After weeks of negotiations, state legislators will start voting today on a budget deal that sets spending and policy across a wide range of issues affecting Californians.

Sen. Scott Wiener, a Democrat from San Francisco, said that without the state cash, BART and other big-city transit systems will have to make drastic service cuts.

The oil industry qualified a 2024 ballot measure to kill a law that bans new oil wells near schools and neighborhoods, and the fast-food industry qualified another to wipe out a law creating a council to regulate fast food wages. 

State legislators sometimes exempt themselves from the laws they pass, but this session, they could change course on an emblematic bill: To allow their own staffers to form a union.

President Biden signed a law banning nearly 4 million federal employees from having TikTok on their government phones, over national security concerns. This week, New Jersey and Ohio joined at least 20 other states in restricting access to TikTok, amid fears that the Chinese government could use the app to spy on Americans. Will California jump on the TikTok ban bandwagon?

Across the state, some of the most vulnerable include the unhoused, whose numbers have increased by at least 22,500 in the last three years to about 172,000.  

The California Legislature reconvenes with record diversity, but with several key questions and many significant challenges. A soaring homeless population. A bitter battle with the oil industry over gasoline prices.

This November, voters will be asked to consider seven thorny policy proposals, from abortion to zero emission vehicles.

A bill negotiated by environmentalists, the plastics industry and lawmakers is keeping a California recycling measure off the ballot. After the bill sailed through the Assembly and the state Senate the next morning, the proponents withdrew the initiative just before the deadline.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and legislative leaders anounced they have agreed to restore California paid sick leave for COVID-19.

At a CalMatters/Milken Institute event, experts discuss how the pandemic has changed the California economy,and say why there’s reason for hope.

An FAQ for voters on California redistricting as the state’s independent commission works toward releasing preliminary congressional and legislative maps on Nov. 10.

Across the state, organizers are banding together to make sure new congressional, legislative and local districts lead to diverse representation. The track record of the Citizens Redistricting Commission is mixed, according to two recent studies.