Sacramento
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Newsom orders a Highway 1 task force and suspends some environmental rules for El Niño flood work
Two executive orders signed Oct. 27 set a Dec. 15 deadline for a plan to protect Highway 1 and let local agencies seek waivers of the state’s environmental review and wildlife laws for flood and erosion…
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Inside the consultant travel that preceded the high-speed rail chief’s exit
An Inquirer Investigation reads the inspector general’s report behind Ian Choudri’s resignation, which found the rail authority paid $595,600 in travel it should not have and corrected its own count of unapproved travel upward to $800,900.
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State tells Menlo Park it must revisit its housing plan if voters pass Measure P
In a letter sent four days before the election, the state housing department said the parking-lot measure would force Menlo Park to reopen a certified housing plan that counts on downtown lots for at least 345…
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Lawmakers weigh curbing insurers’ wildfire claims against utilities as experts warn of higher premiums
At a joint Assembly hearing, an actuary estimated that ending insurers’ recoveries from utilities could raise statewide homeowners premiums about 10 percent, while a Stanford researcher put the potential savings on electric bills at a few…
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Bonta joins 13 attorneys general pressing Meta to explain the suspension of the No Kings Instagram account
Meta has apologized and blamed an automated system that mistook an AI tool’s activity for bot traffic, and the attorneys general want written answers by Thursday on how the Menlo Park company will protect election-related speech.
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Would Prop. 45 fast-track data centers? The fine print, and the fight over it
An Inquirer Investigation reads the ballot measure’s broadband language, the Legislative Analyst’s review and a new Legislative Counsel opinion side by side, and finds a dispute that both campaigns say the text settles in their favor.
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More than 3 million Californians have already voted, and the early electorate skews older
A week before Election Day, about one in seven mailed ballots is back, and voters 65 and older have cast more than half of them.
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Three bond measures, three ways to pay: what Propositions 1, 37 and 38 would cost California
The November ballot asks voters to authorize about $44 billion in bonds for housing, down payments and medical research, but only two of the three would be repaid from the state’s general fund.
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Proposition 2 would double California’s rainy-day fund cap, and the fight is over the spending limit
The Nov. 3 measure would let the state save up to 20 percent of its general fund and keep making extra debt payments through 2040. Supporters call it basic prudence; opponents say it opens a loophole…
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Newsom orders a statewide review of public-safety programs before he leaves office
An executive order directs state agencies to inventory their crime-prevention, victim-services and re-entry programs and report by Dec. 18, a plan the governor says is meant to carry his approach into the next administration.