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Come to California If You Want to Live | Connecting California

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Come to California If You Want to Live | Connecting California


California has its shortcomings, but columnist Joe Mathews explains why the Golden State outshines most of the nation in life expectancy. Cropped version of “Mulholland Drive: The Road to the Studio” painting (1980) by David Hockney. Courtesy of Rob Corder/Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0 DEED).

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Come to California if you want to live.

That’s my New Year’s suggestion for a new state slogan. California is losing population for the first time since it became a state. The cause of the problem is not people leaving—in fact, our levels of departures, as percentage of population, are among the very lowest in the nation. Rather, the problem is that so few people are moving here.

The biggest reason for that is well known: The cost of living in the Golden State is among America’s highest. But less well known is that our high costs buy you more living. Literally. On average, Californians live to 79, which beats the American average by more than two years, along with the average of all but three other states.

Historically, California was middling in life expectancy. But during the 21st century, federal data has ranked it at or near the very top of the 50 states. Lately, only Hawai‘i residents, who reach an average 80.7 years, have lived longer. Our biggest metro areas are among the healthiest places in the country. The Bay Area ranks second in life expectancy nationally, and Los Angeles third.

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Nor do you have to spend your whole life here to gain the extra time. Stanford and MIT researchers have found that moving to California even after age 65 can increase your life span by more than a year, or 5%.

Why do we live longer? There are many reasons. Wealthier, higher-income states with relatively high levels of education—like California—tend to rank highest in life expectancy. Money, after all, buys more access to better health care, and California’s rich people live near some of the world’s best hospitals and highest-quality health systems.

Healthy behavior helps. The percentage of us who smoke is lower than that of any state besides Utah. Our obesity rate is the fourth-lowest in the U.S. We have some of the country’s lowest rates of infant mortality and suicide.

The cost of living in the Golden State is among America’s highest. But less well known is that our high costs buy you more living. Literally.

Our more liberal public policy counts too. California’s strong environmental protections for air and water help us live longer. Gun control keeps many of us alive—we have the eighth-lowest rate of gun deaths and gun ownership. A new study from the gun control non-profit Everytown for Gun Safety finds that the Golden State has the strongest gun laws in the country. If every other state copied our regulations, the study found, nearly 300,000 lives could be saved over the next decade.

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Then there’s our nation-leading commitment to health care coverage. This month, California became the first state in the union to make all unauthorized immigrants eligible for Medi-Cal, California’s name for the federal health care program Medicaid. With this move, Golden State becomes the first state to expand Medicaid to cover all low-income residents. That portends even longer lives for future Californians, since low-income populations usually have the highest mortality rates.

The news is not all good. California saw its life expectancy drop below 80 years during the pandemic. But the overall U.S. life expectancy dropped even further, to just over 76 years. And there is a significant disparity—approaching 7 years—in expected life span between residents of California’s urban and suburban coastal counties, and those who live in the rural North State and Central Valley.

Frustratingly, California also lags in rankings of mental health services—which is one reason that Prop 1, a $6.38 billion mental health measure, is on the March ballot. And the state has failed to reduce the number of people in the state who are unhoused, a life circumstance that according to a UCSF study makes you 16 times more likely to die suddenly.

California also struggles to prevent deadly drug use, especially among young people. A new “report card” on California from the advocacy coalition Children Now gives the state a “D-” on substance abuse prevention, saying that California’s “unfocused” plan offers little in early intervention “and instead requires kids to ‘fail first’ before getting the help they need.”

Of course, the other states also struggle with drugs, mental health, and homelessness, and many of them offer less in services and support than we do. The statistics demonstrate that California, for all its failures, is a great place to settle if your goal is to stick around awhile on earth.

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And if my formulation—“Come to California if you want to live”—seems too sharp, then the state might instead borrow a line from the comedian Mort Sahl, who spent his later years in Marin County, whose residents enjoy the state’s longest life expectancy (more than 83 years).

“You haven’t lived,” Sahl said, “until you’ve died in California.”

He died in 2021, in Mill Valley, at age 94.



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California

Northern California’s House of Clocks has stood the test of time for 55 years

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Northern California’s House of Clocks has stood the test of time for 55 years


While we may lose an hour of sleep this coming weekend, one clock store in California is gearing up for one of its busiest times of the year: daylight savings.

It’s the House of Clocks, the largest clock company in Northern California, which was recently celebrating 55 years of business.

It’s a place frozen in time. Just visit the store’s 240-year-old grandfather clock. It’s got plenty of stories to tell, dating back to 1780.

“This is the oldest piece we have right now,” clocksmith Joey Hohn said.

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The House of Clocks is on the outskirts of Downtown Lodi in San Joaquin County.

“We have new, we have vintage, we have antique,” co-owner Sandy Hohn shared. “Honestly, it feels like not a day goes by that we don’t get a phone call or an email of somebody wanting to sell something for 100 different reasons.”

The clock store has been with the Hohn family for three generations. It’s all thanks to one family heirloom.

