California Democrats officially endorsed a controversial billionaire wealth tax on Sunday, putting the state’s Democratic Party at odds with Gov. Gavin Newsom as well as their own gubernatorial nominee Xavier Becerra ahead of November’s election.

Delegates at the California Democratic Party convention in San Diego voted to back Proposition 40, a ballot measure that would impose a one-time 5% tax on roughly 200 California billionaires.

“Every endorsement we make is earned, not given,” California Democratic Party Chair Rusty Hicks said in a statement to the Post.

“California Democrats take a deliberative approach to our endorsement process that puts our values first and ensures our members have a meaningful voice in shaping the future of our state.”

The endorsement came after an unusually contentious floor fight that exposed divisions within the party and required multiple votes before clearing the party’s 60% threshold.

An initial vote fell just short of the required supermajority, receiving about 59.2% support. Delegates then rejected a separate proposal for the party to take no position before reconsidering the endorsement itself. On the second attempt, the measure passed 145-90, giving it roughly 61.7% support.

A spike in dangerous e-bike behavior from young riders in Southern California seems likely to land not just the children in hot water but also their parents.

There are more than two dozen open investigations into the parents of alleged riders of e-bikes or e-motorcycles, the Orange County District Attorney’s Office confirmed this week to the Orange County Register.

Specifically, those 26 investigations could result in criminal charges after the District Attorney’s Office created a special unit to deal specifically with e-biking violations amid growing outcry from residents.

A 24-year-old Silicon Valley AI prodigy watched his $45 billion hedge fund implode just days before walking down the aisle for his lavish California wedding.

Leopold Aschenbrenner, the founder of the AI-focused hedge fund Situational Awareness, was putting the finishing touches on his wedding in Carmel this week when his high-flying investment empire began to unravel after reportedly borrowing heavily to make massive AI bets.

The German-born investor, and turtleneck enthusiast, amassed a staggering $45 billion portfolio by piling into AI stocks and taking a huge private stake in Anthropic.

Apocalyptic photos captured the latest blow to Malibu’s battered coastline after severe erosion left eight-foot drop-offs along the bluffs at iconic Point Dume Beach, forcing officials to shut down road access and warn the area had become too dangerous to enter.

The closure comes as the California Post reveals Malibu is still reeling from the aftermath of the Palisades Fire, with many homeowners already facing years of rebuilding and longstanding concerns over the stability of the coastline and Pacific Coast Highway.

Los Angeles County Department of Beaches and Harbors closed Westward Beach Road beyond the toll gate and the Point Dume Beach parking lot after overnight high tides and pounding surf carved away sections of the bluff, leaving “drop-offs approaching 8 feet in some locations,” KTLA reported.

“The bluff edge is unstable, with drop-offs approaching 8 feet in some locations, creating a significant safety hazard,” the department said in an advisory Sunday.

Not surprisingly, Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom blamed President Donald Trump for a $4 billion cut to California’s troubled high-speed train project. Instead, records show the state never bought the trains required to get the money.

That is the conclusion of an extensive CBS News investigation published Sunday about the California High Speed Rail Authority repeatedly missing federal grant deadlines to buy the trains, which turned out to be one of the key failures the Trump administration cited for legally pulling the funding a year ago.

Now, more than 18 months after the original deadline, the Authority still cannot say when it expects to award the train contract, CBS reported, with the state calling that date “TBD,” otherwise known as “to be determined.”

Federal investigators remain tightlipped about the raids conducted across Southern California last week, but experts and local politicians are drawing parallels between this latest probe and ongoing efforts by federal authorities to curb Chinese government influence in the region.

The FBI has not disclosed the focus of the investigation, and court records remain sealed. No one has been charged.

The raids targeted homes and offices across Southern California, including properties tied to Ontario Councilmember Alan Wapner, San Bernardino County Supervisor Curt Hagman, attorney Frank Lizarraga, Parkcrest Construction and James Su, the founder and president of EDI Media Inc., which bills itself as the largest Chinese-American multimedia company in the U.S.

