Assemblyman Robert Rivas, left, and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon. (Images: State Assembly and video screen capture, YouTube)Assemblymember Robert Rivas, a Salinas Democrat who grew up in a farm worker family, moved Friday to capture the Assembly speakership. A formal transfer of authority may come as early as next week. He told Rendon that “I have the votes,” adding that he hoped for an “orderly transition.”
UCLA students at graduation ceremonies.(Photo: Joseph Sohm, via Shutterstock)Times are flush in the Golden State, fiscally speaking. With a total budget surplus of $97.5 billion, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s May budget revision prioritizes the funding of higher education. Just ask Chancellor Eloy Ortiz Oakley, who helms the California Community Colleges.
A laboratory pipette with fluid and test tubes for cancer research. (Photo: CI Photos, via Shutterstock)Call it “The Case of the Killer Cells.” It is an $8 million matter involving an effort by California’s ambitious stem cell agency to develop cures for particularly tenacious and fatal cancers. The cash is snarled in an “embarrassing” conflict of interest, however, not to mention an irregular vote on the application for research funding from the stem cell agency.
Gov. Gavin Newsom at a San Francisco event. (Photo: Jana Asenbrennerova, via Shutterstock)Gov. Gavin Newsom is proposing a multi-billion-dollar package of monetary goodies for Californians, but how much of it will become reality is now up to legislators. The clock ticks: Lawmakers have less than a month to approve the 2022-23 budget, an unprecedented, nearly $300 billion document, and send it to Gov. Gavin Newsom.
A woman in a medical ward ponders her situation. (Photo: Boyloso, via Shutterstock)Lee Davis says flatly that without involuntary treatment for her raging psychosis, she would be dead. “It saved my life.” A mental health activist who chairs the Alameda County Mental Health Advisory Board, which advises the board of supervisors and county officials on mental health policy, Davis acknowledges hers is not a popular view among disability rights advocates,
A drought-stricken tree at sunset. (Photo: PG_Traveler, via Shutterstock)With the rainy season come and gone, drought’s withered hand remained firmly fixed on California this month, as it has been, with few exceptions, for the last decade. Woes pile up. Rain didn’t save us, the snowpack is all but gone, the Coastal Commission says no desalinating sea water, and urban-interface fires have already begun.
Students scurrying to classes on the campus of San Diego State University. (Photo: Pictor Picture Company, via Shutterstock)The forced removal of a university professor from an LA mayoral debate has intensified discussion in the wake of earlier legislation that seeks greater public involvement in CSU’s policing policies. Police officers physically ejected Cal State LA Professor Melina Abdullah from an LA mayoral debate in the University Student Union Theater recently. The Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs and League of Women Voters of Greater LA sponsored the private event at a public university.
A tossed plastic bottle ends up in the ocean off Santa Monica. (Photo: Danila Delimont, via Shutterstock)California’s inability to meet its long-stated goal of cutting solid waste by 75 percent by 2020 prompted environmentalists to craft a ballot initiative aimed at November targeting single-use single-use plastic products – including a sharp limit on their production.
A cannabis plant growing in northern California. (Photo: King Dragon, via Shutterstock)The headlines were attention-grabbing; some were scary: “What will your mother say when she finds your corpse?” “The weed with roots in hell.” “Assassin of Youth.” They were, of course, all about marijuana. Movie producers discovered they could sell more tickets if their advertisements promised audiences lots of dissolute youth.
A Liquid Nitrogen bank containing suspended stem cells. (Photo: Elena Pavlovich)California’s multibillion-dollar, cell and gene therapy program has a special spot in the pantheon of the hundreds of government departments in the Golden State. It is immune from the normal oversight of the governor and state lawmakers. Its cash — now set at $5.5 billion over the next decade — flows freely and directly to the stem cell agency with no inconvenient meddling by elected officials.