In late 2017, a house fell on Jacques Gene.

The construction foreman in Cool, east of Sacramento, was inside a half-finished home when the rolling trusses that make up the underside of the roof fell, collapsing the whole house. Gene, 46, suffered broken ribs, a punctured lung and a concussion. When his coworkers sorted through the rubble, he says, they didn’t expect to find him alive.

A state audit released the day before Thanksgiving shows that California oil regulators didn’t follow their own rules and in 2019 issued hundreds of inappropriate permits for new wells.

Environmental advocates like Hollin Kretzmann say making the announcement before a major holiday was an attempt to bury the audit. He’s an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute.

For those who are grieving, estranged from their families or already living with a mental health issue, November and December can be a difficult time of year.

People with a mental health condition may be more prone to the so-called “holiday blues,” which are often tied to financial strain, loneliness, colder weather and other factors. Sixty-four percent of people with a mental illness report the holidays make their conditions worse, according to the National Alliance Mental Illness.

How would you characterize 2020 in one word - unprecedented, chaotic, panic-stricken, historic, hopeful? That’s how strange 2020 has been – one word doesn't do it justice. Through it all, North State Public Radio reporters and show hosts have produced remarkable content, while NSPR listeners and members have supported our journalism. In due course, our commitment to the North State and the station's public service mission has stayed strong - unwaveringly. We've not only stuck the landing but expanded, as we implemented our partnership with Sacramento's NPR station, CapRadio.

Californians faced the naysayers and voted by mail in record numbers this election, potentially avoiding a pandemic super spreader event and showing the nation it could be done.

CalMatters interviewed voting officials in most of the state’s 58 counties and their verdict is in: The experiment with voting by mail saw few glitches, little drama and, instead, might well provide a blueprint for future elections across the country.

Indeed, state officials are already talking about plans to make voting by mail permanent for the biggest state in the union and its 22 million registered voters.

Updated 8:18 p.m.

In a year in which California's unemployment department saw massive failures in its system while inundated with claims from those impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, it's now facing more backlash after sending money to people incarcerated for rape, murder and other crimes.

Prosecutors say prison and jail inmates requested and received hundreds of millions of dollars in unemployment funds from the California Employment Development Department (EDD), in what could be the biggest taxpayer fraud scheme in state history.