Bolstered by the rosiest fiscal picture of his second term, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday announced a plan to balance the state budget without any spending cuts — prioritizing existing programs and future savings over any ambitious new investments.
Why it matters: The projected surplus, fueled by higher-than-expected tax revenue, represents a likely turnaround from the budget shortfalls of the last two years, including the $27.6 billion deficit that was closed in the last state budget passed in June.
Why now: As he unveiled his $322.2 billion spending plan for the 2025–26 budget year, Newsom called on the Legislature to approve modest new investments in economic development and funding potential court battles with the incoming Trump administration, along with reforms to allow California to save more money for future budget downturns.
Bolstered by the rosiest fiscal picture of his second term, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday announced a plan to balance the state budget without any spending cuts — prioritizing existing programs and future savings over any ambitious new investments.
As he unveiled his $322.2 billion spending plan for the 2025–26 budget year, Newsom called on the Legislature to approve modest new investments in economic development and funding potential court battles with the incoming Trump administration, along with reforms to allow California to save more money for future budget downturns.
“It’s about more transparency, it’s about reform and it’s about being prepared for uncertainties into the future,” Newsom said of the budget plan.
Officially, the administration is projecting a slight surplus in the spending plan, although the governor did not specify the surplus amount. In November, the Legislative Analyst’s Office had projected a $2 billion shortfall, which it described as leaving the budget “roughly balanced.”
The projected surplus, fueled by higher-than-expected tax revenue, represents a likely turnaround from the budget shortfalls of the last two years, including the $27.6 billion deficit that was closed in the last state budget passed in June.
Speaking at an event in Turlock, Newsom departed from past practice by sharing only highlights from his budget plan, leaving the full release of the spending plan until Friday. The January proposal signals the beginning of the annual state budget process at the Capitol. Newsom will release a revised proposal in May after most Californians file their taxes, and the budget will cover July 2025 through June 2026.
The governor’s most significant new policy announcement was a proposal to allow the state to stash more money in its rainy day fund. Currently, the reserve is capped at 10% of the state’s expected tax revenue — a limit Newsom wants to double. He also proposed exempting the rainy day savings from the state’s limit on spending. Both changes would need approval from California voters.
“We need to create the right political conditions to advance it,” Newsom said. “That’s going to take a Herculean effort, but we’ve been talking about it for long enough — it’s time to move forward.”
Newsom described the moves as a way to temper California’s notorious budget volatility. The state’s progressive tax system relies heavily on revenue from a small share of high-earners, whose incomes and tax liability can fluctuate with the stock market.
Last year’s stock market surge, driven by California-based chip maker Nvidia, has led to income and capital gains tax revenue exceeding the expectations of state budget officials.
However, the current fiscal picture is still a far cry from the record surpluses Newsom enjoyed in the years immediately after the pandemic. Newsom signaled his administration will focus on implementing existing initiatives, such as transitional kindergarten for all 4-year-olds in the state, along with efforts to improve government efficiency.
New spending initiatives announced so far are modest: a $100 million economic plan centered on programs to support workers without a college degree in the job market and a $25 million set-aside for anticipated legal costs as the state gears up to challenge the Trump administration in court.
Newsom proposed the litigation funding as part of a special legislative session focused on the incoming administration, and the governor said Monday he remains confident the funds will be approved prior to President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20.
“We’re also walking into headwinds,” Newsom said of the incoming administration, describing a “radically different moment in U.S. history — world history, arguably — and as a consequence, we need to be prepared.”
The University of Southern California board of trustees has appointed interim president Beong-Soo Kim to be its 13th president.
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Courtesy USC Photo/Gus Ruelas
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Topline:
The University of Southern California board of trustees has appointed interim president Beong-Soo Kim to be its 13th full president. Kim was named as the interim leader in February 2025 and began the role this summer.
Who is he? Kim most recently served as USC’s senior vice president and general counsel and as a lecturer at the law school. Prior to joining USC, he worked at Kaiser Permanente and was a federal prosecutor for the Central District of California.
What’s happened under Kim’s interim presidency: USC faced a $200 million dollar deficit last fiscal year; Kim oversaw the layoffs of hundreds of employees since July.
Jill Replogle
covers public corruption, debates over our voting system, culture war battles — and more.
Published February 4, 2026 2:43 PM
Voters wait to cast their ballots inside the Huntington Beach Central Library on Nov. 4, 2025.
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Allen J. Schaben
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Topline:
Huntington Beach will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review a decision striking down the city’s controversial voter ID law.
