A wildfire burns near a home in Salinas, Monterey County, last year. (Photo: David A Litman)With 2020’s disasters in mind, the state is making elaborate plans to deal with an upcoming wildfire season made potentially more deadly by drought. The challenge is there, and it’s a big one.
Evangelina Padilla-Vaccaro’s medical team gathers around her on the day she received her gene-therapy stem-cell transplant. (Photo: Padilla-Vaccaro family, via UCLA Health)A London-based biotech firm has given up its life-saving treatment for the bubble baby disease and turned it over to California’s $12 billion stem cell agency and UCLA, where it was developed with tens of millions of taxpayer dollars.
A pedestrian crosses Hollywood Boulevard in L.A. (Photo: View Apart, via Shutterstock)An effort backed by advocates for pedestrians and bicycle riders would set up experimental programs in several California cities to get drivers to obey traffic laws, in part through the use of red-light and speed cameras.
Illustration of a pregnant woman. (Image: Tanya Antusenok,via Shutterstock)Amid a pandemic that has pushed millions of mothers out of the workplace, caused fertility rates to plunge and heightened the risk of death for pregnant women, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democratic lawmakers are seeking a slate of health proposals for low-income families and children. Newsom, a self-described feminist and the father of four young children, has long advocated family-friendly health and economic policies.
A woman with an afro using her computer. (Photo: CynthiaAquino, via Shutterstock)State Sen. Holly Mitchell was appalled. Video of New jersey high school wrestler Andrew Johnson having his dreadlocks chopped off as a condition of competing in a match was spreading around the country. Johnson had competed in a previous tournament without incident, but was now being told by a white referee with a previous history of making racist comments to a black colleague that his hair was “unnatural,” and he could either cut it off or forfeit the match. Johnson chose the former.
A voter casts his ballot during the 2020 general election at a voting center in L.A.'s Pantages Theatre. (Photo: Ringo Chiu, via Shutterstock)The U.S. Census Bureau’s voter survey of the November 2020 election shows that, once again, California saw increased participation in general and across nearly all demographics. A startling finding in the recently released data: In 2020, African American participation hit 64%, very close to 2008’s record 65.2%, when Barack Obama ran for president for the first time.
Monica Nava and her 1-year-old daughter Clementine, who suffers from the "bubble baby" affliction. (Family photo).The story about Jakob, Sheersha and Clementine is a 6,000-mile biomedical tale that spans the Atlantic. The story ranges from the Saskatchewan River in Canada to the dusty Tehachapi mountains in drought-plagued Southern California. And it is a story of children with a terrible and rare genetic affliction known as the bubble baby disease.
A view of the east side of the state Capitol through the trees of Capitol Park. (Photo: Colin Braaten, via Shutterstock)A former member of the voter-approved commission that draws maps for California’s legislative and congressional districts said the panel should operate more in the open as it crafts the new boundaries.
A correctional officer in Death Row at San Quentin Prison. ((Photo: California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation)In its latest statewide survey, the Berkeley IGS Poll asked registered voters how they would vote such an amendment if the election were held today. The results indicate that 44% of voters say they would vote Yes to repeal the state’s death penalty law, 35% would vote No to keep the law in force, while a relatively large proportion, 21%, are undecided.
Offices of Covered California, a health insurance portal for California's portion of the Affordable Care Act. (Photo: TonelsonProductions, via Shutterstock)In California, we have seen steady increases in Medi-Cal (California’s Medicaid program) enrollment since April 2020, with caseloads about 9% larger in January 2021 compared to January 2020. Expanded Medi-Cal coverage is responsible for much of the decline in the uninsured rate.