03/19/2024

News

Trump Oil And Gas Drilling Plan Includes Bay Area

The U.S. government moved Thursday toward allowing new oil and gas drilling on wide swaths of federal land in California that has been off-limits since environmentalists sued in 2013. The Bureau of Land Management issued final plans for oil and gas leases on about 800,000 acres (323,755 hectares) in Central California. That comes less than […]

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Controversial Bay Area Housing Plan Heads to State Legislature

The CASA Compact includes proposals aimed at both spurring new housing construction and protecting existing tenants. Developers would be able to tap into streamlined approvals and tax incentives for more housing projects, and minimum zoning standards would be established around transit stops to increase density. Under the plan, vulnerable tenants would be aided by a […]

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Could Tesla Price Cuts Mean Demand Is Slowing?

Tesla made about 9,300 more vehicles than it delivered last year, raising concerns among industry analysts that inventory is growing as demand for the company’s electric cars may be starting to wane. If demand falls, they say, the company will enter a new phase of its business. Like other automakers, Tesla will have to either […]

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Governor Brown’s Biggest Climate Foe Isn’t Trump. It’s Car-Loving Californians

California is hosting an international summit this week to push for global action on climate change. While the Trump Administration steadily rolls back climate policies — or attempts to — cities, states and businesses from around the world are pledging major action to cut carbon emissions. On Monday, Gov. Jerry Brown set the stage by […]

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Even in California, Electric Vehicle Sales Are Meager. So Here Comes a New Campaign …

Electric cars have been on the market for some time now but surveys show that even in California adoption has been slow. A new initiative called Veloz, however, hopes to change that with a multimillion dollar public awareness campaign announced Wednesday. Auto giants are teaming up with California officials and local power utilities to launch […]

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Legislature Gives A’s Green Light to Speed Up Ballpark Review Process

State lawmakers voted overwhelmingly on Friday to make it just a little bit easier for the Oakland A’s to build a new ballpark at the Howard Terminal site near the Port of Oakland. AB 734 would streamline the process for reviewing environmental lawsuits filed against the site. The Howard Terminal location is one of two […]

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Oakland Wants to Tax Vacant Properties to Help Ease Homelessness

Owners of properties in use fewer than 50 days per year would be taxed as much as $6,000 per parcel annually, if two-thirds of voters approve the measure in November. Two weeks after the Oakland City Council voted 6-2 to place the tax on the ballot, officials in the neighboring city of Richmond greenlighted a […]

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Putting 5 Million Electric Cars on California Roads Wouldn’t Overwhelm Power Grid: Report

Currently, there are about 369,000 electric cars on California roads, and Gov. Jerry Brown hopes to bring that number up to 5 million by 2030. That might appear to put electric cars on a collision course with a fragile power grid. But a report released Thursday by San Francisco-based think tank Next 10 suggests that […]

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Affordability Crisis Prices National Park Service Office Out of San Francisco

Federal officials plan to relocate an office that helps oversee 60 national parks throughout the western United States from downtown San Francisco to Vancouver, Washington, in a move they say could save millions of dollars. Staff at the National Park Service Pacific West Regional Office were told this week that the local unit is expected […]

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Fears Grow Among Central Valley Recyclers as China Denies U.S. Recyclables

While tariffs on the steel and agriculture industries have taken center stage in the trade conflict between the U.S. and China, that conflict has quietly moved into another less visible sector. It’s greatly disrupted the recycling industry. The U.S. is coming to the end of a 30-day suspension on all recycling going to China. But […]

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Why Millions of Californians Eligible for Food Stamps Don’t Get Them

Millions of low-income Californians eligible for food stamps are not receiving the benefit, earning the state one of the lowest rankings in the nation for its participation in the program. Just three states — Utah, North Dakota and Wyoming — have lower rates of participation, according to the latest available federal data released this year. […]

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Robots Help Reduce Port Pollution — But They Also Steal Jobs

The Long Beach Container Terminal, which opened in April 2016, is an exception. It requires two-thirds fewer workers than traditional terminals. And that frightens the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, which controls all the jobs at the docks. But viewed from another perspective, automation is part of the solution to one of Southern California’s most […]

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The Withering California Dream, by the Numbers

The California dream isn’t dead. It just upped and moved to South Dakota. Less than half of people born in California in 1980 are making more money than their parents did as young adults. That’s the lowest percentage of children out-earning their parents that California has seen since at least 1940. By contrast, 62 percent of people born in South Dakota in 1980 out-earn their parents. That’s the highest percentage for any state in the country.

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Can California Really Go 100 Percent Renewable Energy?

Caldeira says studies show reaching 80 percent renewable energy is well within reach. Even hitting 100 percent is technically possible. “We could do it,” he says. “It would just be very expensive.”

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On Peninsula and in South Bay, RVs Have Become Symbol of Homelessness

Anderson-Williams raised her kids in nearby Burlingame, but last year she had a falling out with her landlord and couldn’t find anyone willing to take a Section 8 voucher. So now she lives in an RV. Her adult son, Malik, lives in the one next door, and her two daughters are living with their godparents in Burlingame until they finish school. In San Francisco and Oakland, tents are a symbol of the homeless problem. But in the Peninsula and South Bay, from Palo Alto to Mountain View to Gilroy, RVs have become that symbol.

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