|
|
| Daytime super off-peak rates coming to SDG&E and community choice customers – San Diego Union-Tribune | | Customers of San Diego Gas & Electric — as well as the two community choice energy programs serving San Diego County — will be able to consume electricity at the lowest available price during more convenient midday hours.
“Super off-peak” pricing goes into effect throughout the year for SDG&E consumers enrolled in time-of-use plans from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday.
The change means you can run your appliances, such as dishwashers and air conditioning, as well as charge electric vehicles, at a much lower cost. [Article] | | by , San Diego Union-Tribune. 2026-04-20 | | | | LAHSA to lay off 284 workers as County shifts homelessness response | | he Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority will issue layoff notices to 284 employees on April 30 as the agency undergoes a sweeping restructuring driven by the county's decision to pull more than $300 million in annual funding and stand up its own homelessness department. [Article] | | by , . 2026-04-20 | | | | A decade after legalization, cannabis culture evolves in San Diego – NBC 7 San Diego | | April 20, known as 4/20, marks a milestone for cannabis culture in California, with the state celebrating a decade of legal recreational marijuana use and San Diego’s only cannabis lounge marks its first anniversary. [Article] | | by , KNSD NBC San Diego. 2026-04-20 | | | | They lost their homes to fire. Now they're rebuilding with all-electric. - Los Angeles Times | | No one is forcing fire survivors in Altadena and Pacific Palisades to rebuild their new homes all-electric. But many of them want to, for health reasons, cost savings, or because they’re worried about climate change.
Burning gas and propane for cooking, water heating and space heating in California homes and businesses creates 10% of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions. It also releases pollutants indoors.
That’s why, in recent years, state policy has pushed toward electrification, and about 39% of new homes in California in 2024 went in without gas lines. Only 8% of all homes were all-electric in 2020.
Yet after last year’s fires, Gov. Gavin Newsom waived a 2025 building code that strongly encouraged electric heat pumps in new construction, allowing residents in the burn zones to build back to older, less efficient standards.
The city of L.A. also waived a requirement that new homes be all-electric.
Climate experts called these rollbacks a missed opportunity. Early figures show 1,300 residents have already have applied for reconnections through SoCalGas, which serves most of Los Angeles.
Yet some determined groups of neighbors are building all-electric anyway, even without the requirements. Here are some of their reasons: [Article] | | by , Los Angeles Times. 2026-04-20 | | | | Ordered free, still locked up: Judges fume over ICE detentions - Los Angeles Times | | Judge Troy Nunley was fed up.
Federal immigration officials had once again flouted his authority by leaving him to guess if they were keeping a man locked up in a California City detention center after Nunley ordered him released. When he was finally set free, the man was booted onto the street with no passport, driver’s license or other personal effects. The judge’s demand that the items be returned were met with silence.
And so on Tuesday, Nunley, the chief judge of the Eastern District of California, slapped Department of Justice attorney Jonathan Yu with an official sanction and a $250 fine.
In a scathing order, Nunley laid out why he was compelled to take such a rare step. The fine may have been less than some traffic tickets, but it’s nearly unheard for a judge to formally admonish a government lawyer.
By Yu’s own admission, he was drowning in work. In his order, Nunley recounted the attorney’s claim he’d been assigned more than 300 nearly identical cases in the last three months, all of immigrants in detention who argued they were being held without cause. The Department of Justice later clarified that the man had been let go right away and that Yu merely failed to promptly tell the court.
Court filings show many of the California cases involve longtime U.S. residents unexpectedly hauled off to jail after routine check-ins with immigration officials. One was an Afghan who’d helped the American war effort. Another a Cambodian grandmother of eight who fled Pol Pot’s killing fields as a girl nearly 50 years ago. [Article] | | by , Los Angeles Times. 2026-04-20 | | | | Nearly $200 million set aside in California to update school HVAC systems remains unspent – Daily News | | For the third straight year, environmental activists and California lawmakers are locked in a tug-of-war over a pool of state funds created to upgrade heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems in schools to curb disruptions and closures attributed to extreme weather.
