Mail boxes all in a row in rural California. (Photo: Ant Clausen)More and more of them are flooding your mailbox. They are usually bright, colorful, and nonsensical. Political mailers. What else? It’s the season, after all. Even in the age of texting and twitter, old-fashioned paper still has its charm for campaign strategists, especially in-down ballot races where a shotgun approach is not useful.
Pedestrians crossing Hollywood Boulevard. (Photo: Sean Pavone)Pedestrian deaths are on the rise throughout the nation, but California is bucking the trend. Preliminary data by the Governors Highway Safety Organization shows an increase in pedestrian fatalities throughout the United States, rising 12 percent to 5,997 in 2016. Yet California, home to the highest number of pedestrian deaths for years, is finally seeing a drop.
A view across the rail years of downtown San Diego. (Photo: Welcomia, via Shutterstock)Calpensions: In another ruling allowing pension cuts, an appeals court last week overturned a state labor board ruling that a voter-approved San Diego pension reform was invalid because the city declined to bargain the issue with labor unions.
A physician flanked by the California flag. (Illustration: Niyazz, via Shutterstock).Hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants in California would be able to buy insurance through the state healthcare coverage marketplace if the federal government accepts a newly signed state law to exempt them from the federal rule. On June 10, Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation requiring Covered California to ask the federal government for a waiver to let an estimated 390,000 undocumented immigrants buy health insurance – as long as they do it with their own money.
Providing up to 1.4 million driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants will cost $65 million for the Department of Motor Vehicles during the first six months after the law takes effect January 1, 2015, according to Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposed budget plan. DMV plans five new temporary offices to handle the load.