Phil Ting

The race for California endorsements has ratched up. Taken for granted by campaigns is a debatable premise — that these imprimaturs make a difference.

State legislators go back to work this week with a focus on homelessness, wildfire, how to spend yet another fat budget surplus, and a Capitol baby boom.

With California enmeshed in a bare-knuckled battle over clean air with the Trump administration, carmakers could soon face a choice: Sign onto the state's pact to cut air pollution or forfeit the right to offer customers the state's EV rebate.  

A bill that aimed to permanently keep police from using body cams with facial recognition now would ban it for only three years.

It's as hard for drivers to contemplate life without cars as it is for officials to discuss it.

Unless the emissions trend is reversed, the state could stall on its route to clean air.

One would expect to see growing devotion by the Democratic-led California Legislature to do more to help Californians access electric cars and cut pollution from delivery trucks. Instead, the California Assembly, specifically its transportation committee, has been the graveyard for legislation designed to help advance zero-emission vehicles.

A bill by Assemblyman Phil Ting would bar colleges and universities from receiving state financial aid dollars if they give preference to applicants with ties to alumni or donors. Proposed just last week, it’s already raising alarm among the state’s private colleges.

A wet winter turns to spring, two die in e-scooter wrecks, California comes for paper receipts, a pesticide verdict, mountain lions, falcon eggs, tweets.

As with plastic bags and plastic straws, California lawmakers are considering another first-in-the-nation crackdown on another ubiquitous, litter-creating product of modern existence—lookin' at you, paper receipts.