Our Business News

America’s biggest public pension moved aggressively against the bankrupt city of San Bernardino, California, on Tuesday night over the city’s decision to halt payments to the fund. The move laid bare a high-stakes battle shaping up between Wall Street and state pension funds over how they are treated when cities run out of money. The powerful California Public Employees’ Retirement System (Calpers) filed a legal motion declaring its intention to sue San Bernardino for millions of dollars in pension arrears, a move that the fund has never before had to make in a municipal bankruptcy. San Bernardino, a city of [...]

California lawmakers were poised to pass a sweeping pension reform measure and a flurry of other bills on Friday as they prepared to break until after the fall elections. The pension law, unveiled by Governor Jerry Brown on Tuesday after months of talks with fellow Democrats who control the legislature, would put new limits on pensions for future state and local government to save tens of billions of dollars in retirement-related spending. Brown intends to promote those savings to help sell voters on his November measure to raise the state’s sales tax and boost income taxes on wealthy Californians. Revenue [...]

California Governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency in three Northern California counties on Wednesday after a wildfire that has already destroyed 64 homes advanced with 75-foot flames on a tiny community at the doorstep of a national park. Firefighters scrambled to head off the so-called Ponderosa Fire, which had scorched 24,000 acres, before it reached the outskirts of Mineral, a community of less than 200 people just south of Lassen National Volcanic Park. Authorities issued an evacuation warning for Mineral as flames roared 75 feet high on the side of Highway 36, the main route into town, and [...]

California is turning into a battleground for technology that allows auto insurers to track their customers’ driving behavior and offer them lower premiums, but that privacy advocates reject as an excessive intrusion with serious consequences. Insurance companies are increasingly installing small boxes in clients’ cars that monitor everything from how much customers drive to their average speeds to where they drive. Auto insurer Progressive Corp, which leads the market for so-called usage-based insurance, estimates that about 70% of the people who sign up for the program drive well enough to get a discount. But privacy advocates say the lower premiums [...]

Look for foie gras on Café Mimosa’s menu and you won’t find it anywhere. Ask owner Antoine Price for some “fancy bread,” though, and you might just get a little something extra. Price, who opened Café Mimosa in San Clemente, California five years ago, is a staunch opponent of the Golden State’s foie gras ban and doesn’t care who knows it. On July 2 – just a day after the ban went into effect – he hosted a six-course dinner for 36 guests where every dish contained the French delicacy (dessert was foie gras in cotton candy). He charged $ [...]