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A push to expand rent control in California is sending a chill through the state’s apartment industry, prompting more investors to sell properties or hold off on buying.

Firefighters doused the blazing Tesla Inc. Model X’s battery pack, and then company engineers removed about one-quarter of its power cells before the vehicle was deemed safe to tow off of a California freeway. That didn’t prevent the powerful and highly flammable lithium-ion battery cells from reigniting. The car caught fire twice more within 24 […]

Just one percent of income taxpayers, about 150,000 families in a state of 40 million people, account for nearly half of income taxes and therefore for a third of all general fund revenues. Their incomes largely come from earnings on stocks and other investments, which are very likely to plunge during recessions. It’s called “volatility” […]

This pro-solar decision will cause California to suffer the same fate as Germany and Denmark. Since California’s solar-energy build-out began in 2011, energy prices have risen 24 percent. Abigail Ross Hopper, the Solar Energy Industries Association’s CEO believes this a positive, momentous decision by California when he stated: “California has long been our nation’s biggest […]

What I found is that widespread adoption of electric vehicles nationwide will likely increase air pollution compared with new internal combustion vehicles. You read that right: more electric cars and trucks will mean more pollution. That might sound counterintuitive: After all, won’t replacing a 30-year old, smoke-belching Oldsmobile with a new electric vehicle reduce air […]

More than 50 million Americans in low-income working families struggle to manage everyday cash flow. That means they have the resources to pay monthly bills but can’t handle small financial shocks or timing mismatches because they lack the savings buffer the more affluent take for granted. Most lack access to reasonably priced credit and can’t […]

In recent years, policymakers have increasingly aligned with advocacy groups pushing for one-track solutions to climate change, like 100 percent renewable electricity or all-electric buildings. Two weeks ago, Assembly Bill 3232 – legislation that aims to electrify homes and businesses in the state – passed through the Assembly Utilities and Energy Committee with little fanfare. […]

One rents a spare bedroom in her client’s Berkeley home, paying $200 a month as she waits for word on her application for low-income housing. Another drives from Stockton to the East Bay four times a week because rental prices in her native Oakland became out of reach. A third commutes to Berkeley from Tracy, […]

San Francisco hands out millions of syringes a year to drug users but has little control over how they are discarded and that’s contributing to thousands of complaints. The city distributes an estimated 400,000 syringes each month through various programs aimed at reducing HIV and other health risks for drug users. About 246,000 syringes are […]

Covered California premiums projected to rise 11 percent in 2019

You’ll need to earn at least $333,270 a year to qualify to buy a median-priced home in San Francisco — but not all of California is that costly: An income of $35,400 is enough in Lassen County. A California Association of Realtors housing report on the first quarter of 2018 lists median home prices, estimated […]

The median list price for a house in California is almost $700,000, the highest in the nation aside from Washington D.C. and Hawaii. This compares to a median list price of $328,000 for the United States as a whole. Prices have been surging in many areas of the state in recent years, and housing costs […]

Last year California’s homeless population jumped 13.7%, compared with 3.6% in New York and 1% nationwide, according to an annual survey by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Most homeless people around the country live in emergency shelters or public transitional housing. But in California they camp outside in public spaces. People who once […]

Homeowners with solar panels also benefit from the state’s net metering subsidy, which compensates them for the excess power they produce and remit to the grid at the retail rather than wholesale rate. Yet California sometimes produces so much solar power that it has to pay Arizona to take it to avoid overloading power lines. […]

California’s birth rate fell to its lowest level in at least 100 years during 2017, even dipping below rates seen in the Great Depression, according to new figures from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 471,500 California babies were born in 2017, down by 17,000, or 3 percent, from 2016, according to […]