California

California

The city of Los Angeles violated the state's open meeting law when council members took up a plan to clear 9,800 homeless encampments behind closed doors, a judge ruled this week. In a 10-page decision, L.A. County Superior Court Judge Curtis Kin said the City Council ran afoul of the Ralph M. Brown Act by approving the encampment strategy during a Jan. 31, 2024, closed session.

Jonathan Rinderknecht, a 29-year-old occasional Uber driver who used to live in Pacific Palisades, was charged with three felonies by federal prosecutors in October, who claim he was in the neighborhood in the early hours of New Year's Day. According to a federal complaint, Rinderknecht allegedly used an open flame likely a lighter to start a small blaze that grew to about 8 acres (3.2 hectares) before firefighters rushed to the area and extinguished it. That blaze was known as the Lachman fire.

Humberto Rodriguez Martinez, 39, is accused of working with a friend to kill his romantic rival outside his ex-girlfriend's apartment in 2017, according to the Orange County district attorney's office. Martinez is a Mexican citizen and was in the U.S. illegally at the time of the killing, prosecutors said. Prosecutors charged Martinez in 2017 with the murder of 32-year-old Daniel Reyes, as well as with felony enhancements for allegedly lying in wait and for using a knife.

We write to you today in alarm. It has come to our attention that the Administration is planning to move parking enforcement from OakDOT to Finance. While this may appear as a simple administrative shift, it is a strategic error that will undermine Oakland's transit, safety, and economic goals. Please initiate review with Council through issuing a Statement of Purpose for their review, and delay these changes until approved by Council.

Fresno has long struggled with deep-rooted poverty. In 2005, a report by the nonprofit think-tank Brookings Institution broke this out in the open, revealing that Fresno had the highest concentration of poverty of any U.S. city. The study showed that a significant number of Fresno's census tracts had at least 40 percent of residents living at or below the poverty line.

They would get into my bed and bite me. Not only were these ants tiny, but they were also kind of smart! I soon learned that these were Argentine ants, an invasive species in Southern California. Native ants are beneficial to the environment. They will eat pest insects such as fleas and termites. They also aid in breaking down organic matter such as dead plants and animals.

SUNNYVALE An investigation is underway into the shooting death of a woman Wednesday night in Sunnyvale, authorities said. The shooting happened around 9:40 p.m. in the 1200 block of Vienna Drive, the Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety said in a news release. Officers arrived to find the woman inside a vehicle suffering from gunshot wounds. The woman was pronounced dead at the scene.

Most years, when storms roll through Southern California during the winter holiday, local mountains transform into a wonderland blanketed in snow. But instead, the recent storms featured relentless rains, bringing a downpour of destruction and disappointment. A woman sits near the North Shore Lookout Point next to Big Bear Lake as Snow Summit is seen in the distance in Big Bear on Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026.

A 24-year-old woman suspected of causing a crash that killed two people in Long Beach over the weekend is also accused of fatally striking a bicyclist in the city's Alamitos Beach neighborhood in October, authorities said. Ahkeyajahnique Owens, 24, of Long Beach on Wednesday, Jan. 7, pleaded not guilty to one count of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence to an Oct. 6 crash along Fourth Street near Bonito Avenue that left 35-year-old Raul Augustin Gallopa critically injured, according to authorities and court records.

The central aspect of the PACE plan calls for removing the state superintendent as the head of the California Department of Education. Instead, that department would be run by an appointee of the state Board of Education. Members of the state board are appointed by the governor to fixed four-year terms. The PACE report envisions the "governor as the chief architect and steward responsible for aligning and advancing California's education system."

"They let us burn,"

A mental health diversion granted to a former Kern County politician is coming under fire from numerous California lawmakers and child welfare advocates, who say a repeatedly amended state law is allowing an accused child abuser to avoid prosecution and possible jail time. Zack Scrivner, a former Kern County supervisor, was charged with felony child abuse in February after he was accused of inappropriately touching one of his children in 2024. But because of a Dec. 19 ruling by a judge, he will avoid a trial and instead be funneled into a mental health diversion program - an initiative aimed at helping defendants with mental health disorders get treatment instead of imprisonment for certain crimes.

Valero will idle its Benicia refinery beginning in 2026 while continuing to supply Northern California with gasoline through imports and existing inventories, according to Gov. Gavin Newsom's office. In a statement released on Jan. 6, Newsom said Valero's revised approach marked a shift from an earlier announcement that included the possibility of a full closure and exit from the Northern California market as early as this year.

An entity tied to Google cofounders Sergey Brin and Larry Page moved out of California at the end of 2025, beating the deadline on a proposed wealth tax of the state's rich and powerful. T-Rex LLC, formed in 2006 and linked to Brin and Page, converted out of California into a Delaware LLC called T-Rex Holdings on December 24, 2025, according to a California filing reviewed by Business Insider. Prior filings over the past 20 years listed Brin and Page as managers of the LLC at a Palo Alto address.

The closure could cut hundreds of jobs and is expected to bruise the tax base of Benicia, a community anchored by the refinery that has also endured toxic pollution. But the company may replace its gas output with imports by ship, buffering California's fuel supply from potential shortages and price hikes, according to Newsom's office. It's unclear how much gasoline Valero plans to import, and the company has so far offered few answers.

I hope this is a one-off, but the new San Mateo County Sheriff, Ken Binder, waited nine days to tell the public that a woman had been threatened and a man was assaulted at the San Carlos Caltrain station. On Dec. 23, a man hassled a woman waiting for a train about her clothing. He then threatened to throw her on the tracks, according to the DA's office.

A man who prosecutors say was acting as a bounty hunter when he and others allegedly kidnapped a fugitive's girlfriend and burglarized the couple's National City home was sentenced Wednesday to eight years in prison. The sentencing of Jesse A. Wagner, 50, in Chula Vista Superior Court ends an unusual case that grew to include three incidents in other local cities, including one in which a bystander was boxed in by alleged bounty hunters in darkened SUVs on an Oceanside street.