By Sonya Quick, CalMatters

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

CalMatters won five of this year’s Golden State Journalism Awards, for public health reporting, criminal justice reporting, education reporting, courage in journalism and impact in journalism.

The awards are given by the Sacramento Press Club for politics and public policy reporting across the state.

Byrhonda Lyons won for impact in journalism.

The award recognizes “exceptional journalism that holds powerful institutions and/or people accountable for their actions and, by doing so, leads to demonstrable change that benefits Californians.”

Lyons is recognized for her reporting on how the California Department of Motor Vehicles has made millions from auctioned car sales, and kept the money without notifying owners that they were entitled to proceeds. After CalMatters journalism engineer Mohamed Al Elew created an interactive tool for towed vehicle owners to see if their car was sold for a profit, the DMV decided to do the same. According to a CalMatters analysis of DMV data, between 2016 and 2024, the DMV collected more than $8 million in surplus proceeds from nearly 5,300 vehicle auctions. In March, Sen. Kelly Seyarto, a Republican from Murrieta, cited Lyons’ reporting when introducing SB 1029, which would require the California Department of Motor Vehicles to “notify vehicle owners when surplus funds from a lien sale may be owed to them.”

Judges wrote, “CalMatters’ Byrhonda Lyons followed the money — or perhaps more accurately followed the state keeping the money — to root out the fact the state’s DMV was keeping funds raised from cars sold at auction beyond the cost of towing. Thanks to good old-fashioned reporting and the Public Records Act, Lyons found out DMV had pocketed more than $8 million that belonged to the cars’ former owners from 2016 to 2024. But CalMatters didn’t stop there. It created a searchable database that the public could use to look up whether they were owed money. As reported, DMV thought it such a good idea that it copied it. Thanks to CalMatters, Californians are getting their money back. This is the definition of public service journalism.”

Sergio Olmos was one of the journalists honored for courage in journalism.

The Press Club judges said this year’s award for “exceptional courage to bring necessary coverage to the public” is presented to “journalists who continued reporting despite being struck, detained, or otherwise targeted while covering protests against federal immigration enforcement actions in Los Angeles in 2025.”

The club honored all journalists whose experiences were cited in legal action brought by the Los Angeles Press Club and Status Coup against the Los Angeles Police Department. The lawsuit alleged journalists were targeted despite clearly identifying themselves as members of the press. A court later granted an injunction ordering law enforcement not to interfere with journalists performing their duties.

“This award recognizes the journalists who kept reporting the news with great bravery,” Sacramento Press Club President Ashley Zavala said during the ceremony. “Please join me in honoring their courage — and the role of a free press.”

Olmos, a CalMatters investigative reporter, was included after he was struck in the chest by a crowd-control munition fired by police officers while covering an immigration protest in downtown Los Angeles, California, on June 8, 2025. Olmos told The Washington Post that he was wearing a press pass and shooting video of a protest a few blocks from a complex of federal buildings when Los Angeles Police Department officers shot crowd-control munitions at demonstrators. Olmos believes he was hit with a 40 mm sponge grenade.

In the past year, Olmos relentlessly pursued the on-the-ground realities of immigration raids across California. His investigative series shows that immigration agents engaged in a pattern of force and questionable detention, aggressive tactics that courts have said likely violated the constitution, as they moved from Bakersfield to Los Angeles, and then Chicago and Minneapolis.

Anat Rubin won for criminal justice reporting.

Rubin was honored for her investigation, “The Man Who Unsolved a Murder.” The project found that poor people accused of crimes, who account for at least 80% of criminal defendants, are routinely convicted in California without anyone investigating the charges against them. Close to half of California’s 58 counties do not employ any full-time public defense investigators. Among the remaining counties, defendants’ access to investigators fluctuates wildly, but it’s almost always inadequate.

Judges wrote, “This CalMatters package provided a sharp, well-reported and beautifully-written look at the dearth of investigators at public defender’s offices and the consequences for defendants. The package also included a well-reported look at the perils of using flat-fee defense attorneys in lieu of public defenders.”

Joe Garcia was also a finalist in this category for his reporting inside California’s prison system: on the realities of shared cells, and how rehabilitative programming is increasing while the success rate of prisoners found suitable for parole is gradually declining.

Judges wrote, “This CalMatters package offered insightful reporting and writing about problems with California’s parole system, as well as the physical risks of housing people in shared cells.”

Jocelyn Wiener, Marisa Kendall and Erica Yee won for public health reporting.

These CalMatters journalists joined together for an 8-part series examining the realities of California’s CARE Court program – a program to allow families or first responders to petition courts for care on behalf of someone with severe mental illness and empowers judges to order treatment in some cases.

Judges wrote: “CalMatters’ reporters Jocelyn Wiener, Marisa Kendall and Erica Yee left no stone unturned in Courting Disappointment, an 8-part series that both explains and viscerally demonstrates why Governor Newsom’s ambitious CARE Court program has failed to deliver. Through rigorous data collection, point-by-point analysis of the legislative process and deep interviews with affected individuals, family members, court, state and county officials, the reporters captured the exhausting and heartwrenching experiences of parents trying to get their mentally ill family members off the streets and into psychiatric treatment, as well as the courts’ legal limitations to follow through on these petitions. Most compelling was the explanatory work illustrating how a well-intentioned law was watered down to the point of being largely ineffective. The breadth of this series, along with its impeccable writing and editing, merits first place in the Golden State Journalism Awards Public Health category.”

Adam Echelman won for education reporting.

