Impact

State lawmakers will debate a bill to require annual inspections, new complaint processes and harsher penalties for local governments that don’t file mandatory reports.

Fremont reverses course, jettisoning a move that legal experts said could have been used to punished people for "aiding and abetting" homeless encampments.

The audit by the state's Fair Political Practices Commission followed CalMatters’ revelations that a law requiring trip organizers to annually disclose their major donors had been used only twice in seven years — even as interest groups continued paying millions for lawmakers' travel.

Lawmakers are pushing potential remedies in the wake of a CalMatters investigation, which discovered that even after California victims of wage theft win their claims, only about one in seven judgments are paid. 

The report laid out dozens of potential violations by Evan Low involving a non-profit tech foundation for which he raised a half-million dollars. The regulators' findings are the result of a five-year state probe — launched immediately after CalMatters published an investigation into the relationship between Low, the foundation and its donors.

Internal reports on deaths, disease, abuse and overdoses will give the public a rare glimpse inside taxpayer-funded shelters.

Out-of-work residents fight new fraud battles. The system bleeds money. And a $1 billion technology overhaul marches on.

Birth centers are midwife-run facilities that deliver babies outside of hospitals. They have struggled to stay in business in part because of strict state licensing requirements.

Despite inconsistencies and flaws in the Fair Political Practices Commission’s enforcement data, we found 15% of investigations took more than two years to resolve.

More than 50 California hospitals stopped delivering babies in the past decade, limiting maternity care options in both rural and urban communities.