California’s Controversial Housing Bill Just Died. It Wasn’t Just Because of NIMBYs.
Jae C. Hong/AP The controversial housing bill, SB 50, that’s been roiling California’s state legislature—which would have revolutionized land use and housing in the state—failed yet again in dramatic fashion Thursday afternoon. It was three votes shy from passing out of the state Senate, following an attempt to pass it on Wednesday that also came…
Like All Building Projects, California’s Housing Bill Is Behind Schedule and Causing Headaches
Richard Vogel/AP images Earlier this month, it looked like California’s hotly contested housing legislation, Senate Bill 50, might fail yet again. As it was nearing a fatal deadline, bill author state Sen. Scott Wiener caught a break: Senate President Pro Tempore Toni Atkins moved the bill out of the Appropriations Committee, where it was held…
Australia’s Nightmare Fires Are on Track to Spew an Entire Year’s Worth of the Country’s Emissions
Sam Mooy/Getty The bushfires raging for months across Australia have devastated communities and wildlife, but they pose another major but less visible threat—this one to the global fight against climate change. While the fires are made worse by climate change, they’re actually part of a disruptive and dangerous cycle: As trees and brush burn, they’re also…
How California’s Uber Law Became an Excuse to Fire Freelance Journalists
Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, speaks at a rally about her measure to limit how companies labeling workers as independent contractors.Rich Pedroncelli/AP On Monday, the sports blog SB Nation, owned by Vox Media, announced it was reorganizing its model in California and would be laying off most of its staff of two hundred freelance writers…
Tech Company Free Meals Beget a Lot of Leftovers. Meet the Man on a Mission to Rescue Them.
Marisa Endicott I meet Les Tso on a corner in San Francisco’s SoMa district on a wet Thursday afternoon. He pulls his silver Isuzu SUV into an alley. “Today because it’s the first rain, people are going to be driving cluelessly—there are a lot of Uber and Lyft drivers that come from out of the…
Books Have the Power to Rehabilitate. But Prisons Are Blocking Access to Them.
Behind the walls of California State Prison, Sacramento, six inmates gather in the library for their weekly short-story club. The librarian introduces the day’s pick, Doris Lessing’s A Sunrise on the Veld, and the men take turns reading it aloud. Some of them lean forward in their chairs as they listen; one traces the words…