A roundup of the top stories in California this week, plus links to some good reads for your weekend.
Governor gives final State of the State address
Governor Newsom gave his final State of the State address at a joint session of the California Legislature on Thursday. In his final year as governor, Newsom celebrated California as a beacon for democracy, home to “the happiest cities in America” and “the greatest system of public higher education anywhere.” Newsom cited major successes during his two-term tenure as governor, including the CalRX program, preserving $168 billion in illegally frozen federal resources, getting cell phones out of public schools, and “finally laying the tracks of the nation’s first High-Speed Rail system.” He also talked about working with the legislature to combat monopolistic behavior by private equity firm investors in the housing market, quoted Plutarch and waxed lyrical about rivers.
Here’s the full text of Governor Newsom’s 65-minute State of the State address.
Oakland saw a significant drop in homicides in 2025
Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee held a press conference at City Hall on Wednesday to announce the city’s significant drop in homicides and other violent crimes in 2025. Homicides decreased by 22% compared to 2024, while the overall violent crime rate was down 25%. Speaking alongside public safety officials, Lee credited the city’s Ceasefire strategy for violence reduction. The program seeks to identify small numbers of individuals who are at risk of violence in the next 90 days, and to offer them services and life coaching to help them get out of a cycle of violence.
The mayor noted that public perception of crime has not improved in line with the statistics, and the underreporting of crimes continues to be a problem. Another cause for caution: Oakland experienced five homicides in the first four days of 2026.
(Sources: oaklandside.org & NBC Bay Area)
University of California reports record enrollment
The University of California enrolled more than 301,000 students for the fall 2025 semester, breaking the record for the largest student body in the history of the system. This represents a 5.9% increase since fall 2021. Among those enrolled are more than 200,000 California resident undergraduates, representing the 10th consecutive period of year-over-year growth for in-state enrollment.
“These numbers reflect California’s commitment to academic excellence, access, and innovation, values that have made the University of California the world’s greatest research university,” said UC President James B. Milliken.
The University of California system comprises 10 campuses and is one of the state’s largest employers.
(Source: University of California)
California to follow AAP vaccine schedule
California Health and Human Services leaders including Secretary Kim Johnson, Department of Public Health (CDPH) Director and State Public Health Officer Dr. Erica Pan, released a joint statement this week affirming that California will continue to follow the vaccine schedule recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), rather than adopting the new federal schedule that reduces the number of diseases from which it recommends protection.
California and American Academy of Pediatrics-recommended vaccines will continue to be covered by health plans and insurers regulated by the State of California. Vaccines can be received at no cost from your doctor, some local pharmacies or other authorized providers. To schedule your vaccine appointment, contact your health care provider or visit myturn.ca.gov.
State officials recently joined with partners in Washington, Oregon and Hawaii to launch the West Coast Health Alliance. The unified regional partnership is intended to uphold scientific integrity in public health and protect residents from politically motivated federal decisions.
California AG sues Trump administration over child care funding freeze
California Attorney General Rob Bonta this week announced a lawsuit against the Trump Administration for illegally freezing over $10 billion in federal funding for child care and family assistance programs. Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, the lawsuit by Attorney General Bonta — alongside New York Attorney General Letitia James, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison — is in response to the funding freeze imposed by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) earlier this week.
According to HHS, the funding freeze was being imposed immediately and exclusively on the five Democratic-led states because of “serious concerns about widespread fraud and misuse of taxpayer dollars.” HHS has not provided any evidence at all to support those claims.
“The American people are sick and tired of President Trump’s lawlessness, lies, and misinformation campaigns. It is especially pathetic that, once again, his administration’s actions are inflicting harm on the most vulnerable among us. As a society, we are rightly judged by how we treat our neighbors in need, and this is a shameful way to treat them,” said Attorney General Bonta.
A few good reads for your weekend:
- Elephant Seals Almost Always Return Home to Give Birth (Nautilus): Researchers from UC Santa Cruz looked at 20 years of data tracking Northern elephant seals at Año Nuevo State Park. They found that around 90% of females return to their own birth sites to breed. The species can travel over 12,000 miles in a year, yet most navigate back to within 1,300 feet of their own birthplace.
- Sunflower stars reintroduced in California after deadly illness nearly wiped them out (SFGate): Sunflower sea stars, a sea star species that can exceed 3 feet across, reached near-extinction in the mid-2010s due to sea star wasting syndrome. Scientists in California have reported the successful transplantation of captive-bred sunflower sea stars into Monterey Bay. This gives hope for the revival of the species, which are vital to the health of the kelp forest ecosystem.
- Fighting LA wildfires broke my heart but prepared me for life outside prison (CalMatters): A first-hand account from Jose Angel Amezcua, an incarcerated firefighter who spent three weeks helping to battle blazes in Los Angeles in 2025. A year since the devastating fires and now released from prison, Amezcua reflects on the fire camp program and its impact in rebuilding his life.