California Insider

Street takeovers can form quickly, leaving drivers, bystanders, and police facing a dangerous situation in the middle of a public road. In California, large groups can appear before authorities have much time to respond.

Some of these gatherings can form and disperse within a short window. By the time police can mobilize, much of the event may already have played out.

Heather Mac Donald, the Thomas W. Smith Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal, and Deon Joseph, an SoCal senior lead officer with 30 years on the job, join us to examine what is happening around these street takeovers and why they can be so difficult to contain once they begin.

*Views expressed in this video/article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of California Insider.

In the Bay Area, AI is bringing renewed attention and investment to Silicon Valley at the same time that many technology companies are expanding outside California. The region can remain important to a company even when more of its growth happens somewhere else.

The movement out of California is only part of the story. Companies can remain closely connected to Silicon Valley as they grow their hiring and operations elsewhere.

Aman Verjee, founder and general partner at Practical Venture Capital, explains what continues to draw AI companies to Silicon Valley and why that relationship can change as they grow. His view suggests California’s place in the AI economy is more complicated than either a comeback or a continuing exodus.

*Views expressed in this video/article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of California Insider.

Crime statistics say things are improving in California, yet for some residents, that reading does not square with what they notice in their own communities. When the official numbers and what people experience seem to point in different directions, it becomes harder to know what each is telling us.

Part of the difficulty is what never enters the official record. Some victims choose not to report crimes to police, so what the statistics can capture, and what may remain outside them, is an open question.

Patricia Wenskunas, founder and CEO of Crime Survivors, Inc., and Michael Gates, former Huntington Beach City attorney and candidate for California Attorney General, bring two different perspectives to that question. Their conversation examines what happens before an incident is included in the official crime data and what may be missed along the way.

*Views expressed in this video/article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of California Insider.

California voters can read a ballot title and still be left wondering what a measure would mean in practice. This November, 14 statewide propositions put some consequential policy choices into just a few lines of ballot language.

A title can do more than summarize a measure. A name that sounds reassuring can influence a voter’s first impression before they read what the proposal would change, giving those few words more weight than they may seem to carry.

Will Swaim, CEO of the California Policy Center, joins us to go through the propositions one by one and examine what each would change beyond its title. The conversation offers voters a way to read the ballot more closely, whether or not they agree with his conclusions.

*Views expressed in this video/article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of California Insider.

For families struggling to find a home they can afford, an available affordable unit can mean stability after months or even years of waiting. Yet in parts of California’s affordable housing system, some units are sitting empty while the need remains high.

That gap affects more than housing statistics. It reaches the families still waiting and focuses on a harder issue: what happens after affordable housing is built, when some of those homes remain vacant?

In this episode, Tia Boatman Patterson, president and CEO of the California Community Reinvestment Corporation, and Jim Righeimer, chief executive officer at Arbor Capital Partners, examine what they are seeing in California’s affordable housing system and what may be happening between an open unit and the person waiting for a home.

*Views expressed in this video/article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of California Insider.

When a major industrial fire burns near a community, the danger is visible at first. Once the flames are put out and the smoke begins to clear, residents can still be left wondering what was in the air and whether the risk has passed.

That can become harder to judge when the effects reach beyond the immediate fire site, and residents do not always have clear information about their level of risk.

Physicist C. Michael Hogan joins us to explain what determines the area of concern around these fires and what that can mean for nearby residents after the visible emergency is over. Kim Bright, Founder of Brightcore, then looks at another concern tied to the aftermath of major fires.

*Views expressed in this video/article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of California Insider.

Security guards have become a more visible part of daily life in California, and the job itself has grown more demanding. Most people pass them at hospitals and businesses without thinking about what it takes to put someone there.

Now something is being decided about what that protection costs and how it gets provided. For an industry this large, a change meant to help can carry consequences that are difficult to judge before it takes effect.

David Chandler, president of the California Association of Licensed Security Agencies, Guards and Associates (CALSAGA), joins us from the security industry.

Enrique Lopezlira, director of the Low-Wage Work Program at the UC Berkeley Labor Center, brings research expertise.

Christopher Thornberg, founding partner of Beacon Economics, looks at what California’s recent labor rules can tell us about the questions surrounding this proposal.

*Views expressed in this video/article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of California Insider.

Families often choose communities like Ladera Ranch because they want a safe place to raise their children. In this Orange County community, several families have reported normally rare cancers affecting young people, with some only learning later that other families nearby had faced similar cases.

As more families came forward, the community was left with a question that remains unanswered: are these cases connected, and if so, what connects them? Residents are seeking a formal investigation while the cause remains unknown, and there are still questions about whether what they are seeing is limited to Ladera Ranch.

John Gresko, a Ladera Ranch resident, joins us to explain how the community is responding while it waits for answers, and what that process looks like in an unincorporated community with no city government of its own.

*Views expressed in this video/article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of California Insider.

Los Angeles has committed large sums to homelessness, yet residents continue to see people living on sidewalks and under overpasses. The distance between the public effort and what remains visible on the street has become difficult to ignore.

The total amount spent tells only part of the story. A second question is what happens once those resources enter the system and whether the approach being funded is built to move people toward the outcome residents expect.

Kenneth Schrupp, an investigative reporter at City Journal, interviewed more than 200 homeless people across Los Angeles and entered the Skid Row Care Campus. Zach Southall, director and founder of Charity on Wheels, has spent 15 years working directly with people on the street in Orange County. They join California Insider to explain what they have seen on the ground—and what a workable approach to helping people leave the street would actually require.

*Views expressed in this video/article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of California Insider.

Most people never think about the pipes running beneath their street until one breaks. In Los Angeles, a 110-year-old water line ruptured, lifting the pavement and flooding businesses and cars before crews could isolate it.

While everyone sees the flooding part of the problem, the condition underneath, or how prepared a water system is before something goes wrong, remains largely out of sight.

Brett Barbre, director at Yorba Linda Water District, joins us to explain what happens before crews reach a major break, and what residents can look for when judging whether their own district is keeping up.

*Views expressed in this video/article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of California Insider.