California students continue to perform near the bottom of states in reading and math, 2015 test results released Wednesday show. And even when taking into account factors like the predominance of English learners and poor children, a new analysis indicates that the state would still end up in the academic cellar.
California environmental regulators zeroed in on tropical deforestation Wednesday as a top cause of global climate change and looked for ways to halt the destruction of distant forests through the state’s pioneering carbon cap-and-trade program.
In Section 1 of this paper, we argue that the challenge facing the middle class is less about fundamental economic unfairness—but fundamental change due to globalization and technology coupled with a country, a workforce, and a set of institutions that are simply not ready for this new economy. Moreover, we show that the narrative of fairness has demonstrably failed to excite voters, with three consecutive losing performances with the middle class—leaving Democrats with the fewest number of officeholders since 1928. In Section 2, we propose an ambitious and actionable Democratic agenda that would generate economic growth that directly benefits the middle class through over 70 policy ideas that create more skills, more jobs, and more wealth.
Economists are optimistic about economic growth in the remainder of 2015, but expectations are rolled back from last quarter, a new survey of members of the National Association for Business Economics (NABE) shows.
More details on each of these solutions can be found in the executive summary of “Bending the Curve.” A full report will be published in spring 2016.
He likened the “existential threat” of climate change to Nazi Germany, and noted that California’s universities managed the national laboratories that built the bomb 70 years ago.
Because fundamental changes in attitudes and behaviors are critical, the group is urging researchers and scholars to come together with community and religious leaders to create a culture of climate action to take concrete steps toward solving our shared climate crisis.
With gas-tax revenues drying up as more fuel-efficient cars take over the roads in California and across the nation, the race to repair critical highway infrastructure before tragedy strikes is becoming more pressing. Two people were hospitalized in the Oct. 20 collapse.
Winter-blend gasoline, the historically less-costly sibling of the summer blend, officially arrives Nov. 1 – and drivers in the Inland Empire and Orange County can look forward to paying a little less at the gas pump.
Now that a World Health Organization agency has classified them as carcinogenic, bacon, ham and other processed meats could require warning labels in California.
From railroads to manufacturers to energy producers, businesses say they are facing a protracted slowdown in production, sales and employment that will spill into next year. Some of them say they are already experiencing a downturn.
Severe drought struck the state four decades ago. Since then, California has spent untold billions of dollars on supposedly addressing its severe imbalance between water supply and demand. But we never really did anything concrete, leaving us extremely vulnerable when severe drought struck again.
A growing chorus of prominent economists and analysts are arguing those dynamics could tip the world — and the United States along with it — into recession within the next two years. The fear is showing up in the recent wild swings in financial markets, rare outside of broader economic downturns. The pace of U.S. job growth has slowed substantially compared to last year. And though the economic expansion has never quite reached many workers, it has actually lasted longer than the post-war average.
The state may be entering the fifth year of a catastrophic drought, but California has not started building any of the new reservoirs that were planned but long ago canceled under the unfinished California Water Project. Water may remain scarce, but legislators — many of whom have their daily water needs met by the ancient reservoirs and canals that their grandparents built — don’t seem overly bothered. They prefer to designate transgender restrooms, ban plastic bags at grocery stores, and prohibit pet dogs from chasing bears and bobcats.
Nearly 100,000 fires are burning, setting up what looks to be the worst fire year in the region since 2006. The carbon emissions from the blazes have now surpassed those of the entire United States — the world’s second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases — on 26 out of 44 days since September, according to a report by the World Resources Institute.