At a time when one environmental group estimates 60,000 K-12 students in the state — nearly a third of them in San Bernardino County — have lost classroom time this school year due to weather-related events, roughly $194 million sits in limbo in the CalSHAPE program.
CalSHAPE, shorthand for the California Schools Healthy Air, Plumbing and Efficiency Program, was created in August 2020 during the early grip of the COVID-19 pandemic, primarily with funds from the energy-efficiency budgets of investor-owned utility companies. [Article] | | by , Los Angeles Daily News. 2026-04-20 | | | | California could launch a wildlife coexistence program amid anger over mama bear's death - Los Angeles Times | | SACRAMENTO — A month after a public uproar over a mama bear being euthanized after swiping at a resident in Monrovia, state lawmakers are considering mandating the use of nonlethal ways to help allow wildlife and humans to coexist.
Sen. Catherine Blakespear (D-Encinitas) said she believes the bear’s death, and the state’s decision to kill four wolves last year that were preying on cattle, raised public concern.
“That made everybody realize we have to do better here,” she told The Times on Thursday. “We need to recognize the importance of seeing ourselves, humans, as part of a larger ecosystem that includes animals and plants and our world and trying to protect it.”
Senate Bill 1135, introduced by Blakespear, would direct the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to create the Wildlife Coexistence Program, which would provide public education, offer technical assistance and maintain a statewide incident reporting system. It would help communities deploy nonlethal devices to deter predators, like barriers or noise and light machines.
At a legislative hearing on Tuesday, Blakespear told the Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Water that a three-year state initiative offering similar services was seeing positive results — until it was discontinued two years ago after funding ran dry. She said it was time to implement a permanent program.
“Human population growth, habitat loss and the growth of industry across California inevitably leads to interaction between humans and wildlife,” Blakespear told legislators. “No two animal species are the same and each has unique behavior patterns and territories. SB 1135 recognizes these differences and gives communities the tools to prevent conflict and respond when it occurs.”
The bill would also rename a state program that reimburses ranchers who lose livestock to wolves, calling it the Wolf-Livestock Coexistence and Compensation Program. It would require ranchers seeking compensation to show they were using nonlethal deterrents approved by the department.
Sen. Shannon Grove (R-Bakersfield) stressed that life in rural areas is different than living in a city. She said some families and cattle ranchers have a genuine fear of predators.
“When these baby calves drop on the ground and then two wolves start ripping them apart, it’s not the prettiest thing you’ve ever witnessed,” said Grove, who abstained from voting on the measure. “These wolves are not puppies.” [Article] | | by , Los Angeles Times. 2026-04-20 | | | | Immigration cases add to Sacramento federal court backlog | Sacramento Bee | | The longstanding judicial emergency in the federal court district that includes Sacramento has grown dramatically worse in recent weeks, with an existing backlog of cases strained more by a flood of legal actions stemming from the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement.
So few judges handle cases in the Eastern District of California that it takes up to five years for most civil litigation to be heard. Judges wake up in the middle of the night to handle the hundreds of time-sensitive cases being filed on behalf of immigrants being held in Central Valley detention facilities, Chief Judge Troy Nunley said in an interview with The Bee. [Article] | | by , Sacramento Bee. 2026-04-20 | | | | Measure G promised accountability. Now the Board of Supervisors must deliver. – Daily News | | It has been 16 months since Los Angeles County voters narrowly approved Measure G, a sweeping reform package intended to strengthen accountability in county government. The measure set in motion major structural changes: expanding the Board of Supervisors from five to nine members by 2032, establishing an elected County Executive by 2028, and creating an independent ethics commission by 2026. It also included reforms such as a revolving door policy, a more transparent budget process, earlier public notice of Board agendas, and the ability to suspend supervisors without pay if charged with corruption.
At its core, Measure G was a promise of more accountable, transparent government. But from the outset, a central concern was the measure’s lack of detail—particularly regarding how these reforms would be implemented and what they would look like in practice.
The devil, as always, is in the details. And on that front, Measure G effectively asked voters to trust the Board of Supervisors to work them out—and get them right—after the measure passed.
