KQED's The California Report

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 ReportRampant 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, KQEDIt'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, KQEDThe 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 FitzgeraldA 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, KQEDGovernor 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, KQEDA 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, KPBSOfficials 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, CapRadioPacific 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, KQEDGovernor 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 NewsEnvironmentalists 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

As workers across industries walked off the job during this remarkable year of strikes, one union in California won big in its fight for child care providers. The organizers behind this movement were largely immigrants and women of color.Reporter: Daisy Nguyen, KQED A pair of bills signed over the weekend by Governor Gavin Newsom will require large companies in California to be more transparent about their contributions to climate change, and the risks they face as a result.Reporter: Dana Cronin, KQED Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California political legend, was laid to rest in a private ceremony in San Francisco Thursday. Hours earlier, 1500 invited guests attended a memorial service on the steps of San Francisco’s City Hall. Those who gathered there reflected on the long arc of Feinstein's life in San Francisco, where she served as a supervisor and then mayor before being elected to the Senate.Reporter: Tyche Hendricks, KQEDAt the US-Mexico border, immigrant rights activists say thousands of asylum seekers have been dropped off in San Diego by Customs and Border Protection over the last few weeks.  In response, the nonprofit Casa Familiar set up a makeshift aid center at San Ysidro Community Park. But it's now at risk of shutting down, over a lack of funding.Reporter: Gustavo Solis, KPBSThe Golden State Warriors have announced a new WNBA will be created and they’ll start playing in 2025. The team will practice at the Warriors facility in Oakland, and play its home games at Chase Center in san Francisco.Reporter: Madi Bolanos, The California Report  100 years ago, women mariachi bands didn’t exist. Even 50 years ago, women playing mariachi music was rare. Today though, women like Sacramento’s Dinorah Klingler are rewriting the story of male dominated mariachi culture.Reporter: Bianca Taylor, The California Report Magazine Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices