California

California

Former Compton City Councilmember Isaac Galvan pleaded guilty Tuesday to federal criminal charges for bribing a Baldwin Park city councilman, whom he paid $70,000 in exchange for city marijuana permits. Galvan, who ran a consulting service, was involved in a scheme in which he facilitated bribes to Councilman Ricardo Pacheco from one of Galvan's clients who wanted a marijuana permit in Baldwin Park.

For eight hours on Friday, Interstate 5 at Del Mar Heights Road was closed, at times in both directions, as police talked with a suicidal man perched on a bridge above the freeway. And for miles around that spot, motorists endured a massive, extended transportation nightmare that slowed travel around the region. Social media posts captured some of the pain.

He's also allegedly been downloading child sexual abuse material for decades, onto encrypted hard drives on his home and work computer, apparently avoiding detection by either employers or law enforcement until this year. Last September, the California Highway Patrol raided Kolbe's Albany home, the culmination of an investigation that started in January 2024 with a look into secret peer-to-peer networks where child pornography was being shared.

I didn't think we could ever live here, let alone own a home, become part of a community, and eventually serve as mayor, outgoing mayor Matthew Hudes said. What a privilege all of that is.

It's been a great feeling all week knowing this will be my final high school game because most of the time you go in it's up in the air,

During tumultuous times, we look for comfort. And we often find it in our go-to dishes at our longtime favorite restaurants. But every year we say goodbye to many of those establishments. The ones we pay tribute to here had been landmarks for years, even generations. Some chefs and owners decided to retire or take a break. Others couldn't weather the costs of doing business in this inflationary, post-pandemic era.

The tap-and-pay ability newly adopted by Caltrain and most other train, bus and ferry agencies in the Bay Area allows riders to pay fares with a chip-enabled credit or debit card rather than the prepaid Clipper. BART made a similar change in August. Accepted payment sources are Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, Apple Wallet and Google Wallet. Each rider must pay with their own card or device.

We no longer need as much centralized power generation, yet it is still the planning model used by PG&E and the other investor-owned utilities (IOUs). Instead, the IOUs should be leading the effort to grow local electricity generation through solar panels, wind turbines and batteries. Microgrids should be the main method of distribution, and costly transmission lines should be minimized.

San Jose, the capital of Silicon Valley, is now ground zero in California's battle over how to govern the rise of data centers used to power artificial intelligence. The county seat of Santa Clara is touting its partnership with Pacific Gas & Electric, claiming the city is "the West Coast's premier destination for data center development." The investor-owned utility now estimates it has enough capacity in its planning pipeline to push the city's electricity use to almost three times its current peak.

We can estimate how much electricity each solar panel and wind turbine will produce, and when they'll produce it. Then we can plug those numbers into a computer, along with green advocates' optimistic projections of future electricity demand, to see how supply and demand match up on an hourly and seasonal basis. Even with vastly expanded battery storage capacity to smooth things out, the match is poor.

Police on Tuesday are expected to provide an update on the investigation into last month's mass shooting in Stockton. Four people, including three children, were killed while attending a child's birthday party on November 29. Over 10 others were injured. The victims killed were ages 8, 9, 14, and 21. Police have not said that any suspects have been arrested.

On April 13, 2024, the four young women were heard arguing on the 400 block of Riverside Drive, in the Napa Abajo neighborhood, which is across the Napa River and a few blocks south of the Napa Valley Expo. Investigators say that Villasenor and Mufich had come to the area with the three others, and Adolph allegedly planned to fight one of them.

Despite myriad efforts by homeowner Ken Johnson and California Fish and Wildlife personnel, the huge male bear remains under Johnson's home, so far largely unfettered by radios blasting, ammonia and caramel and cherry scented-lures placed outside the home. He's a nuisance and he's living under my house rent-free, Johnson said. We call him unbearable, but he's so cute. Once he gets out, we'll call him bearable, but for now it's unbearable.

