Image by Funtap. OPINION – California’s wildfire season has become an unfortunate hallmark of modern life—an annual reminder of how quickly communities can be uprooted and how fragile day-to-day stability can be. In the midst of this uncertainty, the banking community stepped forward with decisive action to offer immediate relief and protect homeowners from cascading financial harm.
Image by kuarmungadd. OPINION – California produces nearly half the nation’s fruits and vegetables. Yet this holiday season, more than one in five California households face food insecurity. Among households with children, it’s one in four.
Image by JJ GouinOPINION – California Democratic leadership, from Assembly leader Robert Rivas to Governor Gavin Newsom, have pledged to address Californian’s kitchen table economics. But they continue to ignore one of the most powerful tools available to provide immediate relief to millions now—rent caps.
Image by lortie. OPINION – Just a few miles from downtown Los Angeles, the Sterigenics sterilization facility in Vernon poses a silent threat to surrounding communities. The plant uses ethylene oxide (EtO), a toxic gas classified by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a known human carcinogen, to sterilize medical equipment. Yet, many residents are not aware of the dangers of what they’ve been breathing for years.
A groundwater monitoring well used for environmental groundwater sampling. Image by actualreece. OPINION – Across California, regulators maintain extensive records on contaminated bodies of water and hazardous remediation sites, especially in the Bay Area, Los Angeles Basin, and San Diego. Current policy allows polluted sites to be closed once they are deemed stable and pose minimal risk. But groundwater levels are climbing, and contamination that was once submerged is now at risk of being mobilized.
Image by orest86. OPINION – California promised sexual abuse survivors a chance to be heard. Los Angeles County promised taxpayers accountability. Both promises still stand. Fair is fair, but this time, fairness must belong to the people, not the powerful.
Cap and Trade image by WANAN YOSSINGKUMOPININ – California’s climate policies are impeded not by market volatility and unpredictability, but rather by indecision, the inability of the political establishment to decide what price we are able and willing to pay to mitigate climate change.
Image by SeventyFour.OPINION – Two recent federal lawsuits challenging an online safety law in Texas show that Big Tech doesn’t want to do its part to protect our kids. Far from being unconstitutional, Texas’s new law has charted the most privacy-protective and constitutionally sound approach to youth online safety that exists today.
Image by Andrzej Rostek. OPINION – Increasing costs for infrastructure development, regulatory and environmental compliance and climate resilience have made essential services such as water, energy and wastewater more expensive than ever.
Image by SandraMatic. OPINION – This week, 40,000 University of California workers will strike together across the state. All are members of AFSCME Local 3299, the people who clean patient rooms, prepare hospital meals, keep labs safe, move patients through care facilities, maintain campus infrastructure, and ensure students live and learn in functioning environments.