“When the first war started, [my grandparents] left everything and had to move,” Joey Hohn explained. “After the Second World War, my grandpa was stationed in Germany. They went back to the house that had been abandoned and the neighbor who they left the property to said, ‘As far as I’m concerned, everything in the house is still yours.’ They went back and got this, so this is my great-great-grandparents’ clock.”

You can find just about anything in the House of Clocks, from old grandfather clocks to clocks that can fit in the palm of your hand.

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What you can’t find anywhere else is the Hohns’ love for Lodi.

“We’ve made so many friends over the years out of customers,” Sandy Hohn said. “Friends that are just wonderful, that love collecting, and we keep them repaired for their families, which is awesome. They have sentimental value that’s passed down.”

That same love for the city and their community runs in the family.

“We had a customer that wanted to repaint their dial,” Joey Hohn explained. “We told them no because it was her father’s who had passed away. Every time he went to wind the clock, he placed his thumb in the same spot. When we told her that smudge there on the dial was her father, she said, ‘Back away, don’t you dare.’ It was just a good memory we have.”

While you can’t turn back time, what we can do is keep memories alive and treasure the present moment.

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“There’s so many personalities,” Sandy Hohn said. “We just try to find a good home for them.”



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Signs of spring blooming at Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve after wet, warm winter

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Signs of spring blooming at Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve after wet, warm winter


It’s beginning to look a lot like spring!

The warm and wet weather this winter has led to the start of a dazzling super bloom at the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve.

“We had an unseasonably warm winter as well, so there’s actually a lot of growth,” said Callista Turney with California State Parks. “We’re having early wildflowers that are already at the park. So if you look at the poppy live cam, it shows a lot of orange already.”

The rain has helped the early blooms, but it’s actually the heat that accelerated the growth of the flowers.

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“It will actually speed up the growth of the plants, so some of them were already blooming and that’s going to cause those blossoms to accelerate faster towards seed production. And the blossoms that are in the process of being formed, those are going to open up soon as well.”

We also sometimes see great super blooms in Death Valley National Park, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, Joshua Tree and the Mojave National Preserve.

“It’s definitely a rare occurrence because we don’t always have the right conditions. It’s gotta be the weather, the wind, the rain, all coming together,” said Katie Tilford, Director of Development and Communications with the Theodore Payne Foundation.

If it continues to stay unseasonably warm, we’ll see a shorter bloom. The key to a longer season is milder weather.


Copyright © 2026 KABC Television, LLC. All rights reserved.

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Republican governor candidate Chad Bianco says he’s the ‘antithesis to California state government’

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Republican governor candidate Chad Bianco says he’s the ‘antithesis to California state government’


We are counting down to the California governor’s race. Chad Bianco, the sheriff of Riverside County, is one of the two biggest names running on the Republican ticket.

In a one-on-one interview with Eyewitness News political reporter Josh Haskell, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco said, “I am the antithesis to California state government because I am going to take a nuclear bomb into that building and absolutely destroy everything that they do to us behind closed doors.”

Although he’s been elected by the voters twice, Bianco says he’s not a politician — which is why he believes his campaign for California governor is resonating, as reflected in the polls.

“President Trump, in one year, from 2025 when he took over, until now, did absolutely nothing to harm California. What’s harming California is 30 years of Democrat one-party rule that have created an environment here that no one can live in anymore. They’ve only been successful here in California because we vote D no matter what. You vote D or die. I mean, that’s it. Charles Manson would be elected in California if he was the only Democrat on the ballot,” Bianco said.

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Bianco isn’t the only conservative Republican running for governor, and according to polling, he’s neck-and-neck with former Fox News host Steve Hilton.

SEE ALSO: CA governor candidate Steve Hilton says ‘everybody supports’ Trump’s immigration policies

Leading in some polls in the wide-open California Governor’s race as the June primary creeps closer is Republican and former Fox News host Steve Hilton.

“Steve has no chance of winning in November. The Democrats know that I’m going to win in November, and so they have to do everything they can to keep me out of that,” Bianco said.

When asked about the affordability crisis in the state, Bianco said, “Almost the entire issue of affordability in California is because of regulation, excessive regulation imposed by government. Every single regulation can be signed away with the governor’s signature.”

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“It is a drug and alcohol addiction problem that, and a mental health problem,” he said about the homelessness crisis. “Every single bit of money that is going to these nonprofits that say ‘homeless,’ zero money. You’re getting absolutely nothing. I can’t tell you that we would end what we see in the homeless situation within a year, but I guarantee you we would never see it again after two years.”

When challenged on that prediction, pointing to how the state doesn’t have the facilities to treat the number of people living on our streets, Bianco responded, “We have been conditioned to believe that buildings take five years to build. It takes 90 days or less to build a house, but in California, it takes three to five years because the government won’t allow it. The regulations that are destroying this state are going to be removed with me as the governor.”

Bianco also said California jails shouldn’t have to play the role of treatment facilities.

Although he says he supports the Trump administration and wants the president’s endorsement, Bianco has been traveling the state — meeting not just with Republicans, but Democrats and independents as well. He says all of our state government officials have failed.

The primary election is June 2.

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No clear front-runner in race for California governor, new poll shows

A new poll shows there’s still no clear front-runner in the race to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom.

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