What’s the backstory? Huntington Beach voters approved a measure in 2024 allowing the city to require people to show ID when casting a ballot. The state and a Huntington Beach resident promptly sued to block it. But the fight isn't over. The City Council voted unanimously this week to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in.
Does the city have a shot? The Supreme Court gets 7,000 to 8,000 requests to review cases each year. The Court grants about 80 of these requests, so the city’s chances of getting the court’s attention are statistically slim.
Read on ... for more about the legal battle.
Huntington Beach will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review a decision striking down the city’s controversial voter ID law.
What’s the backstory?
Huntington Beach voters approved a measure in 2024 allowing the city to require people to show ID when casting a ballot. That contradicts state law — voters in California are asked to provide ID when they register to vote but generally not at polling places.
The ensuing court battle
The state and a Huntington Beach resident promptly sued the city over the voter ID law and won an appeals court ruling striking down the law. The California Supreme Court declined to review the decision earlier this month. The state also passed a law prohibiting cities from implementing their own voter ID laws.
Then, the City Council voted unanimously this week to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in.
Does the city have a shot?
The Supreme Court gets 7,000 to 8,000 requests to review cases each year. The Court grants about 80 of these requests, so the city’s chances of getting the court’s attention are statistically slim.
There’s also a question of whether or not the city’s voter ID case meets the Court’s criteria for review — SCOTUS addresses questions of federal law. Mayor Casey McKeon said it does, in a news release, noting a 2008 Supreme Court decision that upheld a state’s voter ID law — in Indiana. But Huntington Beach is a city, and the question in its voter ID case is whether or not a city can implement its own requirements for voting, even if it clashes with state law.
The Trump Administration wants your confidential voter data. What’s behind their battle with CA and other states?
How to keep tabs on Huntington Beach
Huntington Beach holds City Council meetings on the first and third Tuesday of each month at 6 p.m. at City Hall, 2000 Main St.
You can also watch City Council meetings remotely on HBTV via Channel 3 or online, or via the city’s website. (You can also find videos of previous council meetings there.)
The public comment period happens toward the beginning of meetings.
The city generally posts agendas for City Council meetings on the previous Friday. You can find the agenda on the city’s calendar or sign up there to have agendas sent to your inbox.
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Post-fire donations include items made 'with love'
Makenna Sievertson
covers the daily drumbeat of Southern California — events, processes and nuances making it a unique place to call home.
Published February 4, 2026 2:17 PM
Cantor Ruth Berman Harris said she's planning on keeping the challah cover for communal celebrations and holidays.
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Makenna Sievertson
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LAist
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The Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center burned down in last year's Eaton Fire, taking with it nearly all of the special and ceremonial items housed inside. Since then, many supporters have donated items large and small, including prayer books, clothes and candlesticks.
Among the donations is a hand-woven challah cover that serves not only as a symbol of faith, but — in this case — evidence of recovery.
Why it matters: Cantor Ruth Berman Harris told LAist the challah cover, made and donated by Karen Fink of Van Nuys, will be used for communal celebrations and holidays to give it an extra layer of “kavod” — of holiness. Challah covers are a traditional sight on a table prepared for a Shabbat meal, where both the bread and a cup of wine are blessed before eating.
The gift: Fink said her weaving guild was already making items for survivors of the L.A.-area fires. When someone suggested she make a challah cover, she got to work.
“I just always like to think about who it's going towards, what it's going to be used for, that it should be used well and loved,” she said.
Despite best efforts, the campus and nearly everything in it was destroyed.
“I had a colleague calling me and asking me what I needed, and I wasn't able to say,” Berman Harris, one of the spiritual leaders of the synagogue, told LAist. “I don't think I was able to say what I needed for about a year.”
In the months that followed the fire, people from around the world stepped up to replace what was lost, including prayer books, clothes and candlesticks. Several donated challah covers, a decorative cloth that’s placed over the braided bread before being blessed and eaten on Shabbat.
A parking sign at the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center after the Eaton Fire.
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Josh Edelson
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And while much of the community’s focus is directed toward larger items that need to be replaced — the buildings included — smaller, ceremonial items can make a big difference, too.
Karen Fink, a Van Nuys resident, donated a hand-woven challah cover that she made for the temple. Her weaving guild was already making dish towels for L.A. fire survivors.
“You've got so many things that need to be done and replaced,” Fink said.
“I just always like to think about who it's going towards, what it's going to be used for, that it should be used well and loved,” she continued.
