The National Transportation Safety Board says the driver of a Tesla SUV who died in a Silicon Valley crash two years ago was playing a video game on his smartphone while his vehicle was being controlled by a partially automated driving system.

A man drove his Jeep off the top of a six-level parking garage and landed across the street on a McDonald’s in Santa Monica, California, authorities said Sunday. The 20-year-old driver from Twentynine Palms, California, "while injured, was conscious, suffering and speaking with officers when they arrived" shortly after midnight, according to a press release from the Santa Monica Police Department.

An automobile insurance fraud sting operation led to the arrest of four people, including three from Contra Costa County, officials said Friday. The undercover sting was conducted by the California Department of Insurance, Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office and the National Insurance Crime Bureau.

As Malibuites enter a new decade 14 months after the Woolsey Fire, those seeking to rebuild still face significant obstacles, both in terms of obtaining the necessary permits as well as attempting to obtain insurance payments to fund rebuilding the homes they once had.

With an insurance crisis causing widespread disruption throughout the state, California regulators rolled out legislation that would force insurance companies to offer coverage in areas where communities and property owners have “hardened” their homes against wildfire risk.

GEICO has filed a federal lawsuit in California alleging that a local auto glass repair shop submitted fraudulent repair bills.

The sound of explosions and breaking glass accompanied the sight of bright orange flames and swirling smoke engulfing the CarQuest Auto Parts shop in Chowchilla. Firefighters from the City, Madera County, and the nearby Central California Women’s Facility rushed to the scene around 3 a.m. Wednesday and found the burning building secured with no one inside.

Former U.S. Department of Transportation Inspector General Mary Schiavo, a partner at Motley Rice, said that lawyers would be looking at multiple facts, including the conversation between the air traffic control and the pilot just before Sunday’s crash, which killed the LA Lakers star and eight others. "Those next sentences could be billion dollar words," Shiavo said.

Weather conditions appear likely to come under the scrutiny of investigators probing the helicopter crash that killed former NBA superstar Kobe Bryant, his daughter and seven others near Los Angeles on Sunday, when overcast skies and fog grounded other aircraft.

California enjoyed a comparatively mild wildfire season in 2019, but it wasn’t enough to save Bobbi Pimentel’s homeowners’ insurance policy. Pimentel and her husband, who live in a rural area 30 miles east of Redding, got the dreaded notice in late November: Horace Mann Educators Corp., which has insured their property for 13 years, wouldn’t renew their policy.

While the world watches the Australian bushfires ravage the country, it’s not the only region that’s felt the brute force of the fiery catastrophe.

A new report highlights the worst local courts and states for abuses of the civil justice system, with the Top 10 Judicial Hellholes filled with widespread civil lawsuits, legislative loopholes that create more ways for lawyers to sue, and judges who allow junk science into evidence in trials.