For decades, business leaders have complained that California's regulatory climate has overburdened companies across the state, blaming a morass of rules, permits and paperwork for pushing businesses and jobs out of state and holding back economic growth. To help measure the impact of the regulations, the Public Policy Institute of California, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank, sought to compare the number of business requirements in the state with those in other parts of the country.
As California again delays controversial rules requiring homeowners in fire-prone areas to maintain a 5-foot "ember-resistant" zone around their houses, a new report finds that properties that were already close to that standard were much less likely to be destroyed in the devastating Los Angeles wildfires in January. With ashes still smoldering, researchers with the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety, an industry-backed group, surveyed 252 homes that had been in the path of the blazes in Altadena and Pacific Palisades.
As the Wall Street Journal reports today, via unnamed sources close to the company, OpenAI executives are reportedly discussing a "last-ditch" option to preserve their plans, which would be relocating out of the state of California. A spokesperson for the company quoted by the Journal denies that this is under consideration. But the paper's source suggest that executives have floated the idea of a move out of state if things get worse with the AG's investigation.
