Lower workers’ compensation rates in California will bring down written premium once again this year, according to a forecast from the Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau.

That revelation is expected in a full report on the state of California’s workers’ comp system is due out in about a week, but David Bellusci, WCIRB executive vice president and chief actuary, gave a rundown of what to expect during the group’s annual conference in San Francisco on Thursday.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that 2017 was the most expensive year on record for disasters in the U.S., estimating $306 billion in total damage. The FBI also reported 2017 as having the most incidents and the most people killed in any one year by active shooters.

With this rise in crises across the United States, data and technology have an increasingly important role in improving emergency management departments across the country. Approximately 240 million calls are made to 911 in the United States each year, with at least 80 percent coming from wireless devices, yet many emergency management systems still operate on legacy systems made for wireline phones. As a result, people in need are unable to easily share precise locations or send media messages to responders, making emergency communication and resource coordination more costly and difficult.

San Francisco’s scooter revolution is officially on hiatus.

Lime, Bird, and Spin, startups that have delighted and infuriated San Franciscans with their scooter-sharing services, have pulled their vehicles from the streets while they apply for permits to operate. The process for allowing scooters was established soon after the companies began operating without explicit permission from city officials this spring. Lime told its users it hoped to be back on the streets within weeks.

A new law that enables corporate directors and officers owning at least 10 percent of a business to opt out of workers’ compensation coverage goes into effect on July 1.

The law is intended to reduce the threshold of ownership, and is part of an effort to help eliminate workers’ comp fraud. Under the new law, directors and officers who want to opt out of worker’s comp must sign a waiver stating that they are covered by a health insurance plan.

The California Senate has approved legislation that seeks to clarify homeowners’ insurance coverage following deadly mudslides near Santa Barbara.

Insurance policies generally cover damage caused by fires but not by mudslides. That creates confusion in cases like the mudslides in Montecito, which were triggered by a wildfire.

Starbucks Corp. and other roasters and retailers must serve up a cancer warning with coffee sold in California, a Los Angeles judge has ruled.

Superior Court Judge Elihu Berle in a ruling published on Monday said that Starbucks and other coffee sellers did not show that the risk from consuming acrylamide, a possible cancer-causing byproduct created during coffee roasting, was offset by benefits from drinking coffee.

Michael Williams, 34, of Daly City, Calif., has been arrested on 21 felony counts of insurance fraud and grand theft after allegedly working for multiple employers while collecting over $85,000 in workers’ compensation benefits from two different insurers.

In November 2014, Williams was reportedly working as an electrician when he sustained a work-related injury. He filed a workers’ comp claim with the State Compensation Insurance Fund and began collecting temporary workers’ comp benefits.

The number of California workers’ compensation inpatient hospital stays fell 31.2 percent between 2008 and 2016 compared with a 19.6 percent drop in hospital stays paid under private plans, a new California Workers’ Compensation Institute study shows.

The study also shows a 2.4 percent increase in Medicare inpatient stays, and a 19.6 percent increase in inpatient stays paid by Medi-Cal, which saw a huge jump in enrollment with the rollout of Affordable Care Act plans.

In California in 1862, the area between Sacramento and San Francisco became, in effect, an inland sea of about 300 miles long by 30 miles wide after 40 to 45 straight days of rain.

That area is now home to millions of people and the state Capitol. What would happen if that type of rain event occurred in the near future, and what’s the likelihood? The answer to the first question is, there would be complete devastation. In looking for an answer to the second question scientists invoke a phenomenon they’re calling “precipitation whiplash.”

This refers to the rapid transitions between precipitation extremes and the opposite — so a heavy season of rain followed immediately by drought or vice versa. This, scientists say in a study published in the scientific journal, Nature Climate Change, is what California can expect in its future because of the warming climate.

It means that severe rain or drought will be concentrated in more narrow intervals of time than they have been traditionally. It means, possibly, more extreme flooding events and more drought.

An acrid stink of petroleum three years ago sent Santa Barbara County firefighters scrambling in a search for a possible spill. When they arrived at Refugio State Beach they witnessed oil staining the pristine sands and seeping into the surf. Uphill they discovered oil gushing like a fire hose “without a nozzle.”

It was the worst California coastal spill in 25 years, spreading a shimmering sheen out to sea that eventually deposited tar balls on beaches more than 100 miles away. But were they looking at a crime scene?