An illustration of employment in California. (Photo: David Carillet, via Shutterstock)California employers added 47,400 nonfarm payroll jobs in September, the state reported, sending a mixed signal about the state’s economy with less than half of August’s 104,300 new hires. The Employment Development Department said September’s unemployment rate of 7.5% matched August’s 7.5%.
Nick and Amanda Wilcox of Penn Valley with a portrait of their daughter Laura, whose murder inspired "Laura's Law." (Photo, Laura Mahaffy, The Union)In a significant policy shift spanning nearly two decades, 30 counties in California – including all of the larger counties with an estimated 80 percent of the state’s population – have now adopted a 2002 state law giving families a legal avenue to get severely mentally ill relatives into treatment.
A photo illustration of whisper campaigns and conspiracies. (Image: Valery Sidelnykov, via Shutterstock)In our culture, conspiracy theories are running rampant, and elections seem to be particularly prone to the craziest among them. Republicans, led by the president, have claimed that vote-by-mail is unsafe, non-citizens are registered to vote and casting ballots. Ballot “harvesting” is causing rampant voter fraud, President Trump says, and the system is being rigged against him. Even Attorney General Bill Barr claimed, incorrectly, that vote-by-mail eliminates the secret nature of voting in the US.
Outside the House office of California Republican Congressman Darrell Issa, who plans to retire, following an apparent uptick in Democratic strength in his district. (Photo: Katherine Welles)>The national narrative on the 2018 election goes something like this: The first midterm election of a new president always goes strongly against the party in power. President Trump has been more unpopular in his first term than any in the modern age of polling, so this could get very bad for Republicans.
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.
Political strategist Mike Madrid at his Sacramento office. (Photo: Tim Foster)Capitol Weekly chats with veteran GOP strategist Mike Madrid, who offers his thoughts on the impact of the Latino vote in the 2016 election — and how and why the ‘sleeping giant’ failed to deliver for Hillary Clinton. While the numbers this cycle were good nationally for Donald Trump, and for Democrats in California, Madrid has cautionary words for both parties moving forward.
A sports complex with the Time Warner Cable logo. (Photo: Katherine Welles, Shutterstock)Change may be coming to millions of California cable TV and broadband users. A looming $78.7 billion merger between Time Warner Cable and Charter Communications would have a major impact on California’s cable TV and broadband markets, with the new entity, called New Charter, serving nearly four of every 10 customers in the state.
Coastal housing in Laguna Beach. (Photo: John Bilous)For decades, people living in California paid more for shelter than those in most of the rest of the country. But during the 1970s, “the gap started to widen. Between 1970 and 1980, California home prices went from 30 percent above U.S. levels to more than 80 percent higher,” the Legislative Analyst’s Office reported. Today, the average California home costs $440,000, or two-and-half-times the average price tag of $180,000 for a home across the country.