Water is the lifeblood of agriculture But as climate change brings more extreme weather, farming towns in the Central Valley face increasing risks from both drought and flooding. But an innovative solution is scaling up with new state investments.

Reporter: Tyche Hendricks, KQED 

About 30% of Head Start programs in California aren’t within easy walking distance to a transit stop for families with young children. That’s a problem, according to a new report, because access to transit is one of the biggest barriers for families who qualify for the federal early education program.

Reporter: Daisy Nguyen, KQED

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s been nearly two weeks since Hamas militants abducted nearly 200 people from Israel. Many foreign nationals, including at least 13 Americans, are among the hostages. Here in California, families of the hostages and supporters will be at the state Capitol early next week to demand the release of their loved ones.

Guest: Ryan Pessah, Sacramento Resident, Family Abducted by Hamas

California's U.S. Senate race took another surprise turn Thursday, as Senator Laphonza Butler says she will not run for a full-term next year. 

Reporter: Guy Marzorati, KQED 

California invested billions to help children bounce back from learning loss that happened during the pandemic. But students are still struggling to catch up. That’s according to new test scores out from the state’s Department of Education.

Reporter: Carolyn Jones, CalMatters

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A fast growing humanitarian crisis has erupted in Gaza because of the war between Hamas and Israel. More than 5,000 people have been killed since the war began last week. Conflict in this region has been going on for decades, causing many Palestinians to relocate or seek political asylum in other parts of the world, including here in California.

Reporter: Madi Bolaños, The California Report

Rampant disinformation about the Israeli/Hamas conflict has the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation calling on social media companies to do better.

Reporter: Rachael Myrow, KQED

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In more than a dozen California counties, a little-known rule in the Clean Air Act has forgiven air pollution – not from the sky, but from the record. After wildfires flourished across North America this year, more U.S. states east of the Mississippi may use this exceptional events rule to subtract smoke from the record, if not from the air we breathe. But these exceptional events are no longer exceptional, and the requests to obscure them from air-quality records are more common.

Reporter: Molly Peterson, The California Newsroom

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Thousands of migrant families who were separated at the U.S.-Mexico border by the Trump administration, will now get some benefits and a shot at asylum under a proposed settlement with the federal government. The agreement lets reunified families stay in the U.S. for three years and apply for permanent protection. 

Reporter: Tyche Hendricks, KQED

It's clear that artificial intelligence is here to stay. For colleges, this means figuring out how to regulate the use of it, while still encouraging students to engage with the software that will only grow in popularity.

Guest: Carolyn Jones, Education Reporter, CalMatters

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For the first time in California history, all coastal cities are now required to plan for sea level rise, a looming climate impact yet to be fully experienced. A new law requires those cities to come up with strategies and recommend projects to address future sea level rise by 2034.

Reporter: Ezra David Romero, KQED 

Climate change is taking a toll on farmworker communities in the Central Valley, from extreme heat and deteriorating air quality to drought and sporadic flooding. New state funding and grass roots organizations are working to help those communities manage the most immediate impacts of the worsening climate crisis.

Reporter: Tyche Hendricks, KQED

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hundreds of protesters in Los Angeles and San Francisco rallied against Governor Gavin Newsom’s veto of a bill that would have extended workplace safety protections to domestic workers.

Reporter: Farida Jhabvala Romero, KQED

The only public employees in California who can’t form a union are its legislative staffers. After four previous attempts failed, Governor Gavin Newsom recently signed landmark legislation to allow them to unionize in 2026.

Reporter: Laura Fitzgerald

A new law was designed to make prisons safer for transgender people. However, the well-meaning law created unwelcome consequences for many transgender women in California prisons.

Reporter: Lee Romney

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Attorneys representing people who reported being sexually assaulted during Uber rides are seeking safety improvements from the company, as part of a new consolidated lawsuit.

Reporter: Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman, KQED

Governor Gavin Newsom has signed a bill extending a state law that makes it easier to build affordable housing in cities that have failed to meet state housing goals.

Reporter: Guy Marzorati, KQED

A bill passed in 2002 created a pilot program that allowed Mexican physicians to practice in disadvantaged communities across California. Now, legislators want to expand the program to more counties and include physicians who speak Mexican indigenous languages such as Mixtec and Zapotec. 

Reporter: Esther Quintanilla, KVPR

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

California regulators are poised to shake-up the solar market for apartments, schools and farms. An administrative law judge is proposing changes that make the economics of investing in solar projects unappealing. 

Reporter: Erik Anderson, KPBS

Officials with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation are proposing significant changes to the use of solitary confinement in the state’s prisons. But advocates say the process is rushed, and the changes don’t go far enough.

Reporter: Kate Wolffe, CapRadio

Pacific Gas & Electric pledged to bury ten thousand miles of power lines in California to reduce the risk of them sparking wildfires. But now, state regulators are considering two proposals that would limit that plan, in favor of cheaper and faster alternatives.

Reporter: Izzy Bloom, The California Report

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Large-scale traffickers of fentanyl could soon face stiffer criminal penalties in California; that's the result of a law signed by Governor Newsom over the weekend.

Reporter: Guy Marzorati, KQED

Governor Newsom has signed a bill that delegitimizes a controversial medical diagnostic theory called "excited delirium," which has been used to defend law enforcement in cases where a person has died while in custody.

Reporter: Stephanie O'Neill Patison, KFF Health News

Environmentalists cheered when a ghost lake in California’s Central Valley refilled earlier this year, because it created new wetlands for birds; but now, avian botulism is brewing in Tulare Lake.

It’s deadly to birds, and rescuers are in a mad dash to prevent a massive die-off.

Reporter: Joshua Yeager, KVPR

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices