ advocacy group finds Kings and Shasta counties have the state’s highest rates of residents incarcerated for crimes.

Kern County has had state’s highest homicide rate since 2016, with rival prison gangs warring on its rural northern border.

Whites make up a little more than a third of California’s population but nearly two-thirds of its Superior Court judges. Advocates are devising ways to get more people of color into law and onto the bench.

California authorized paying OptumServe up to $221 million. But the company has helped with only 1% of the state’s vaccinations since January.

Less than half of eligible people in 45 of the state’s 58 counties have been fully vaccinated for COVID-19. Marin and Alpine rank at the top with 69%, while Lassen, Mariposa and Kings are at the bottom with 25% or less.

The move comes after environmentalists lambasted Newsom for failing to tackle California’s oil and gas production. The oil industry called it an “illegal mandate” and vowed to fight it. Fracking accounts for only 17% of California's oil production.

Good morning, California. It’s Friday, April 16. Nearly halfway there California is at its pandemic best. No counties are left in the state’s most restrictive reopening tier. California has the lowest coronavirus positivity rate in the country. And 49% of eligible residents are at least partially vaccinated — a number sure to have crossed the […]

The CEO of Blue Shield predicts it will take until the end of April to ease California’s backlog. “When you make millions of people eligible overnight, there's not millions of appointments immediately available,” he told CalMatters.