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Californians who are looking for in-home care for elderly or disabled loved ones this holiday season may have a difficult time finding help.

Experts and home care agencies say a longstanding shortage of in-home care providers has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

California’s businesses must follow new rules to protect workers from getting coronavirus on the job, while harvesting companies must minimize overcrowding in guest farmworker housing following a California Divide investigation that uncovered rampant coronavirus outbreaks this summer among a low-wage workforce putting fresh produce on America’s kitchen table.

California’s lack of affordable housing is severe and well-documented.

One recent estimate says the state needs 1.4 million more affordable rental homes to ease the burden on low-income families.

But the state’s convoluted process for financing that housing — and the effect it can have in gumming up development — is less apparent.

California announced Thursday a curfew order to slow the state's surging coronavirus outbreak ahead of the holidays.

The announcement comes days after Gov. Gavin Newsom hinted at a possible curfew and said 40 counties would move into more restrictive tiers in the state's reopening system as COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations continue to surge. State officials reported a nearly 50% spike in infections during the first week of November.

El Dorado County was among the first in Northern California to consider asserting more local power over pandemic-related policies at the advice of some state lawmakers.

This week, at the county’s Board of Supervisors meeting, elected officials considered a resolution pushing for more flexibility for the county to respond to its own needs, rather than heed statewide mandates and guidelines.

As COVID-19 cases surge throughout California, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Monday several changes to the state’s tiered reopening system, including moving 40 counties back to more restrictive tiers and tightening rules on mask-wearing in public.

The change comes after the state saw its “fastest increase in cases” since the pandemic began in March, Newsom said, causing the state’s health officials to begin “sounding the alarm.”

If Your Time Is Short: 

• Conservative groups continue to make unproven claims about voter fraud in Nevada’s presidential election.
• Last week, they said without evidence that thousands of people who moved out of Nevada still voted there in the election. 
• This week, an elections watchdog alleged 1,400 Californians may have unlawfully voted in Nevada’s election but did not make any evidence public. 
  

Ruby Aguirre thinks the term “Latino” is too vague. 

The term is a blanket descriptor to describe a group of people that often share a language, but don’t always share culture. It’s often used interchangeably with the word “Hispanic,” which is used in the United States census. 

“I was confused on how to fill out the census, because what is my race?” the Sacramento voter asked. “It’s a tricky question — are we Hispanic? Are we Latino?”

Buried in the mountain of yet-to-be-deciphered popular will of Californians lie the fates of too-close-to-call statewide propositions and dozens of congressional and legislative races.

Patience for the final electoral tally may not come naturally to election watchers in Georgia and Pennsylvania — nor, for that matter, the president of the United States. But Californians should now be accustomed to the post-Election Day wait. 

Goodbye, state of resistance. Hello, state of influence. 

California’s status has shifted dramatically with the election of Joe Biden as the next president. The reasons are both political — deep blue California will have more inroads to a White House controlled by Democrats — and personal: For just the second time in American history, a Californian will serve as vice president.