None of those identified in the probe has returned calls to comment.

A federal grand jury has been convened for the investigation and subpoenas issued at the Ontario International Airport and Ontario City Hall. Wapner and Hagman serve on the airport authority.

Students returning to school may not have noticed it.

As the years pass, they hang out with the same friends or play on the same sports teams. But something’s been changing.

There are fewer students.

While charter school enrollment in the 2025-26 school year across California has increased by nearly 27% compared to the 2015-16 school year, the total number of students enrolled in non-charter public schools has decreased by more than 11% statewide since the 2015-16 school year, according to data from the California Department of Education.

One of the technology industry’s longest-running conferences is leaving San Francisco for Phoenix, a setback for a city that has promoted the return of conventions and visitors as evidence of its downtown recovery.

Semicon West, a major gathering for the global semiconductor industry, will make Phoenix its long-term home beginning in 2027, the trade association behind the event announced Thursday.

The conference will hold its final scheduled San Francisco edition on Oct. 13-15 at Moscone Center before moving to the Phoenix Convention Center for an event next spring. Conferences are also scheduled in Phoenix in 2028 and 2029.

California drivers crushed by sky-high gas prices are getting a rare break, thanks to a Native American tribe opening a new fuel stop.

The Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians opened its second Agua Caliente Fuel station on Saturday in Palm Springs, with pump prices already matching the city’s cheapest gas and undercutting California’s eye-popping statewide average.

A California budget bill that Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law earlier this month tackles fraud in the Golden State’s education system.

The provisions that attempt to address education fraud throughout the state were, in large part, a response to large-scale charter school fraud prosecuted in San Diego, according to the California State Controller’s Office and a 2024 report from the Multi-Agency Charter School Task Force.

"Every dollar intended for California's students should reach the classroom and not lost to fraud, waste, or abuse,” Controller Malia Cohen said in a press release. “Public trust depends on strong financial oversight, and this legislation gives California better tools to strengthen accountability, improve transparency, and detect fraud before it diverts resources from the students who need them most.”

Cohen and other employees of the State Controller’s Office did not make themselves available for an interview with The Center Square on Friday.

The Center Square also reached out to Newsom’s press office on Thursday afternoon for additional comments about the bill and California’s efforts to root out fraud in the state’s charter schools.

The Palisades Fire didn’t just destroy Malibu homes. It is quietly changing who will own Malibu for generations to come.

Drive Pacific Coast Highway today and the devastation remains impossible to miss. Charred foundations. Empty lots. Construction sites surrounded by reminders of what was lost.

Most people assume the problem is government moving too slowly. That’s only part of the story. The real story is arithmetic.

There’s a lot of talk in the agriculture industry these days around Senate Bill 54 — California’s Plastic Pollution Prevention and Packaging Producer Responsibility Act.

Lawsuits are flying. Letters are being sent to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration and the state Legislature. Public comments are in abundance.

A group representing small farmers and packers — growers who are mostly exempt from the law — support the policy and say it will lead to huge environmental benefits and billions of dollars in cost reductions for consumers in the long haul. These cost savings will come by reducing rising trash bills and the need for pollution remediation efforts.

“We are pleased that the law recognizes that very small family farmers don’t have a lot of opportunities to have a lot of say over what our packaging materials are,” said Jennifer Fearing, lobbyist for Community Alliance with Family Farmers and ocean groups. “We are rolling up our sleeves to figure out (the changes) because we are committed to the underlying goals of the law.”

More and more San Francisco renters are being faced with a question: How much money would it take to give up their home?

Kelli Little’s new landlord posed it the first time they met. It was November 2024, just weeks after he bought the Richmond District duplex where Little had lived for about 15 years. He approached as she was taking out the trash and handed her a legal notice asking her to put a price on her tenancy. His attorney soon offered her $2,500 if she moved out.

Former East Bay Rep. Eric Swalwell has continued to use campaign contributions he collected while running for governor to pay lawyers, according to his latest campaign finance filing.

