State

SAN FRANCISCO—Federal housing authorities recently made a decision to block a San Francisco law that sets aside spaces in affordable housing projects for neighborhood residents. According to city officials and residents, this pushes back efforts trying to prevent the displacement of low-income and minority residents. Gustavo Velasquez, the assistant Secretary for the Department of Housing and Urban Development for Fair...

THREE RIVERS—On Monday, September 7, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park in California enacted a park-wide campfire and smoking ban, which would be effective at 6:00 a.m. on September 8. Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park passed the fire restriction because of current wildfires and extremely hot weather which reached Preparedness Level 5 (PL 5), the highest level of the...

CALIFORNIA—The U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team will not be able to bring their equal pay lawsuit to the U.S. Appeals Court in San Francisco due to a ruling by a federal judge in a Los Angeles court on Tuesday, June 23. Legal battles relating to equal pay on the national soccer teams began more than four years ago. On March 30,...

CALIFORNIA—The Center for Disease Control, in collaboration with state health officials and the US Food and Drug Administration, is investigating an outbreak of Listeria monocytogenes (listeriosis), which has sickened 32 people, hospitalized 31 and killed seven. The disease is determined to have been spread by Granny Smith apples produced by Bidart Brothers of Bakersfield, who have recalled all of their...

CALIFORNIA—On July 1, California Governor Gavin Newsom announced new orders to shutdown restaurants and entertainment centers in 19 California counties as a response to a rapid rise in coronavirus cases across the state. “As a consequence, we are doing everything we can to focus in on certain sectors of our economy where that spread is more likely to occur, where...

BERKELEY―A planned appearance on Wednesday, February 1, by Milo Yiannopoulos, the editor for the conservative website Breitbart, was canceled when ongoing protests on UC Berkeley’s campus turned violent. The protesters walked Berkeley's streets after police broke up the crowd that had gathered at the campus. Participants of the protests broke into several banks and businesses including a Chase bank and...

SAN FRANCISCO—On Tuesday, December 9, two separate district attorneys filed civil lawsuits against the ride-sharing service, Uber. In a joint press release, San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón and Los Angeles District Attorney Jackie Lacey stated that Uber was guilty of failing to collect sufficient background checks for their drivers and illegally servicing airports. Uber's top competitor, Lyft, has already...

CALIFORNIA—On June 3, 2014, tax officials sent a 16-page report to Blue Shield California, the state’s third largest insurer. The tax board did not comment on why blue shield was audited, but after consideration it was decided that the non-profit health plan provider would now have to pay state taxes. They had earlier cited confidentiality reasons for not making...

CALIFORNIA—On June 12, at around 8:10 p.m., an employee and a guest at California's Great America amusement park were injured on the Flight Deck ride. Both individuals were transported to a hospital following the incident for medical treatment. An eyewitness told KPIX 5 that they saw the employee step into the path of the moving roller coaster to reach a cell...

LOS ANGELES—Governor Jerry Brown released a statement on Tuesday, April 27 proposing a new maximum penalty of $10,000 to individuals wasting water. Brown also advocated for more efficient processing of water conservation proposals -- a response to floating criticisms that there’s too much rigidity surrounding the current process. The proposed $10,000 fine is a significant increase from the current $500...