California ends mandatory minimum drug sentence rules
California Gov. Gavin Newsom ended mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug crimes in the nation's most populous state on Tuesday, giving judges more discretion to impose alternative sentences.
The mandatory sentencing law Newsom signed Tuesday grew out of what Democratic Sen. Scott Wiener of San Francisco called a failed war on drugs that disproportionately incarcerated people who are Black or Latino.
Newsom approves laws to revamp California’s unemployment benefits system
Faced with criticism from many Californians thrown out of work during the COVID-19 pandemic, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday gave his approval to a package of bills aimed at reducing delays and fraud in the state’s beleaguered unemployment benefits system.
Biden eager to get out of DC, push benefits of spending plan
President Joe Biden is shifting strategy to sell his ambitious social spending plans by traveling outside Washington and courting moderate Democrats who are key to hopes for any deal.
Records show slow response to report of California oil spill
The Coast Guard received the first report of a possible oil spill off the Southern California coast more than 12 hours before a company reported a major leak in its pipeline and a cleanup effort was launched, records show.
California spill came 52 years after historic oil disaster
The weekend oil leak along the Southern California coast happened not far from the site of the catastrophe more than a generation ago that helped give rise to the modern environmental movement itself: the 1969 Santa Barbara spill.