That moment of truth has arrived. [Article] | | by , Los Angeles Daily News. 2026-04-20 | | | | County to spend $16.5M on EV chargers at city of San Diego libraries, rec centers – NBC 7 San Diego | | Electric vehicle charging stations will be installed at nine San Diego libraries and recreation centers with funding from two major county grants totaling more than $16.5 million, it was announced Monday. [Article] | | by , KNSD NBC San Diego. 2026-04-20 | | | | What to know about California's new 'Zone Zero' fire-safety proposal - Los Angeles Times | | After years of heated debates among fire officials, scientists and local advocates, California’s Board of Forestry and Fire Protection released new proposed landscaping rules for fire-prone areas Friday that outline what residents can and can’t do within the first five feet of their homes.
Many of these proposed rules — designed to reduce the risk of a home burning down amid a wildfire — have wide support (or at least acceptance); however, the most contentious by far has been whether the state would allow healthy plants in the zone.
Many fire officials and safety advocates have essentially argued anything that can burn, will burn and have supported removing virtually anything capable of combustion from this zone within five feet of houses, dubbed “Zone Zero.” They point to the string of devastating urban wildfires in recent years as reason to move quickly.
Yet, researchers who study the array of benefits shade and extra foliage can bring to neighborhoods — and local advocates who are worried about the money and labor needed to comply with the regulations — have argued that this approach goes beyond what current science shows is effective. They have, instead, generally been in favor of allowing green, healthy plants within the zone.
The new draft regulations attempt to bridge the gap. They outline more stringent requirements to remove all plants in a new “Safety Zone” within a foot of the house and within a bigger buffer around potential vulnerabilities in a home’s wildfire armor, including windows that can shatter in extreme heat and wooden decks that can easily burst into flames. Everywhere else, the rules would allow residents to maintain some plants, although still with significant restrictions.
The rules generally do not require the removal of healthy trees — instead, they require giving these trees routine haircuts. [Article] | | by , Los Angeles Times. 2026-04-20 | | | | Cheap batteries are taking over the world’s power grids - Los Angeles Times | | Around the world, a wave of mega installations of batteries are lining up to be connected to the grid this year — from solar hubs in Texas to grasslands in inner Mongolia and the site of a former coal plant north of Sydney.
Falling costs and soaring energy demand from data centers had already set the stage for rapid growth. The war in the Middle East has helped accelerate the trend by lifting demand for alternatives to expensive fossil fuels, setting 2026 up to be the year batteries become influential in the global energy system. BloombergNEF analysts had already expected installations to jump by about a third this year, led by expansion in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. That momentum could build further if fuel disruptions persist.
Signs of the ramp-up are already emerging. A Chinese battery manufacturer has forecast a sharp rise in first-quarter profit as global demand picks up. In Vietnam, a developer is seeking approval to replace a planned LNG-to-power project with renewables paired with storage, citing the surge in fuel costs linked to the war.
“We’ve now crossed into a point where anytime anyone is looking at investing in the power system, batteries are one of the most attractive options,” said Brent Wanner, head of the power sector unit at the International Energy Agency. “Battery storage systems will continue to grow for the foreseeable future.”
In markets flooded with solar and wind — technologies that have been built out significantly since the last energy crisis in 2022 — battery operators can buy electricity when it’s cheap and sell it when demand peaks. Where grids once relied on coal and gas when renewable output dipped, storage technology is now becoming cheap and fast enough to make a difference in how the grid functions. Average costs have dropped by around 75% from 2018 to 2025, according to BNEF, and are expected to tumble another 25% through 2035. [Article] | | by , Los Angeles Times. 2026-04-20 | | | | You Think L.A. Smog is Bad Now? Let’s Set the Record Straight ~ L.A. TACO | | Professor Ann Carlson’s new book, “Smog and Sunshine: The Surprising Story of How Los Angeles Cleaned Up Its Air,” is for anyone who’s ever given a damn about the air we breathe in this city ... and for anyone with a tendency to fall into Wikipedia rabbit holes, hungry to learn about information you’d never thought could be connected.
