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The sound of applause has scarcely died down in the Capitol after last week’s vote to significantly expand Califoia’s requirements to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Proponents who steered the groundbreaking legislation are still basking in the afterglow of an effort that—after seeming on the brink of defeat—deftly mustered unexpected support and reaffirmed the state’s inteational leadership on climate change. But such is the unsentimentality of politics: Someone has to pop the pretty balloons and sweep up the confetti. For all that was achieved by the passage of SB 32—extending the original 2006 law and setting a new target of reducing statewide emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels b...

STINSON BEACH >> The sleek, flapping salmon that fishermen hauled aboard the rolling Salty Lady charter boat near the Golden Gate Bridge were the survivors of the survivors. After five years of drought, the native Chinook salmon that the men were reeling in this past week were there only because state and federal agencies have stepped in to do much of the salmon-raising that Califoia’s overtapped rivers once did. Most of the fish were bo at the agencies’ hatcheries and carried in trucks for release downstream. As the men watched and waited for one of their fishing poles to dip sharply, Victor Gonella, president of the Golden Gate Salmon Association, remembered his childhood in the 195...

A group of students at Rim of the World High School in Lake Arrowhead have created a stir for displaying Confederate flags, staked into the beds of their pickup trucks, in the school parking lot. On Friday, two Ford pickups, parked side-by-side, sat parked in the school parking lot, one Confederate flag and one American flag displayed in the bed of each truck. The black pickup also sported stickers from Patriot Alliance, an online retailer of clothing, National Rifle Association, and Donald Trump campaign signs. Also on Friday, Ruing Springs resident Jeifer Celise-Reyes, whose daughter began her freshman year at the high school last month, said she sent emails to school board president Cind...

SAN FRANCISCO >> Califoia’s $64 billion high-speed rail plan lacks reliable funding sources and is in danger of ending up with only one line that doesn’t coect to San Francisco or Los Angeles, members of a Congressional panel said Monday during a hearing. Proceeds from a state environment program that is supposed to help fund the project were far below expectations and private funding for the train has yet to materialize, Rep. Doug LaMalfa, a Califoia Republican, said. “Where is the money going to come from,” LaMalfa asked Dan Richard, chairman of the rail authority’s board. Richard said private firms have expressed interest in the system but want to see the first leg up and ruing. Th...

Between 1999 and 2013, Califoia’s Academic Performance Index boiled everything about the state’s K-12 public schools down to a single number between 200 and 1000. That’s going away in a new, more nuanced system that’s now under construction. In the old model, the desirability of neighborhoods or even whole communities in large part hinged on their API score. Careers were made or lost based on how far a school or district was from the magic 800 target number. And under the federal No Child Left Behind law, failure to steadily increase an API score — even an already high one — could mean dire trouble for a school or district. But the API was only based on the results of standardized tests tak...

GORMAN >> Authorities are seeking a man and woman suspected of killing a woman, kidnapping her three small children and leaving the state, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said. Arrest warrants have been issued for Joshua Robertson, 27, and Brittany Humphrey, 22, the sheriff’s department said in a statement Tuesday night. They are suspected of killing Kimberly Harvill, whose body was discovered Sunday in brush along a remote road in northe LA County in the unincorporated Lebec area near Interstate 5. Authorities believe the suspects also kidnapped Harvill’s three children, 2-year-old Josly Watkins, 3-year-old Brayden Watkins and 5-year-old Rylee Watkins. They say the couple...

SAN FRANCISCO >> Califoia’s latest carbon auction brought disappointing results Tuesday as litigation and lagging support by lawmakers weigh down the state’s landmark programs combating climate change. State officials said only 34u2009percent of the available carbon pollution credits were sold in the latest auction under the program, which requires companies that emit climate-changing gases to buy the pollution permits. It was a slight rebound from this spring, when investors bought just 10u2009percent of the pollution credits offered, signaling a rocky period for the state’s overall campaign against climate-changing pollution from fossil fuels. The cap-and-trade program is a keystone...