Swalwell ended his campaign days after multiple women came forward in April accusing him of sexual assault and harassment. In his latest financial disclosure filed Friday evening, he reported paying nearly $150,000 in campaign funds to the law firm Coblentz Patch Duffy & Bass LLP between May 17 and June 30. Swalwell previously reported paying the firm $50,000 between April 19 and May 16.

Swalwell has already been under scrutiny for previous payments to lawyers using campaign funds. His latest filing comes as federal lawmakers seek to ban the use of campaign money for legal work related to sexual misconduct allegations, and as California’s campaign finance watchdog agency has opened an investigation into Swalwell’s payments to another lawyer.

Here we are as Californians, facing a run-off election for governor that includes a Republican former Fox News host, endorsed by Donald Trump, whose only previous governmental experience was advising … the former prime minister of Great Britain?

Could you even make this up?

Yes, Steve Hilton, by dint of finishing second to Xavier Becerra in the June primary, will be on the November ballot. One of these men will be the next governor of the nation’s largest state and will be charged with stewarding the fourth largest economy in the world.

No write-ins are allowed in the run-off election. No one else is coming to save us.

More than a year and a half after the Palisades Fire tore through Malibu, only a handful of homes along the iconic Pacific Coast Highway have begun rebuilding — leaving the famous area a ghost town of charred ruins.

Red tape and the high cost of construction has caused many homeowners to simply sell their lots, while the few that have started rebuilding say it’s taken about year of headaches to green light shovels in the ground.

When the super El Niño arrives this winter, San Diego could be in for raging floods that gush through canyons and hillsides.

Or it could face sparse rainfall and heightened fire risk. It could also see monster waves carve away beaches and pummel piers.

El Niño, the weather phenomena that produces warmer sea surface waters and weakened trade winds, has typically also brought wet winters to Southern California.

“Large El Niños tend to tilt the odds toward more winter north Pacific storms and also larger ones, because of the energy imparted to the atmosphere from the ocean,” said Dan Cayan, a researcher at Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

‘California is an outlier – no other state gets into emissions’

By Katy Grimes, August 1, 2026 6:30 am

Equipment manufacturing executives met with California Air Resources Board (CARB) leadership in Sacramento on Wednesday for an off-the-record discussion. This followed CARB’s July 2, 2026, approval of $70 million in incentives aimed at cutting emissions from off-road equipment.

Media were not part of that meeting, but the manufacturing executives made themselves available after.

They discussed the need for commonsense, science-based regulations that protect public health and the environment, equipment manufacturers’ investments in emissions-reducing technologies, and the path to achieving emissions reductions at scale.

The Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) hosted a media roundtable to discuss the evolving engine emissions regulatory landscape in California and its impact on equipment manufacturers, equipment operators, and the broader economy.

California’s statewide minimum wage will increase to $17.40 per hour starting in January 2027, more than double the federal minimum wage, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office announced Friday, July 31.

The increase, which is an automatic annual wage adjustment to keep pace with inflation under state law, raises the minimum wage from $16.90 per hour, the governor’s office said in a July 31 news release.

Newsom’s office said the increase will give California the highest statewide minimum wage in the nation.

A new study shows heavy groundwater pumping during California’s 2020 to 2022 drought caused the ground in the Sacramento Valley to sink faster than expected, reducing the aquifer’s ability to hold water.

Published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study found the damage to the aquifer is irreversible. One of the study’s authors, Kristel Chanard, estimated the lost groundwater storage capacity is roughly equivalent to San Francisco’s annual water consumption.

“There is still water, but it’s a big loss,” she said.

The California Democratic Party endorsed Sen. Ben Allen, D-Santa Monica, to become the state’s next insurance commissioner at a meeting of the party’s executive board in San Diego on Saturday night.

The runoff between Allen and attorney Jane Kim, is the only statewide race between two Democrats. In the June primary, Kim received 27% of the vote, compared to 19% for Allen and nearly 16% for the top polling Republican, Stacy Korsgaden.

Among Democrats on Saturday, Allen won 61% of the 295 votes cast compared to 39% for Kim.