As the founding director of UCLA Law’s Emmett Institute on Climate Change & the Environment, Carlson specializes in environmental law and has taught at UCLA since 1994.
Since her book uses a scientific, non-fictional foundation, some people may hesitate to pick it up, but Carlson maintains clear readability throughout the novel. She doesn’t hold the reader’s hand, but instead gives them a reliable peek into the insider baseball that exists within the world of L.A. smog prevention. [Article] | | by , . 2026-04-20 | | | | In Pasadena, a 600-goat herd is taking a bite out of fire fuel | | Over the next six to eight weeks, they’ll reduce fire risk by munching through invasive vegetation like mustard that can quickly turn into dangerous fuel.
The pilot program, led by the One Arroyo Foundation with city backing, combines an ancient technique with urgency around climate change, which the Eaton Fire that devastated parts of Pasadena bordering Altadena has only heightened. [Article] | | by , . 2026-04-20 | | | | Contributor: Focus on the real causes of the shortage in hormone treatments - Los Angeles Times | | For months now, menopausal women across the U.S. have been unable to fill prescriptions for the estradiol patch, a long-established and safe hormone treatment. The news media has whipped up a frenzy over this scarcity, warning of a long-lasting nationwide shortage. The problem is real — but the explanations in the media coverage miss the mark. Real solutions depend on an accurate understanding of the causes.
Reporters, pharmaceutical companies and even some doctors have blamed women for causing the shortage, saying they were inspired by a “menopause moment” that has driven unprecedented demand. Such framing does a dangerous disservice to essential health advocacy.
In this narrative, there has been unprecedented demand, and it is explained in part by the Food and Drug Administration’s recent removal of the “black-box warning” from estradiol patches’ packaging. That inaccurate (and, quite frankly, terrifying) label had been required since a 2002 announcement overstated the link between certain menopause hormone treatments and breast cancer. Right-sizing and rewording the warning was long overdue. But the trouble with this narrative is that even after the black-box warning was removed, there has not been unprecedented demand.
Around 40% of menopausal women were prescribed hormone treatments in some form before the 2002 announcement. Use plummeted in its aftermath, dipping to less than 5% in 2020 and just 1.8% in 2024. According to the most recent data, the number has now settled back at the 5% mark. Unprecedented? Hardly. Modest at best. [Article] | | by , Los Angeles Times. 2026-04-20 | | | | California's gas prices push Uber and Lyft drivers off the road - Los Angeles Times | | The highest gas prices in the country are making it tougher for some gig drivers to make a living.
Gas prices have shot up amid the war in the Middle East. On average, California gas prices are the most expensive in the United States, according to data from the American Automobile Assn. The average price of regular gas in California is almost $6. The national average is a little above $4.
While Uber and Lyft drivers have concocted clever ways to cut gas consumption, they say that without some relief they will be forced to leave the ride-hailing business.
John Mejia was already struggling to make money as a part-time Lyft driver when soaring gas prices made his side hustle even harder.
“Unfortunately, it’s the economics of paying less to drivers and gas prices,” he said. “It actually is pulling people out of the business.”
Gig work offers drivers the freedom to work for themselves and more flexibility, but being independent contractors also means they must shoulder unexpected costs.
Ride-sharing companies say they’re trying to help, but drivers say the gas relief comes with caveats. For now, drivers say they’re being pickier about what rides they accept, cutting hours and are looking at other ways to make money.
Mejia, who started driving for Lyft more than a decade ago, said in his early days, he would sometimes make $400 in three hours. Now it takes 12 hours to rake in $200.
The San Francisco Bay Area consultant is an active member of the California Gig Workers Union, so he knows he isn’t alone. California has more than 800,000 gig rideshare drivers, according to the group, which is affiliated with the Service Employees International Union. [Article] | | by , Los Angeles Times. 2026-04-20 | | | | A landslide brought it down: How Rancho Palos Verdes’ beloved trails have been forever altered | | The area was once green rolling hills offering spectacular views of the Pacific Ocean and Catalina Island. Now, much of the land is riddled with 20-foot chasms, some of which span 12 feet.
