Gavin Newsom

The act of vandalism reflect a chaotic environment for robotaxis in San Francisco, where public ire has risen after the dragging and bicyclist accidents. California lawmakers and labor unions rallied on Monday to call for laws to not allow autonomous trucks without human drivers, amid rising safety concerns after accidents involving self-driving taxis from General Motors and Alphabet. A robotaxi from Alphabet's Waymo was torched by people celebrating Chinese New Year on…

The woman gubernatorial candidate Gavin Newsom had an affair with when he was mayor of San Francisco spoke out about their relationship on Wednesday after questions about the liaison emerged in the governor’s race.Ruby Rippey Gibney said that although their relationship destroyed her home life, it probably shouldn’t be part of the discussion about sexual misconduct surrounding the #MeToo movement.“I fully support the #metoo movement. In this particular instance, however, I am doubtful that it applies,” Rippey Gibney…

For the first Real Time episode of 2024, Bill Maher sat down with California Gov. Gavin Newsom to talk about the Hollywood strikes last year. During their conversation, the governor defended his behind-the-scenes role during most of the actors and writers strikes that brought the film and TV industry to a halt for several months. Maher specifically asked Newsom why he didn’t get “more involved” to get the negotiations impacting one of the state’s largest industries resolved. “Why…

This story was originally published by Grist and co-published with Fresnoland. Sign up for Grist’s weekly newsletter here.Extreme Weather Events in 2022 | Extreme EarthThe land of the Central Valley works hard. Here in the heart of California, in the most productive farming region in the United States, almost every square inch of land has been razed, planted, and shaped to support large-scale agriculture. The valley produces almonds, walnuts, pistachios, olives, cherries, beans, eggs, milk, beef, melons, pumpkins, sweet…

California officials have recently voted to permanently protect the otherworldly western Joshua tree, as the desert plant faces challenges caused by development and climate change.Drought and Christmas Trees | Extreme EarthThe iconic trees will be protected under the Western Joshua Tree Conservation Act that was passed this Tuesday, The Guardian reported. This was part of California’s budget agreement. The act prohibits the unauthorized removal and killing of these plants. Those who are caught doing so will be fined, and…

After a wild winter of more than a dozen huge storms and record-breaking snowfall in the Sierra Nevadas, California’s big flood season is just getting started. Last week, the National Weather Service predicted that the Merced River could flood parts of Yosemite National Park, thanks to a combination of unseasonably warm temperatures and melting snowpack. Yosemite officials announced that the park would close in anticipation of the flooding. The Merced River runs through some of the park’s most popular areas. EarlyMonday…

California couldn’t catch a break from consecutive storms this winter. Heavy precipitation caused widespread flooding, while strong winds felled trees and damaged roads, power lines, and homes. The weeks of severe weather also turned fields into a muddy mess and disrupted work for the state’s many agricultural workers.The Mississippi River is Drying Out | Extreme EarthEster is one of those workers. She lives in Monterey County, which is along California’s central coastline and is known for grapes and wine production.…

BeReal, a popular new spontaneous image-sharing app designed to show life, “without filters,” had the highest proportion of child users exposed to sexual content of any major social media app, according to a new survey shared with Gizmodo. Larger apps like YouTube and TikTok had more overall incidents of exposure to sexual content, but users on BeReal were the most likely to actually interact with the content, the survey found. Similarly, the survey of parents showed BeReal had the highest proportion of child users who…

Sean Bothwell can understand why people think desalination is a silver bullet. When he was a kid living in California’s Orange County, the ocean was always close by. It didn’t make sense to him that all the water near him wasn’t usable.“I grew up thinking, like, why the heck aren’t we desalinating?” said Bothwell, who is now executive director of the California Coastkeeper Alliance. “Why are people always saying that we need to save water and conserve?”Now, a few decades later, California is in an even more dire…

This story was originally published by Grist. You can subscribe to its weekly newsletter here.Behind the Scenes at Gerard Piqué’s Kings League FinalsSpiking gas prices, spurred by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and oil industry profits of $200 billion prompted widespread calls last year for price-gouging investigations. President Biden even threatened to impose a windfall tax on Big Oil if it didn’t invest some of those record profits into lowering costs. But the sector’s financial secrecy, and its efforts to blame…