Nearly four decades after a fragment of a human skull was found along a quiet stretch of Dry Creek outside Roseville in Placer County, investigators say they finally know the woman's name. The Placer County Sheriff's Office announced this week that the remains have been identified as Marjorie Linehan, a Sacramento County woman who vanished in the fall of 1982. Linehan was 49 when she was reported missing, and despite searches and interviews at the time, detectives were unable to determine what happened to her.

Patrick Rushing, 35, was convicted of second-degree murder with an enhancement for intentional discharge of a gun in the Feb. 26, 2023 killing of 44-year-old Phoutsamay "Phil" Norawong. The prelude to murder started months earlier, with a seemingly unrelated event: Rushing fronted about four pounds of marijuana to a man named Terrance Rose, 35, with the expectation he'd be paid back later. But Rose subsequently failed a drug test while on probation for a federal fentanyl and gun possession case, and ended up doing a stint in jail for it, court records show.

The 55-year-old father was credited with saving his 7-year-old boy's life after their kayak capsized and the two spilled into the water on Saturday at the Lake Perris State Recreation Area. But Ahmadi lapsed into unconsciousness, and even though Artin kept his father afloat, Ahmadi died at Riverside University Health System Medical Center in Moreno Valley after being pulled from the water. Doctors believe he had a heart attack, Manafi said.

Jon Alan Hale said he was eager to try out the Radiator Springs Racers ride at Disney California Adventure after undergoing gastric bypass and knee replacement surgeries in 2010 and 2011. He said he quickly found himself hooked on the ride, which debuted in 2012, and began tracking his races in a notebook, jotting down his car's color, lane and whether he wins or loses.

Let's say it's a Thursday evening and you're thinking of cool places to take your friends while they're in town. Maybe you're new to Berkeley and want to get to know the city better. Or perhaps you'd like to take someone out on a date but can't seem to find anything fun to do without breaking the bank. We hope this non-comprehensive guide to budget-friendly things to do in Berkeley will help you plan your social week.

She was barely a teenager, but it was her turn to spend the night to survive on her own, as part of a coming-of-age initiation dreamed up by her father, who ruled over his family with a mix of ideology and impossible expectations. As teenagers, Kat and her siblings were expected to complete the trial. Her father demanded she spend one night in the mountains alone. Kat stayed for three.

Chmukh, a resident of Citrus Heights in Sacramento County, was apprehended the night of Nov. 7, after California Fish and Wildlife officers spotted moving lights at Ocean Cove, just south of Salt Point State Park - "the kind of lights that usually mean someone is doing more than sightseeing," according to a report posted by the state agency on social media. Surveilling from a distance, officers then observed "several individuals" moving through the cove "and placing items into containers."

The Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation, a native tribe that lived in the Yosemite area for thousands of years until being pushed out in the 1850s, purchased 896 acres along the Yosemite National Park's western boundary at Henness Ridge on Dec. 1, 2025 from the Pacific Forest Trust, a San Francisco environmental group, for $2.4 million. This is the view from the property looking north toward Yosemite Valley. (Photo: Pacific Forest Trust)

Two people died and their children were injured in a solo-vehicle crash in El Dorado County on Sunday, according to the California Highway Patrol. CHP said a car struck a tree on Highway 50, just east of Kyburz, around 3:11 p.m. An 8-year-old boy and an 11-year-old girl were in the car and suffered major injuries. It took hours to get the children out of the vehicle, according to CHP. Their parents were determined dead at the scene.

Police agencies had investigated at least 14 shootings for the year, one of which left a suspect hospitalized, as of Dec. 8, 2025. The most recent shooting, on Dec. 3, came after more than seven weeks with no apparent gunfire in the city. Dec. 3: Several people called 911 to report gunfire near the 2000 block of Ninth Street around 1 a.m. Police officers found spent shell casings but no victims.

A swarm of earthquakes has struck California's Bay Area, just miles from some of the most populated cities throughout the area. A magnitude 3.7 earthquake was detected at 12.08pm ET on Monday, less than three miles from the city of San Ramon. The US Geological Survey (USGS) has revealed that it's at least the sixth small earthquake to strike the since 5.33am this morning.