Tag: California

Surfers and swimmers returned to the waves Monday at a popular Southern California beach that was shut for more than a week after an undersea pipeline leaked crude oil into the ocean.

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.

The severity of California’s housing crisis is difficult to exaggerate. Families in which spouses both have solid middle-income jobs struggle to afford mortgages for condos, not just single-family homes. Families in which spouses both have lower-income jobs often share apartments with others. Many single employed people — and some families — have no choice but to live in their cars. The nation’s richest state is also, perversely, its most impoverished.

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.

The letter below it’s a response for the “Densification alone will not create housing affordability in California” column published on Sept. 27 in the San Diego Union-Tribune Newspaper. You can find the article on page C2 in this issue.