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Listen to this article 0:00 / 2:23 1X BeyondWords California Gov. Gavin Newsom may be the Democratic Party's strongest choice to run for president if President Joe Biden bows out, longtime party strategist David Axelrod says. Axelrod, who served as former President Barack Obama's chief strategist, made the comments in a Wednesday statement to The New York Times. The 2024 presidential race has been a burning question for Democrats, with no clear heir to Biden and many party members skeptical of whether the president could or should run for a second term. "If the president were not to run, it’s...

Calls for rent control are heating up across the Gilded State, and not just from Silicon Valley either. From Santa Rosa to San Diego to Alameda to even Sacramento, we are seeing the affordable housing rhetoric move even deeper into the suburbs. Where once rent control was the province of high density urban areas, it is becoming the next new push for the entitlement generation. Simply put, there are more voters as renters than landlords. One thing government has become very good at as of late, especially in California, is beating up the ballot box minority. Business owners are not...

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) is up for re-election in November and her main opposition comes from Republican candidate Elizabeth Emken. While Emken would like to debate the three-term senator, Feinstein has rejected the idea. The Los Angeles Times thinks it is a good idea for the candidates to face off publicly. Last summer, after Emken won the Republican nomination, the Times published an editorial in favor of a debate: Sen. Dianne Feinstein had an excuse for not debating her opponents in the first round of this year’s election — there were 23 of them. But now that the voters have...

February 9, 2011 defining ideas California’s Crazy Climate Policy by Gary D. Libecap (Sherm and Marge Telleen Research Fellow and Cochair, Property Rights, Freedom, and Prosperity Task Force) The Global Warming Solutions Act makes no sense environmentally or economically. In 2006, the California Legislature enacted AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act that directed greenhouse gas emissions in the state to be at their 1990 level by 2020. To get a sense of what that means for the state, in 2006, California’s population already was 23 percent larger and its economy nearly a trillion dollars larger than in 1990, and...

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – Paradise is not lost, but it's in flames — again. The seasonal wildfires that menace this idyllic coastal city roared to life earlier than usual but with all-too-familiar ferocity, burning mansions to their foundations and forcing more than 13,000 to flee. Dozens of homes were destroyed, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said. "I knew it was time to leave," said Tom Morse, 62, a day after he dusted off his motorhome as the fire neared his Mission Canyon Heights house. "I could see the flames getting close." The 1,300-acre (2.03-square mile) fire was just the latest to ravage...

Sheriff’s deputies were looking Tuesday for a burglar who was shot at by an armed homeowner in the 13000 block of Telegraph Road, authorities said. The homeowner was alerted by a barking, growling family dog about 1:30 a.m. Tuesday, the Sheriff’s Department reported. The homeowner, armed with a handgun, walked down her hallway and found a man who had apparently forced his way into the house, deputies said. Deputies said the burglar “brazenly and antagonistically challenged the homeowner.” “Threatened by the aggressive behavior and fearing for her life,” the homeowner “fired in self-defense at the confrontational suspect,” the sheriff’s report...

Voter registration for Tuesday's election is about 700,000 higher than during the last California presidential primary four years ago. In December, statewide registration already had set a record for a presidential primary. The current registration is 15.7 million voters, compared to just more than 15 million for the 2004 primary. The secretary of state's office released the figures on Friday. The registration jump comes after California's presidential primary this year was changed from June to February. The move gives California - for the first time in years - a stake in deciding nominees for the two major political parties. Secretary...

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - America's growing appetite for exotic sushi may help preserve vanishing beds of seaweed seen as an important part of the ecosystem along the California coastline. Diners in sushi restaurants are eating ever greater amounts of sea urchin roe, known as Uni, creating a $23 million industry in California for harvesting the creatures, the California Sea Urchin Commission said this week. The spiny echinoderms, a potential peril to swimmers stepping on rocks, feast on kelp, which is dwindling along California's coastline. Divers in the state now harvest 800,000 pounds of Uni annually, the Sea Urchin Commission said,...

LOS ANGELES - Top aides to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger have skirted state regulations by accepting gifts such as sporting event tickets provided by companies, business groups and other special interests, the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday. California law allows officials to accept up to $340 in gifts in a year from any one special interest, but state officials have sidestepped the cap in several instances, according to a Times review of lobbying reports published on the newspaper's Web site. Five of Schwarznegger's senior aides and their families each accepted more than $340 in tickets to a Sacramento Kings basketball game...

<p>Governors always bring their own people with them when they assume power, but the way Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's staff is getting rid of some top officials is rattling nerves at the Capitol. The state's motor vehicle director was called on his cell phone a few hours after Schwarzenegger was sworn in Monday and told to immediately clear out his desk.</p>