Quirky as airtime sounds, it’s the edge of a much larger issue on protecting pension rights embodied in the so-called California Rule. For decades, the courts have sided with arguments that pensions can’t be altered without compensation, an approached adopted by a dozen other states. . . . The political backdrop makes a court decision […]
The handwritten sign on the front window of the shuttered Blue Fig Cafe last month bade a sad farewell to the days when San Francisco could support an old-fashioned coffee house. The problem that led the eight-year-old Valencia Street cafe to shut down wasn’t a lack of coffee drinkers in the trendy Mission district. Nor […]
Californians may have just voted overwhelmingly for more of the same—boosting Democratic majorities in both chambers of the Legislature and replacing one Democratic governor with another for the first time since the 1880’s—but many are still eager for major changes to state policy. And a majority are downright pessimistic about California’s future. Those results, which […]
Apple Inc. said it plans to invest $1 billion building a new corporate campus in Austin, Texas, promising to create as many as 15,000 jobs, as it and a handful of other tech giants expand their footprint well beyond the West Coast. The Cupertino, Calif.-based iPhone maker said it would also establish new offices in […]
The recommendation comes in a massive new study about companies departing California for business-friendly states. It estimates that 1,800 relocation or “disinvestment events” occurred in 2016 (the most recent year available), setting a record yearly high going back to 2008 – and that about 13,000 companies left the state during that nine-year period. . . […]
Already paying some of the highest electricity prices in the country, customers of California’s largest utility, PG&E Corp. could soon face large rate increases due to the state’s catastrophic wildfires. PG&E asked state regulators on Thursday to approve a plan to sharply increase revenues it seeks from customers over a three-year period, with a hike […]
Shoppers looking for a bargain by skipping California sales tax will soon close a loophole that let them buy goods from out-of-state online retailers without immediately paying local taxes. That deal ends on April 1 for thousands of out-of-state online retailers that will be required to collect California sales tax for the first time, according […]
Texting your sweetheart that you’re on your way home? California may soon charge you for that. This is no LOL matter, critics say. State regulators have been ginning up a scheme to charge a fee for text messaging on mobile phones to help support programs that make phone service accessible to the poor. The wireless […]
The 2018 – 2019 Judicial Hellholes report shines its brightest spotlight on nine jurisdictions, courts or legislatures that have earned reputations as Judicial Hellholes. Some are known for welcoming litigation tourism or as hotbeds for asbestos litigation, and in all of them state leadership seems eager to expand civil liability. A recent study released by […]
California officially became the first state in the nation on Wednesday, Dec. 5 to require homes built in 2020 and later be solar powered. . . . While nobody spoke Wednesday in opposition to the new provisions, the commission received more than 300 letters from around the state opposing the solar mandate because of the […]
Progress in the fight against global warming has taken a big step backward, according to research published Wednesday, which projects greenhouse-gas emissions from fossil fuels will hit a record high this year after a recent and promising lull. And next year, emissions are expected to be even higher. The research by the Global Carbon Project, […]
The WIN Act extension would, at least in theory, make restoration easier and make farmers’ water deliveries more predictable. It also would provide more than $670 million in federal funds for water storage projects that farmers and other water interests have been demanding to increase supply. While Feinstein, Brown and McCarthy are supporting the deal, […]
The project’s troubles have been largely self-inflicted, starting with poor route choices. At the south end of the line, from the Central Valley to Los Angeles, rather than proceeding in a direct route from Los Angeles to the northwest through Tejon Pass, roughly along Interstate 5, the planned line takes a detour to the northeast […]
President Trump’s top economic adviser said the administration is looking to eliminate subsidies on electric cars, a move that could hamper the auto industry’s push to broaden the market for battery-powered vehicles. “As a matter of our policy, we want to end all those subsidies,” Lawrence Kudlow said on Monday. “And by the way, other […]
Californians could soon get two years of community college for free, enough to earn an associate’s degree. In 2017, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law the California College Promise, waiving the first year of community college tuition for full-time students. Assembly Bill 2, announced Tuesday, would add a second year to that program. “When […]