Early indications in the Russian River and other North Coast waterways suggest that more salmon are spawning this season. That’s good news for the beleaguered fish, but their troubles are far from over. New threats related to climate change are now beginning to complicate their reproduction, as Joe Rubin reports in the first of this two part series on the state of the Chinook salmon, and the struggles they face swimming upstream into the Sierra foothills.

Local redevelopment agencies took a hard hit from the state legislature in their budget process this year. Now the affected cities and counties are pushing back, in a case that has reached the California Supreme Court. Also, new unemployment figures for the state are due at the end of this week.

Pending cuts in services for developmentally disabled adults prompted them to protest at  the state Capitol yesterday. Meanwhile, elsewhere in Sacramento, adovcates of pension reform launched a long-term effort via the ballot initiative process. Hear both stories on today's California Update.

The ballot initiative process has gotten a workout in California over the past 20 years. Now its cousin, the referendum, is seeing a new burst of action as well.