Image by gguy, via ShutterstockCalifornia stands to gain additional clout in Washington when Joe Biden is inaugurated as the nation’s 46th president on Jan. 21st. We already have Californians in powerful Washington positions, of course — including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco, who was just reelected easily to her post, and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield.
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Donald Trump and Mike Pence at the 2016 Republican national convention. (Photo: Mark Reinstein, via Shutterstock)ANALYSIS: The biggest casualty of the 2020 election was, of course, Donald Trump, who became only the fifth president since the 1800s to be booted out of office after one term — and the first in 28 years. But the second most prominent victim may turn out to be Trump’s sidekick, Vice President Mike Pence.
Last week, Governors Gavin Newsom of California and Kate Brown of Oregon, leaders of the Yurok and Karuk Tribes and billionaire investor Warren Buffett issued a joint announcement that four dams on the Klamath River will be removed.
The agreement follows decades of often-tense negotiations between the tribes, state and local governments and the dams’ owner, PacifiCorps, a massive power utility that serves roughly 600,000 customers in California and Oregon.
Karuk natural resources spokesperson Craig Tucker joined John Howard to talk about the historic agreement, its impact on the region’s Salmon fisheries, and the potential for replication in other places where dams are contested.
A stretch of the Klamath River in far northern California near the Oregon line. (Photo: Victoria Ditkovsky, via Shutterstock)The governors of California and Oregon, leaders of the Yurok and Karuk Tribes, PacificCorps and billionaire investor Warren Buffet announced a landmark, $450 million agreement Tuesday to remove four dams on the Klamath river to restore dwindling salmon populations.
Los Angeles, after a storm has passed through. (Photo: kjarrett, via Shutterstock)OPINION: Californians will literally breathe easier when Joe Biden and Kamala Harris take office in January. While the results of other races were mixed, the stark contrast between President Trump’s “Make Our Air Dirty Again” record and Biden’s promising green agenda made control of the presidency the decisive factor in our environmental outlook for the next four years.
Background checks for gun purchases rose sharply starting in March and have remained high. (Graphic: Phillip Reese for California Healthline.Handgun sales in California have risen to unprecedented levels during the COVID-19 pandemic, and experts say first-time buyers are driving the trend. The FBI conducted 462,000 background checks related to handgun purchases in California from March through September, an increase of 209,000, or 83%, from the same period last year. That’s more than in any other seven-month period on record.
A dialysis nurse checks his equipment. (Photo: Saengsuriya Kanhajorn, via Shutterstock)Close your eyes. Think about all the problems facing California. Think about the top 10 problems. Now think about the top 100 problems. Now open your eyes. We doubt anyone reading this thought about staffing in kidney dialysis centers. Yet this year proposition 23 was asking voters in California to have a say on the staffing requirements for kidney dialysis centers.
Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Lawrence Brown. (Photo: Steinberg Institute)San Francisco attorney Jennifer Johnson views her life and legal trajectory as “life before and life after” a devastating 2016 homicide case that forever changed her view of how the courts treat defendants who are mentally ill. The case in San Francisco Superior Court involved an 85-year-old defendant, Don Rebello, who suffered from severe dementia. Suddenly and for no apparent reason, he stabbed and killed his beloved friend and longtime roommate, Erik Kleins, 83 – two of three elderly men who had long shared a San Francisco home.
Dusk at Silicon Valley, hub of the world's tech industry. (Photo: yhelfman, via Shutterstock)OPINION: With the election cycle now in our nation’s rearview mirror, the work of building back our economy still lies ahead. In order to most effectively meet this challenge, it is imperative that political leaders recognize what has truly driven economic resiliency over the course of this year – digital technologies.