(The Sacramento Bee) - A California lawmaker wants insurance companies in the state to change how they come up with prices for home coverage.
Insurance trade groups aren’t happy.
Senate Bill 1060 would require insurers to take vegetation management, home protection, and other work meant to reduce wildfires into account when determining the risk of covering a property. Its author, Sen. Josh Becker, said the state is spending billions of dollars to prevent and lessen the effect of fires.
Shohei Ohtani has found three unique ways to make finance-related news in the past four months. First, he signed a record-shattering contract that sent shockwaves throughout the sports world. Then, he found himself embroiled in a gambling scandal that grows more complicated by the day. And now he's in the crosshairs of California lawmakers.
Shohei Ohtani will avoid paying an estimated $90 million in California state income taxes as a result of deferring nearly all of his record-setting $700 million contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Now California lawmakers are pushing to change the federal tax code to prevent Ohtani’s contract structure from becoming standardized among high earners in baseball and beyond.
Read more here.
On Tuesday, California State Senator Josh Becker spoke with FOX 11. The senator has been working on legislation targeting artificial intelligence and how he's working to prevent children from getting AI tools.
"It’s very hard," said Becker. "A lot of these are open source, they’re widely available. If kids really want to find a way, they can."
The “FRESH Act,” introduced by California State Senator Josh Becker (D-Menlo Park) this month, is designed to reduce recidivism by allowing and aiding formerly incarcerated individuals to have the opportunity to pre-apply for CalFresh benefits 90 days after their release date, ensuring a smoother reentry into society.
New state legislation designed to fast-track approvals for low-barrier service-oriented homeless shelters such as one proposed for Watsonville sailed through its first committee this week.
On Monday, March 4, State Senator Josh Becker (D-Menlo Park) discusses the importance of understanding the potential risks of AI and how his SB 942 will create new tools to identify AI-generated content and deepfakes.
Watch the full interview here.
(Mercury News) - California lacks anywhere near enough homeless shelters for everyone living on the street. To bring more people indoors and out of harm’s way, Bay Area lawmakers are pushing a new bill to fast-track building tiny homes and other kinds of temporary shelter statewide.
“People are dying on our streets every day,” said State Sen. Josh Becker, a Democrat from Menlo Park, while unveiling the legislation Monday at a recently completed shelter in San Jose.