DEL MAR >> Remember when some were calling Califoia Chrome a weak Kentucky Derby wier in 2014? Some in Louisville cringed the day he won the country’s most famous horse race. He wasn’t a mile and a quarter horse, they claimed beforehand. Wonder what those same folks are saying today after Califoia Chrome toyed with arguably the toughest Pacific Classic field in the Del Mar race’s 26 ruings Saturday, demolishing a field that included three-time Eclipse Award wier Beholder and the highly respected Dortmund. Final tally? Califoia Chrome by five lengths under a perfect ride by Victor Espinoza, who guided the 5-year-old son of Lucky Pulpit to a gate-to-wire victory through fractions of 23....

RIO DE JANEIRO >> In the shadow of mighty Usain Bolt, Allyson Felix achieved something unprecedented in women’s track and field Friday by wiing her fifth Olympic gold medal. And together with the rest of the 4x100-meter relay team, she brought the United States closer to its biggest medal haul in decades. The tally could have been higher, too, had the U.S. men’s 4x100 team not been disqualified after finishing third in the subsequent final. The women’s team was smooth, despite the rocky path to the final. Ruing the second leg in the relay, Felix kept the U.S. up there with the mighty Jamaicans, before English Gardner and Tori Bowie brought the baton, tightly clenched in their hands, ho...

If it seems like toxic algae blooms are appearing almost everywhere across Califoia this summer, that’s because they are. “We’re getting blooms in areas that we’ve not seen them before or not known to have been there before,” said Beverley Anderson-Abbs, an environmental scientist for the State Water Resources Control Board’s Surface Water Ambient Monitoring Program. A new interactive map on the Califoia Water Quality Monitoring Council’s website shows the more than 30 lakes and rivers across the state where blooms of cyanobacteria, commonly known as blue-green algae, have developed. In some cases, the blooms are producing dangerous toxins that sicken people and animals, prompting no-swimmin...

Don’t let French toast bacon bombs or deep-fried Oreos or adorable pig races fool you: Califoia’s county fairs are very big businesses, run with a startling variety of managerial prowess. Southe Califoia News Group examined data for 70 fairs, including those across Southe Califoia, and found that they hauled in a total of $363.2 million in 2014, the latest year statewide information is available. But fully half of the fairs examined – 35 – operated in the red, spending more money than they took in. “Fairs that are losing money should reconfigure the mix of attractions to offer the young generation, since their interests can be very different from their parents’ interests,” said Raymond Sfei...

A nonprofit known for training people to give great speeches has clammed up about efforts to move its worldwide headquarters out of Southe Califoia. The silence from Toastmasters Inteational executives no doubt stems from an opposition campaign launched by a proud Torrance member who decries the group’s lack of transparency. With 179 employees and 345,000 members in 15,900 clubs in 142 countries, Toastmasters will hold a vote this week at its Inteational Convention in Washington, D.C., on a proposal to move to Denver from Rancho Santa Margarita, where the organization’s home base has been since 1990. A two-thirds vote is required for approval. The Toastmasters board recommended in 2015 on i...

Everyone knows home prices are high in Southe Califoia. It’s a reality that has prevented many people from owning a home, and it has become a challenge for businesses seeking to attract out-of-state talent and for companies looking to move their operations here. Recent figures from price tracker CoreLogic show the region’s median price for June was $464,000, up 5 percent from $442,000 a year earlier. Median prices are significantly higher in some local cities, including Beverly Hills (nearly $2.9 million), Manhattan Beach ($2.5 million) and San Marino ($2.3 million). But there’s another level of ultra-pricey homes in Southe Califoia that is simply off the charts. These homes have astronomic...

LOWER LAKE, Calif. — A wind-whipped wildfire roared through a Northe Califoia town threatened by a devastating blaze a year ago, wiping out more than 100 homes and businesses and forcing thousands of people to flee, authorities said Monday. The fire seemed calm Sunday before gusts kicked up the flames that tore through neighborhoods in Lower Lake, a rural town about 90 miles north of San Francisco, officials said. No one was injured, but it reached Main Street and bued the post office, a winery, an antiques store, a historic firehouse and the Habitat for Humanity office. “This fire roared through the city like a wave of water — it was a wave of fire that came through here,” said Lt. Doug Pi...

