Jesse Bedayn
The Mercury News ReporterJesse Bedayn reports on economic inequality for The Mercury News in San Jose and CalMatters as part of The California Divide project. Before becoming a Report for America corps member, Bedayn studied investigative reporting and narrative writing at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, where he wrote about health care and aging in California and investigated the fraught world of for-profit nursing homes for the Investigative Reporting Program. Bedayn has worked as a stringer for The New York Times and as a research and data assistant at KQED public radio where he plumbed through police use-of-force cases. Bedayn holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Kent in England. As editor of the student paper InQuire, he won local awards and shared the paper’s first national U.K. award since the paper’s inception in 1965. Bedayn grew up in the foothills of California’s Sierra Nevada, and spends his free time rambling in the mountains.
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California is asking some 1.4 million unemployment recipients to prove their eligibility months after receiving aid as part of a fraud recovery campaign. -
California will ban most new gas-powered lawn equipment starting in 2024, but landscapers and gardeners warn the transition will cost them money and jobs. Industry officials say the technology isn’t ready for commercial use and called a $30 million incentive program for small operators inadequate. One state lawmaker who co-authored the bill says he’s open to more funding.
