Contributed

Without a doubt, it is difficult to find something upbeat about California’s current commercial real estate market. Property owners, economists and appraisers all agree that the market is facing one of the most challenging times in decades. For example, in San Francisco, an office tower that was worth $300 million in 2019 sold just a few months ago for less than $70 million. Several hoteliers in the city have stopped making payments on their loans, and national retailers that have been leaders in the market for decades have announced plans this year to close their San Francisco shops.

It’s important to keep in mind that the Biden administration still wants to pack the Supreme Court, but they also want to compress it, and now more than ever, after it found itself on the losing side of several rulings. By so doing, they seek to change the nature of American government.

Lands where the border wall was constructed during the Trump Administration will be restored to protect wildlife habitat following a legal settlement between the U.S. government and attorneys general for 18 states.

The California state Legislature twisted itself into an extra-salty pretzel this week over a bill that claims to combat child sex trafficking. On Tuesday, Democratic members of the Assembly’s Public Safety Committee initially shelved Senate Bill 14, the child sex trafficking bill in question, which was written and proposed by one of the state Senate’s most conservative members.

For 25 years, some of California’s best-known early childhood services have been funded by an almost ironic source: Taxes on cigarettes and other tobacco products.