Everyone knows home prices are high in Southe Califoia. It’s a reality that has prevented many people from owning a home, and it has become a challenge for businesses seeking to attract out-of-state talent and for companies looking to move their operations here. Recent figures from price tracker CoreLogic show the region’s median price for June was $464,000, up 5 percent from $442,000 a year earlier. Median prices are significantly higher in some local cities, including Beverly Hills (nearly $2.9 million), Manhattan Beach ($2.5 million) and San Marino ($2.3 million). But there’s another level of ultra-pricey homes in Southe Califoia that is simply off the charts. These homes have astronomic...

RIO DE JANEIRO >> Simone Biles won her third gold medal of these Olympic Games with a blowout victory in the vault at Rio Olympic Arena Sunday afteoon. Biles average score of 15.966 was more than seven-tenths of a point greater than the score of ruer-up Maria Paseka of Russia (15.253). Biles, who already won team and individual all-around titles still has three individual events left and is expected to leave Rio with at least five gold medals, the most by a woman gymnast in an Olympic Games. Orange County’s Sam Mikulak had another rough day at the Olympic gymnastics venue, finishing eighth in the floor exercise at 14.333. Max Whitlock of Great Britain won the event with a score of 15....

The Bay Area, home of your Zuckerbergs and Steyers and some of the country’s most expensive ZIP codes, seems like a logical answer. Over the past decade, what other part of Califoia has minted as many members of the “1 percent” as Silicon Valley? But according to research from the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of Califoia, income inequality in the Bay Area has worsened only marginally, at least when compared to other parts of the state. In 2007, Bay Area households at the top 10 percent of incomes made about 10.6 times what Bay Area households at the bottom 10 percent of incomes brought home. By 2014, they made about 11.6 times as much. While that 10 percent increase in the income gap...

RIO DE JANEIRO >> Michael Phelps held up four fingers as the wake of his Olympic Games 200-meter individual medley victory washed up against him on a historic night at the Olympic Aquatics Stadium. That’s four, as in four gold medals — four and counting — for Phelps at these Games. Four as in four career gold medals in the 200 IM. Phelps became the first swimmer in Olympic history to win the same event in four consecutive Games Thursday, blowing away the 200 IM field with perhaps his most dominating performance in Rio yet. Phelps touched the wall, an Olympic champion for the 22nd time, in 1-minute, 54.66 seconds, nearly two seconds ahead of Japan’s Kosuke Hagino. But Phelps had to sha...

Rio de Janeiro >> One step. One little hop at the end of the final routine of the final rotation at the end of more than two hours of an edge of your seat, breathtaking Olympic Games men’s all around final decided the gold medal. One step on Oleg Veiaiev of the Ukraine’s dismount on the high bar was the difference in Japan’s Kohei Uchimura defending his Olympic title and Veiaiev landing in a lifetime of being haunted by what if’s? “It was so close, the gold,” Veiaiev said. So close that the final margin between Uchimura and Veiaiev at the Rio Olympic Arena Wednesday night was but nine hundreths of a point—92.365 to 92.266. By the slimmest of margins Uchimura extended his dominance over...

RIO DE JANEIRO >> Kohei Uchimura’s gold-medal haul keeps growing. The superstar gymnast from Japan won the men’s all-around title Wednesday, edging Oleg Veiaiev by less than a tenth of the point to capture his second straight Olympic title. Uchimura trailed heading into the final rotation but put up a dazzling 15.8 on high bar. Veiaiev followed with a less challenging routine and hopped forward on the dismount. Needing 14.9 to win, Veiaiev instead eaed a 14.8. The crowd groaned when the score was revealed, though Veiaiev shrugged his shoulders as if to say “what can you do?” Max Whitlock of Great Britain was third, just ahead of Russia’s David Belyavskiy. Sam Mikulak of Newport Beach ...