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Some 1.2 billion people do not have access to electricity, according to the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook 2016 report. About 2.7 billion still cook and heat their dwellings with wood, crop residues, and dung. In its main scenario for the trajectory of global energy consumption, the IEA projects that in 2040, half a billion people will still lack access to electricity and 1.8 billion will still be cooking and heating by burning biomass.

The highly respected Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau, or WCIRB, conducted a comprehensive study of a major overhaul of the system enacted by Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature four years ago. And it found that it did what it was supposed to do – cut costs, especially for medical care, to offset higher cash benefits.

The average age of cars and light trucks hit 11.6 years old, according to IHS Markit. The firm, which collects vehicle-registration data, estimates 264 million light vehicles are in operation. Both figures are up modestly from 2015, and represent records.

However, allowances offered by the state’s “compliance entities,” mostly utilities, and the Canadian province of Quebec took precedence, so their allotments were sold out while just 28.6 million of the 45.3 million tons in state-owned allowances up for sale moved.

The Labor Department rule doubles the salary level at which hourly workers must be paid extra for overtime pay, applying the requirement to anyone making up to $47,476 annually. U.S. District Court Judge Amos L. Mazzant III sided with Nevada and 20 other states in their bid to halt the rule, and he incorporated a similar legal challenge from a coalition of business groups including the Chamber of Commerce into his ruling.

Occupational licenses are “one of the most substantial barriers to opportunity in America today,” a new study by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) found. According to WILL’s estimates, licensing laws raise prices for consumers by $1.93 billion each year and results in roughly 31,000 fewer jobs. Over the past two decades, the number of license holders has jumped by 34 percent in Wisconsin. Meanwhile, the number of occupational licensing categories has soared by 84 percent.

Counting back, it’s believed that a complete transportation bill would have to be introduced no later than Friday to be legally considered in a lame-duck session – and perhaps by Wednesday, since legislative offices are supposed to be closed on Thursday and Friday for Thanksgiving.

As housing prices continue to rise in California, a significant number of our residents are being denied access to the American dream of homeownership. Today, only about one-third of our fellow citizens can afford to buy a median-priced home in the Golden State, down from a peak of 56 percent just four years ago.

As Bay Area cities scramble to find housing solutions to prevent displacement, a new report warns that the region is resegregating by race and class.

Anyone living in California who’s paying attention knows what venture capitalist Thiel meant. While a handful of Silicon Valley social media entrepreneurs have amassed almost indescribable wealth, and fundamentally transformed how humanity communicates, investment in boring things like roads, bridges, tunnels, ports, aqueducts, reservoirs and railroads – the list is endless – has stagnated. Especially in California. Flying cars? Forget about it. Go tweet.

The rule requires that up to 25% of units in rental properties and up to 40% in for-sale projects meet affordability guidelines. Alternatively, developers can pay a fee to the city. . . Developers must pay construction wages on par with those required for public-works projects, hire 30% of the workforce from within city limits, set aside 10% of jobs for certain disadvantaged workers living within 5 miles of the project and ensure 60% of workers have experience on par with graduates of a union apprenticeship program.

“California generally leads in both overcrowding and severe overcrowding. The state’s share of overcrowded households in the nation is 27 percent, while the state has 30 percent of severely overcrowded households, almost 3 times its 11 percent share of households. Only Hawaii has a higher severe overcrowding rate than California, at 3.8 percent of households California’s severe overcrowding rate is 2.9 percent. By contrast, average for the United States is a much lower 1.1 percent.”

A report from the U.S. Census Bureau says millennials are leaving Los Angeles at one of the highest rates in the country, LA Weekly reports. The analysis found that residents between the ages of 18 and 35 decreased by 7.4 percent over the last 10 years, a decrease of 780,000 people, making it the third-worst city for millennial population loss.

A new report from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, a Kansas City, Mo., nonprofit, tracks the number, survival and density of small businesses (those with fewer than 50 employees) across the U.S. While small companies are making it past their fifth year at a near-record rate, business ownership and firm growth remain historically low, possible reflections of declining dynamism across the U.S. economy.

Pension Tracker (http:pensiontracker.org), a Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR) project, estimates total United States public pension debt (a.k.a. unfunded liabilities) in June 2015 at $5.599 trillion, a 16 percent increase over 2014. . . California now has the second highest Market Pension Debt per household at $92,478, a 19.4 percent rise over 2014.