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.
Sacramento Imam Mohammad “Yasir” Khan. (Photo: Council on American Islamic Relations)When Sacramento Imam Mohammad “Yasir” Khan leads the opening invocation for the California Assembly on Jan. 11, he will do so as the first appointed Muslim chaplain in state legislative history.
The Delta-Mendota Canal near Santa Nella, Calif. (Photo: Hank Shiffman)Gov. Gavin Newsom’s veto of a major environmental protection bill angered and surprised environmentalists – and left some wondering what happens next. The measure, SB 1 authored by Senate Leader Toni Atkins and backed by an array of environmental groups, was aimed at safeguarding California’s environmental policies against the Trump administration’s efforts to roll back water, air quality and other standards in California.
A scientist works in a biological laboratory. (Photo: Anya Ivanova, via Shutterstock)A new stem cell company that targets cancer by unleashing an “eat me” trigger has emerged from a $30 million investment by the state of California. Creation of the Palo Alto firm, which is called Forty Seven, Inc., was announced Feb. 24 by its backers and its key researcher, Irv Weissman, director of Stanford University’s stem cell program.
The CalPERS' governing board during a meeting several years ago at the pension fund's headquarters. (Photo: CalPERS board)First CalPERS announced last year that it was cutting the eye-popping pension of a former city of Vernon official, Bruce Malkenhorst, from $551,688 a year to $115,848. Then yesterday the CalPERS board approved the recovery of a $3.5 million pension overpayment from Malkenhorst, 84, who retired in 2005 from the tiny industrial city south of downtown Los Angeles known for corruption.
Kevin McCarthy, minutes after announcing he was withdrawing his bid to be House speaker. (Photo: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)Kevin McCarthy, whose meteoric rise in the California Assembly’s GOP ranks was matched only by his rise in Congress, halted his upward trajectory by abruptly withdrawing from the race for House speaker — a stunning move that threw his GOP colleagues into disarray.
U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, speaking to her grandson, announced Thursday on YouTube that she won't seek a fifth term. (Photo: Screen capture, YouTube)Ready, set, run! A firestorm of political speculation erupted Thursday across California after U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer announced she wouldn’t seek a fifth term, a move that prompted a close look at California’s new open primary. Two top contenders — Attorney General Kamala Harris and former San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom — are represented by the same consultants, SCN. Things are getting interesting.
Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, 41, a Stanford Law School professor who was born in Matamoros, Mexico, and walked across the border each day to go to school in Texas, has been appointed to the California Supreme Court by Gov. Brown, the governor’s office announced today. Voters will be asked to approve the appointment on Nov. 4