CalMatters

Accelerated by the COVID pandemic, a shift by state officials toward emails and written statements is making it more difficult for journalists to be watchdogs for Californians.

Gov. Gavin Newsom is proposing to shift more money to housing severely mentally ill homeless people. Some officials at mental health organizations fear that funding will come from cuts to other services they provide.

Enrollment is down at the University of California and the Cal State, which has frustrated lawmakers who gave both systems more money to increase their number of students.

California high school students will be required to pass an ethnic studies class to graduate, starting with the class of 2030. That means the state needs lots of new ethnic studies teachers. But do educators need a special credential to teach ethnic studies? Some ethnic studies advocates say allowing any social science teacher to instruct the subject will lead to watered down and ineffective courses, while school districts argue that flexibility is important if they’re going to fill the roles.

A program to help mobile home park residents got a huge revamp last year because nobody was using it. Will more than tripling the size of the loan fund and streamlining the application process yield results?

California ended its voluntary statewide target, triggering concerns from experts that many water supplies remain depleted. Other drought measures remain in place.

Gov. Gavin Newsom starts defining his legacy on a four-day statewide tour that focuses on priorities interrupted by crisis and the COVID pandemic, including homelessness, criminal justice and health care.

Most college students don’t qualify for CalFresh, California’s food stamps program, despite high rates of food insecurity. A pandemic-era rule that made it easier to get aid ends soon.

An appeals court ruled Monday in favor of companies that want to classify some workers as independent contractors, saying Proposition 22 is mostly constitutional.

Silicon Valley Bank’s failure is a sign of weakness in the tech industry, and that could spell trouble for the state of California.

Studies say 1 in 4 Californians lacks full access to banks and many pay big fees. A state commission is weighing how to provide public banking options, such as no-fee checking accounts.

As storms melt snowpack, managers released water to prevent reservoirs from overflowing and flooding Central Valley towns — and that sends water into the ocean. The warm rains melt snow that ideally would last into spring and help with water deliveries.