Prize Winners

California is facing a growing shortage of primary care physicians, one that is already afflicting rural areas and low-income inner city areas, and is forecasted to impact millions of people within ten years. Not enough newly minted doctors are going into primary care, and a third of the doctors in the state are over 55 and looking to retire soon.

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

Self-driving cars will be part of ridesharing fleets, reducing the number of personal vehicles on the road and helping wean motorists off gasoline.

For carbon-free transportation, California must cover a lot more ground soon. But by some estimates, electric truck fleets could still be a decade away.

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

Loans of less than $10,000 with rates of over 100% have swelled to nearly one-third of California's non-bank consumer lending market. Consumer advocates say that lenders are profiting off of borrowers’ desperation or lack of financial sophistication, and often make a bad situation worse. The lenders say the charge up to 200% to cover the risks they incur. The Legislature is considering a bill to cap the interest rate for such "small dollar" loans.

Gov. Jerry Brown's grant of clemency to the brother-in-law of Speaker Anthony Rendon underscores not just Brown's thinking, but California's evolution on crime and punishment.

As teachers strike this week in Oakland, the conflict over charter schools in California is being portrayed in sweeping terms. But a CALmatters analysis of statewide charter enrollment data paints a far more nuanced picture, in which charter growth is more a collection of densely concentrated hotspots than a statewide phenomenon.

After he concludes his historic run next month as California’s longest-serving governor, Jerry Brown will retire to a rural patch of the north state, a rugged region of ranchers and Republicans whose vision for California couldn’t be more different from his own.

Jason Kinney has made a lucrative and powerful career in Sacramento by moving from government to campaigns to industry lobbyist to, now, advisor to Gavin Newsom's transition team. The question is whether he is working for an incoming administration that he will soon seek to influence, as he leaves the lobbying firm, Capitol Strategies.