‘Love through the threads’
On Jan. 7, 2025, as the flames closed in on the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center, Berman Harris rushed through smoke and falling embers to rescue all 13 sacred Torah scrolls, pieces of parchment with Hebrew text used at services, including weekly on Shabbat.
Berman Harris now works out of an office building in Pasadena, a few miles away from where the center stood.
More than 400 families gathered to worship at the temple before the fire. About 30 families lost their homes, and 40 others were displaced, she said. The congregation has been gathering at the First United Methodist Church in Pasadena.
The Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center, which burned during the Eaton Fire, in January 2025 (top) and in January 2026 (bottom).
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Josh Edelson
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“The silver lining of when you go through a traumatic loss is that you don't realize A, how strong you are and B, how not alone you are,” said Berman Harris, who has been a part of the congregation for 14 years.
She said the temple has received many gifts to help them rebuild, but Fink’s challah cover will be used for communal celebrations and holidays to give it an extra layer of “kavod” — of holiness.
Challah covers, usually embroidered with Hebrew words and symbols, are a traditional sight on a table prepared for a Shabbat meal, where both the bread and a cup of wine are blessed before eating. The decorative cover is a symbolic way of honoring the bread, while the wine is being blessed first.
“Because you say the blessing over the bread last,” Fink told LAist. “It gets to have this lovely cover so it doesn't get embarrassed.”
Fink said she used one of her more intricate patterns, featuring white and blue threads in a repeating pattern of the Star of David.
The challah cover woven by Karen Fink when it was fresh off the loom.
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Courtesy Karen Fink
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She said it took a couple of hours to wind the thread, about a day to get the project set up on her small loom and another three days to get through the top six rows of stars.
Once the challah cover was complete, it took a few months to get it to Berman Harris, but Fink said she wanted to help in a way that felt more personal than mailing a check.
“They were able to get their Torah scrolls out,” Fink said. “But all the other things that maybe aren't required, but are helpful in enhancing the spirit of Shabbat, the spirit of a synagogue, you know, that was all lost.”
Starting to settle
Berman Harris said the donations have not only helped rebuild their ritual spaces, they were gifted “with love.”
“They're not things you buy on Amazon,” she said. “These are things that you cherish because you can feel the love through the threads.”
Cantor Ruth Berman Harris showing off the handmade challah cover Karen Fink weaved for the congregation.
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Makenna Sievertson
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LAist
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The synagogue has received other challah covers that they’ve distributed to families in the congregation.
On the anniversary of the fire, Josh Ratner, senior rabbi at the temple, told LAist’s AirTalk program that Jewish people have overcome “so much” throughout history.
People embrace inside a tent on the grounds of the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center during a commemoration of the one-year anniversary of the Eaton Fire on Jan. 6.
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“I think that that gives us some firm foundation to know that we can recover from this as well,” he said. “And not just recover, but really our [history] … is one of rebuilding even stronger than before.
“Each time there's been a crisis, we've been able to reinvent different aspects of Judaism and to evolve."
Students carry lanterns they created as symbols of hope as they enter the grounds of the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center during a commemoration of the one-year anniversary of the Eaton Fire.
Jacob Margolis
covers science, with a focus on environmental stories and disasters.
Published February 4, 2026 1:23 PM
A mule deer fawn watches it's mother drink water at a feral cat feeding station behind the Descanso Beach Club in Avalon, Catalina Island.
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Allen J. Schaben
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Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
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Topline:
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife has approved a plan to kill and sterilize roughly 2,200 mule deer on Catalina Island as part of a large-scale restoration effort. The project — proposed by the Santa Catalina Island Conservancy — also includes plans to monitor fauna, such as the Island fox and monarch butterflies, and increase biodiversity by removing invasive vegetation and seeding native plants.
Mule deer removal: Professionals will likely use drones, thermal technology and dogs to detect the deer before shooting them, primarily at night. Some deer will also be caught, sterilized and tracked in an effort to draw out any last deer. The efforts are estimated to be completed by 2032.
The history: Nearly a dozen mule deer were introduced to the island beginning in the 1920s. Attempts to relocate deer off the island in 1948 failed.
The opposition: In a letter to the CDFW, Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn said she opposed the plan to "systematically slaughter the deer over the next five years,” given the “deep public connection to these animals.”
It has worked before: Roosevelt elk and mule deer — introduced to Santa Rosa Island for recreational hunting — were successfully eliminated in 2011, giving native flora an opportunity to recover. On Santa Cruz Island, the removal of cows, sheep and pigs by 2007 gave the native and formerly endangered Santa Cruz Island fox an opportunity to recover.
