Daily Business Report: September 22, 2026
The Bullet Train to Nowhere Made Great Time to the Nightclub
By Katy Grimes | California Globe
California’s perpetually incomplete high-speed rail project has no operational trains and no high-speed track laid on the actual alignment, as of August 2026. Gov. Gavin Newsom has blown $18 billion on the High Speed Rail and the project is about to run out of money, the Globe reported in “Gavin’s High Speed Rail Disaster in August.” So the governor replaced the prior variable 25% share of Cap-and-Trade auction proceeds, which were set to expire in 2030, with a set $1 billion per year for high-speed rail starting in FY 2026-27 in the 2026-27 California budget, after the loss of roughly $4 billion in federal grants in 2025.
California’s High-Speed Rail boondoggle, voter approved in 2008 for a San Francisco to Los Angeles line, has been whittled down to a Merced-to-Bakersfield line, is now estimated to cost taxpayers more than $231 billion, up from its original $33.5 billion price tag when voters passed Proposition 1A.
It is 2026, eighteen years later, and still there are NO trains running and the project is bankrupt.
CalPERS CEO lands seven-figure bonus — her first — as pension fund extends run of good returns
by Adam Ashton | CalMatters
Facing a student housing crisis and flush with a historic budget surplus, California leaders in 2021 made an unprecedented $2 billion investment to build more dorms at public universities and colleges.
Since then, universities and colleges have leveraged that funding to collectively build more than 9,000 beds for students. But higher education institutions have also encountered a distinctly California reality in trying to expand student housing: It’s very expensive to build in the Golden State.
At UC San Diego, for example, a 1,423-bed dorm opened in 2024 cost $260,000 per bed to build. At California State University, Northridge, the 200 beds in two residence halls that opened in 2025 cost $360,000 each. And at Lake Tahoe Community College, the per-bed cost for a 100-bed dormitory stretched to $400,000.
SDCCU Partnership with Clear the Shelters Helps More Than 4,000 Local Animals Find Homes
by SDCCU
San Diego County Credit Union® (SDCCU®), one of Southern California’s largest locally-owned financial institutions, raised awareness to help more than 4,000 local animals find loving homes during the month-long Clear the Shelters initiative. In partnership with NBC7, Telemundo 20, and San Diego Humane Society, the campaign helped address the shelter overcrowing crisis in San Diego and united animals with their forever families. San Diego Humane Society also hosted an adoption event on August 29 where all adoption fees were waived, helping 323 animals find homes in a single day.
“We are proud to continue supporting the fantastic work of San Diego Humane Society during the Clear the Shelters campaign,” said SDCCU President and CEO Teresa Campbell. “We are thrilled at the success of the initiative, and to have had a small hand in helping these animals in need find loving homes.”
Clear the Shelters came during a time where local shelters were facing an urgent overcrowding crisis, struggling to keep up with influx of homeless animals after a number of local hoarding cases. The awareness campaign not only promotes pet adoption but also helps spread the word about the importance of fostering which can also help create space in the shelter for more animals in need.