For decades, land movement was minimal. But above-average rainfall in 2022 and 2023 rapidly accelerated — up to 1 foot per week in some places — prompting Southern California Edison and SoCalGas to shut off utilities for hundreds of residents. [Article] | | by , . 2026-04-20 | | | | Contributor: California is now the front line of America’s maternal mortality crisis - Los Angeles Times | | California has become a refuge for reproductive care, but it’s now absorbing the consequences of a national public health failure. The United States has one of the highest maternal mortality rates among high-income countries, and it’s only getting worse.
A growing body of research shows that abortion bans are driving this crisis, increasing preventable deaths, especially among communities already burdened by systemic inequities. The Women’s Reproductive Rights Assistance Project (WRRAP), a national abortion fund headquartered in Los Angeles, is witnessing this surge firsthand, as more patients cross state lines and require financial support to access even the most basic, time-sensitive care.
Maternal mortality has traditionally reflected deep structural problems in a healthcare system that fails to serve all people equally. In 2024, the U.S. maternal mortality rate ticked upward again, reversing a brief decline and demonstrating that the crisis is far from over. Experts point to a range of causes, including reduced access to prenatal care, maternity care deserts and strained hospital systems; all problems intensified in states with severe abortion restrictions and in cities like Minneapolis and Chicago that have faced the increased presence of ICE agents.
A comprehensive analysis by the Gender Equity Policy Institute published in April 2025 shows that people living in states that have banned abortion are nearly twice as likely to die during pregnancy, childbirth or soon after compared with those in states where abortion remains legal and accessible. What’s more, in states where abortion has remained legal, maternal mortality has declined by about 21% since 2022, indicating that access to comprehensive reproductive care saves lives.
Restricting abortion does more than eliminate a medical procedure; it forces people to carry pregnancies that pose very real health risks. Childbirth carries risks from hemorrhage and infection to hypertensive disorders and cardiac events and the risk of death from pregnancy is at least 44 times higher than from abortion. When abortion is inaccessible, people are compelled to continue unwanted or medically unsafe pregnancies, increasing deaths that could otherwise have been prevented. WRRAP helps patients overcome these barriers through funding, but the surge in need reflects a system increasingly failing to provide care at the point of service. [Article] | | by , Los Angeles Times. 2026-04-20 | | | | New COVID subvariant 'Cicada' is on the rise in California - Los Angeles Times | | A highly mutated COVID-19 strain is circulating in California — raising concerns that disease activity could rise heading into the summer.
The emergence of the BA.3.2 strain, nicknamed “Cicada,” comes amid broader uneasiness about COVID vaccination rates among seniors — who are especially susceptible to the virus — and whether complacency after back-to-back relatively quiet winters has left the elderly vulnerable. The “Cicada” nickname refers to this subvariant’s apparent dormancy before it reemerged in 2025, akin to some periodically active insects of the same name.
The timing of the spread of the Cicada subvariant also underscores that COVID has lately morphed into more of a summer disease in California. In fact, the summer peaks of COVID in 2024 and 2025 were worse than their respective winter peaks, according to the California Department of Public Health — a stark departure from the earlier years of the pandemic, when winter surges ripped through California with devastating regularity.
Instead it was the flu that was the dominant respiratory virus the last two winters, with this past season considered moderately severe.
“This Cicada variant may be increasing just in time for what for COVID is more of a summer hit,” said Dr. Neil Silverman, director of the Infections in Pregnancy Program at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. “COVID doesn’t seem to play by the same rules that influenza tends to play by, where its cycle is predictable.” [Article] | | by , Los Angeles Times. 2026-04-20 | | | | Southern California home prices take biggest dip since 2023 – Orange County Register | | Are Southern California home prices finally beginning to crumble?
According to data from real estate tracker Attom, February’s $800,000 median sales price for the six-county region was down 2% compared with a year earlier. Attom tracks sales of houses and condos, both existing homes and newly constructed. [Article] | | by , Orange County Register. 2026-04-20 | | |
| Showing matches 1 through 20 | |
|
|
|
|
|
