A California appellate court on Tuesday overturned five men’s convictions for cannabis possession in prison. In 2016, voters in the Golden State approved Proposition 64, which made possession of less than an ounce of cannabis legal – even in prison, according to the appeals court. Smoking or ingesting...

SACRAMENTO – At the behest of civil rights and civil liberties groups, California Democrats are pressing to ban facial recognition technology that law enforcement says could better protect nearly 40 million residents and the state’s countless tourist destinations. Hatched from the tech industry’s...

A claw hammer sparked the 2018 Ranch Fire, the largest wildfire in modern California history, according to a report issued by Cal Fire on Thursday. The Ranch Fire, which broke out July 27, 2018, joined with other fires to scorch about 459,000 acres as the Mendocino Complex Fire, began as a spark thrown...

By Matthew Renda SACRAMENTO – California lawmakers explored reforms to wildfire victim compensation Wednesday while wrestling with how to pay for the catastrophic damage wrought by the last two wildfire seasons. The California Commission on Catastrophic Wildfire Cost and Recovery recommended three...

By Nathan Solis and Martin Macias Jr LOS ANGELES (CN) – The homeless population is growing faster than the rate people can be housed, according to the sobering point-in-time county report released Tuesday by Los Angeles County officials. The homeless population grew by 12% with 59,000 people living...

By Nathan Solis (CN) – The largest gas leak in U.S. history occurred in a neighborhood north of Los Angeles in 2015, forcing a mass exodus of residents and affecting businesses who lost customers while the utility worked for months to cap the blowout. On Thursday, the California Supreme Court rejected...

By Martin Macias Jr. More residents died from air pollution in Los Angeles County in 2017 than in any other U.S. county, according to a new study released Wednesday, but nationally, the number of deaths and illnesses caused by smog has fallen dramatically in the last decade. The annual “Health of the...

By Martin Macias Jr. LOS ANGELES (CN) – A body tasked with oversight of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said Tuesday that Sheriff Alex Villanueva failed to properly explain and document his decision to halt investigations into officer misconduct. The incidents of misconduct under investigation...

By Martin Macias Jr. The Trump administration said Thursday it would pull nearly a billion dollars in federal funding for California’s much-maligned high-speed rail project, terminating an agreement that previously awarded the Golden State another $2.5 billion for the plan. The move is a major setback...

By Nick Cahill SACRAMENTO – In another setback for groups fighting to stem California’s housing crisis, a proposal meant to spur new apartments near popular transit centers died silently in committee Thursday. Minutes before a scheduled vote, the chair of the state Senate Appropriations Committee...