Echelman was honored for his reporting, which found that community colleges were seeing unprecedented reports of fraud, with scammers stealing millions more dollars of student aid than in any previous period, according to reports submitted by colleges to California’s Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office.

After CalMatters reported on the rise in fraud last year, Republican U.S. Congress members called for a federal investigation, a Democratic state legislator launched a state audit and later, California’s Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office approved a new ID verification policy for students. Colleges now are more vigilant about policing fraud, said Jory Hadsell, an executive in technology initiatives for the chancellor’s office, who pointed to better filtering practices and new software to detect fraud.

Judges wrote: “Adam Echelman’s reporting on financial fraud in California’s community college system highlights a critical issue for faculty and students with deep reporting, statistical evidence, crisp writing and, importantly, voices from those most affected. The articles aren’t just a collection of important information, they’re engaging narratives that underscore what’s at stake – not just for students, faculty and staff, but for taxpayers as well.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

The eight individuals aboard the B-52 Stratofortress that crashed early Monday at Edwards Air Force Base, California, were killed, U.S. Air Force officials confirmed.

Gen. Ken Wilsbach, the Air Force chief of staff, said in a social media post Monday night that the force is grieving the loss of the individuals involved.

“It is with profound sadness that we mourn the loss of eight teammates today at Edwards AFB,” Wilsbach said in the post. “My thoughts are with the bomber and test communities during this difficult time.”

Air Force Secretary Troy Meink also lamented the deaths in a public statement, saying, “We mourn this loss and honor the service of our Airmen, civilians, and contractors who work every day to advance our mission.”

At 11:20 a.m. local time, or 2:20 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, the bomber aircraft crashed shortly after takeoff for a routine test mission and burst into flames, according to service officials. Initial indications of the crash were that it was not survivable.

Emergency personnel responded immediately to the scene, and as of late Monday were still working to account for all personnel, alongside base officials.

At a Monday afternoon news conference, Air Force officials said they were still attempting to locate personnel, as well as the aircraft’s black box, which could be used in the investigation of the incident.

The individuals on board were not all service members, Edwards Deputy Commander Col. James Hayes said at the news conference. The eight were a mix of military personnel, government civilians and contractors.

The crashed B-52 was in support of the radar modernization program, Hayes said.

The cause of the incident is still unknown, and it is currently under investigation by an interim safety board. The investigation will be taken over by a Safety Investigation Board that will determine the cause and will be followed by an Accident Investigation Board that will determine what information can be revealed to the public and next of kin.

The Air Force has yet to reveal the identities of the eight individuals. Teams were in the process of notifying family members by Monday afternoon.

A California Republican senator says it is time to have a “serious discussion” about putting a measure on the ballot to potentially “reverse” legalization of marijuana in the state—also raising concerns about President Donald Trump’s move to reschedule cannabis at the federal level.

“I think it’s time to assess the effects, the significant unintended consequences of the legalization of marijuana, which has not just happened in California, but in other states too,” Sen. Roger Niello (R) said at a hearing of the Senate Business, Professions and Economic Development Committee last week.

“Now we can’t change it without going back to the people, but I think we should have a serious discussion, a serious analysis of the obvious…unintended negative consequences I don’t think that the writers of the proposition cared about,” he said as first reported by State Affairs, referring to the cannabis legalization ballot initiative that California voters approved in 2016. “I think these could have been predicted. They just wanted recreational use to be legalized.”

Niello raised concerns that “we’re even seeing our current president now advocating that by downplaying the classification of marijuana at the federal level.”

“We have seen significant negative consequences of this legalization, both here as well as in other states,” the senator, who was speaking at a hearing at which lawmakers approved a bill to legalize marijuana dispensary drive-thru windows in California, said. “I think it’s time for us to have a serious analysis of that, and whether or not we want to develop a proposition to go back to the voters and either reverse it or somehow reform it so that we don’t continually deal with the problems that we do.”

“I oppose the legalization of marijuana,” he said, citing data about cannabis use by young people and an alleged link to mental health problems and claiming that the 2016 reform was “written to please everybody” which resulted in a “dysfunctional policy that is bound for unintended consequences.”

Elsewhere in the U.S., marijuana legalization opponents are currently collecting signatures to put measures to roll back the reform in Maine and Massachusetts—though those anti-cannabis campaigns have faced accusations of misleading petitioning tactics.

A separate anti-marijuana effort in Arizona for a similar measure was dropped after its lead organizer said his initial concerns about the legal cannabis industry were misplaced.

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Back in California, regulators recently adopted emergency rules changes for the state’s marijuana licensing process that are intended to make it easier for businesses to qualify for benefits in line with the Trump administration’s recent move to federally reschedule medical cannabis.

They also separately launched a new AI tool to help businesses identify marijuana product packaging may appeal to kids in violation of state rules.

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), meanwhile, recently took credit for helping to lead the push for the state to legalize marijuana and discussed his own limited experience with using cannabis.

In October, however, Newsom vetoed a bill that would have allowed certain marijuana microbusinesses to ship medical cannabis products directly to patients via common carriers like FedEx and UPS, stating that the proposal “would be burdensome and overly complex to administer.”

Newsom did sign a bill earlier that month aimed at streamlining research on marijuana and psychedelics.

In September, the governor also signed a measure into law to put a pause on a recently enacted tax hike on marijuana products.

Separately, the state attorney general says Indian tribes cannot independently engage in marijuana commerce with licensed cannabis businesses without first obtaining their own commercial license from state officials.

California officials recently awarded nearly $30 million in grants for marijuana-focused academic research projects.