State of the State

Jan 7, 2026

Will Newsom’s final State of the State speech focus on California’s future or his own?

CHRONICLE, JOE GAROFOLI: "What Gov. Gavin Newsom says in his final State of the State speech Thursday will tell Californians a lot about his priorities for his last year in office. Will he focus on California’s future or his own?

 

Will he explain how he plans to address the long list of unresolved problems from his two terms in office, including 187,000 people living on the street, the high cost of housing and the state’s inability to build more of it, the nation’s highest poverty rate and the money pit that is high-speed rail?"

 

Homeless on L.A.’s Skid Row fault of Democrats, says GOP gubernatorial candidate Sheriff Chad Bianco

LAT, SEEMA MEHTA: "Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, one of the top Republican candidates running for California governor, met a woman sprawled on the sidewalk as he walked around Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles.

 

“I’m waiting for the sun to come out from the clouds. I’m sunbathing,” the woman said Tuesday morning, lying on her jacket on the cold concrete, denying that any drug use was taking place in the roughly 50-block swath of downtown Los Angeles. “This is what we do here in California.”"

 

Capitol Briefs: Offshore drilling, LA sexual abuse and tax revenues

CAPITOL WEEKLY, STAFF: "The Capitol kicked back into gear this week with the ceremonial swearing in of ne Senate pro Tem Monique Limón (D-Santa Barbara) and a smattering of bill introductions and information hearings. But of course, all eyes on focused on Thursday and Gov. Gavin Newsom’s State of the State address and Friday’s budget reveal. But that is hardly all that has been happening this week."

 

A Florida senator wants answers on the Palisades Fire. What’s he really after?

CHRONICLE, ALEXEI KOSEFF: "The story of the Palisades Fire may ultimately belong to the Florida man.

 

In the year since a massive inferno consumed the coastal Los Angeles community of the Pacific Palisades, destroying thousands of homes and killing 12 people, it is residents of the Sunshine State who have repeatedly redefined the narrative of a disaster 2,500 miles away."

 

Many L.A. fire survivors face insurance delays and can’t return home a year later

CALMATTERS, LEVI SUMAGAYSAY: "A year after the deadly Los Angeles County fires, California’s property insurance market remains problematic; survivors are suing insurers over delayed or denied claims; and most of the state’s policyholders are likely to see their premiums rise.

 

Seven in 10 L.A. fire survivors have yet to return home, some in part because of insurance claim delays, according to a new survey released this week by Department of Angels, a nonprofit group that was formed after the fires."

 

Palisades fire report was sent to mayor’s office for ‘refinements,’ Fire Commission president says

LAT, ALENE TCHEKMEDYIAN/PAUL PRINGLE: "Months after the devastating Palisades fire, the head of the Los Angeles Fire Commission inquired about the Fire Department’s long-awaited after-action report.'                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

Interim Fire Chief Ronnie Villanueva said that a “working draft” had been sent to Mayor Karen Bass’ office, Genethia Hudley Hayes told The Times on Tuesday."

 

A year after the Eaton fire, the loss of Altadena is still raw

LAT, COLLEEN SHALBY: "In college in Washington, D.C., I always told people I grew up outside of Los Angeles. Pressed further, I’d say near Pasadena.

I rarely told people I was from a small town called Altadena."

After devastating fires, L.A. made one part of rebuilding easy. There’s much more to do

CALMATTERS, BEN CHRISTOPHER: "in the days immediately after last January’s Los Angeles firestorm, state lawmakers and civic leaders promised to turbocharge the rebuilding effort. For California, where the permitting and construction of homes is infamously slow and costly, the scale of destruction stood as a singular challenge.

A year later, the charred homes, the melted appliances and the toxic ash have mostly been removed, the dirt beneath scraped and then carted away. Many of the residents whose houses were spared have returned. Permits for reconstruction have been filed, architects and contractors hired. Battles with insurance companies, utilities and banks persist, vacant lots and blackened trees abound, but look around and — here and there — you’ll find new construction."

 

Failures of the past haunt L.A.’s fire recovery agenda for 2026

LAT, STAFF: "In the year after fire swept through Altadena, man and nature have camouflaged the destruction, to some extent.'

 

The burned husks of thousands of homes have been flattened. Weeks of record rainfall have left empty lots a shimmering green. Parts of Altadena now resemble a rural town, with scattered houses separated by vast swaths of open space canopied by trees that somehow survived the fire."

 

Northern California still has the nation’s lowest ICE arrest rate. Here’s why

CHRONICLE, CHRISTIAN LEONARD: "Masked men in the streets, day laborers rounded up, families separated. Those visuals, along with armed troops patrolling the streets of Los Angeles, are firmly associated with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids that swept Southern California last summer.

 

But as dramatic as those stories were, data from ICE shows that compared to the rest of the country, arrests have remained relatively rare in most of California, and nowhere more so than in Northern California."

 

Lived experience drives push for menstrual product safety

CAPITOL WEEKLY, LEAH O'TARROW: "People who menstruate use thousands of tampons and pads over their lifetimes, yet the safety and accessibility of these products have received relatively little regulatory attention. Since 2017, California lawmakers have introduced a series of bills expanding access to feminine hygiene products as well as increasing transparency about and now regulating chemicals contained in those items."

This change could deliver billions of more dollars to California schools. Here’s the tradeoff

CALMATTERS, CAROLYN  JONES: "For years, California schools have pushed to change the way the state pays for K-12 education: by basing funding on enrollment, instead of attendance. That’s the way 45 other states do it, and it would mean an extra $6 billion annually in school coffers.

But such a move might cause more harm than good in the long run, because linking funding to enrollment means schools have little incentive to lure students to class every day, according to a report released Tuesday by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office. Without that incentive, attendance would drop, and students would suffer."

Strikes, cuts, state superintendent race: Our 2026 California education predictions. What are yours?

EDSOURCE, JOHN FENSTERWAL/YUXUAN XIE: "You can never lose money by catastrophizing about what President Donald Trump might do. My last year’s predictions about his impact on education, treating the Department of Education like Venezuela with shock and awe, were, within a fenster or so, spot-on (go here for last year’s predictions).

This year will be much the same: More cuts, more threats of withholding money, more executive orders lacking authority and often ignored or overturned in court, more immigration raids. This week, Trump added child care, threatening to cut $10 billion in federal child-care and social services funding for California and four other Democratic-led states, alleging fraud without substantiation."

 

A new California law aims to help the struggling wine industry. Will it work?

CHRONICLE, JESS LANDER: "The wine industry is finally catching a break amid multi-year sales and tourism slumps with a new California law that finally legalizes tastings and events in vineyards. But not all wineries will benefit from it.