Ben Christopher

Wildfires and expensive rebuilding wiped out profits among California home insurers. State Farm isn’t the first insurer to retreat from the state, and may not be the last.

The governor’s building plan would adjust an environmental law known for stalling housing, dams and other projects. One environmental group said, “we have never been more disappointed in a California governor than we are with Gov. Newsom.”

When will the law of supply and demand cool California’s housing market? The state is losing population as it builds homes at its fastest clip in more than a decade.

A California housing law grants generous benefits to builders who agree to only hire union workers. Trouble is, few if any builders found a way to do it.

Many more gun owners are seeking California concealed carry permits, even in blue, coastal counties. Gov. Newsom and Democrats in the Legislature are trying again to limit where weapons are allowed.

Silicon Valley Bank’s failure is a sign of weakness in the tech industry, and that could spell trouble for the state of California.

On Tuesday, the city council in the Orange County town of Huntington Beach — a regular fount of anti-Newsom sentiment — followed through on its pledge to pass an ordinance blocking a contentious state housing law within its sun-soaked borders.

California has two seemingly contradictory and potentially devastating problems:We have more water than we know what to do with — and more is on the way.We still don’t have nearly enough.

For a bill described by its author as “the most significant political reform of the last 50 years,” Senate Bill 1439 sure didn’t get much attention when it was working its way through the Legislature last year.

For the first time, a new state report offers a bird's-eye view of how much the state has spent to halt homelessness — nearly $10 billion over three years. Of the half-million Californians who made use of those services, more than 40% ended up housed. Which also means the majority did not, or the state lost track of their whereabouts.

In 2021, it was big news — the “California exodus.” Now, it just looks like the new trend: California’s population is still shrinking.

For northern California housing politics, judgment day has come.