Within a span of less than eight hours last week, Californians saw the current governor deliver an early closing statement on his time in office and a fiery exchange between the leading candidates to replace him in 2019.

This week’s episode of the California Politics Podcast takes a closer look at Gov. Jerry Brown’s State of the State address on Thursday, and the Los Angeles forum that night featuring six gubernatorial hopefuls.

We also check in on the rising tensions over a state senator’s leave of absence — and how lawmakers have now taken the unprecedented step of changing their standing rules to keep state Sen. Tony Mendoza (D-Artesia) from returning to work later this week.

A bid to help Californians dodge the effects of President Trump’s tax plan has gotten a little less generous.

State Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles) has changed his bill allowing those who donate to a new state-run nonprofit to receive relief on both their state and federal taxes. In the new version of the bill, those who give to the nonprofit will reduce their state income taxes by 85% of the donation plus receive a federal charitable deduction.

Previously, De León was aiming to provide a dollar-for-dollar reduction in state taxes for those who donated. But tax law experts working on the bill with De León worried that amount could cause the federal Internal Revenue Service to crack down on the plan, and advised that a lower percentage was more legally defensible.

Former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, endorsed Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom for governor on Friday citing his championing of gun control efforts.

Newsom was the force behind 2016’s Proposition 63, which outlaws the possession of ammunition magazines that hold more than 10 rounds, requires background checks for people buying bullets, makes it a crime not to report lost or stolen guns and provides a process for taking guns from people convicted of a felony.

Giffords was shot in the head while meeting with constituents in 2011. She and Kelly have become ardent gun control activists since her recovery. The couple was introduced by Aqeela Sherrills, an activist who works to curb gang violence and whose his son, Terrell Sherrills, 18, was killed in 2004.

California’s secretary of state assigned numbers Friday to the four propositions on the June primary ballot, proposals crafted by state lawmakers last year. The list includes issues such as borrowing for drought, parks projects and restrictions on raiding new fuel tax revenues.

Under a 2011 law signed by Gov. Jerry Brown, proposals submitted by the public appear only on November statewide ballots — and as many as a dozen are now making their way through the process of collecting voter signatures.

In contrast, the four propositions voters will consider in June were the result of legislative negotiations on a variety of topics. Two of them encompass side deals on 2017’s biggest legislative debates: a new $52-billion transportation plan funded by taxes and fees and a reauthorization of California’s landmark cap-and-trade climate law.

California Gov. Jerry Brown wants to put 5 million electric cars on the state’s roads by 2030.

Brown announced the new goal in his State of the State speech this week, and formalized the target in an executive order issued Friday.

“This executive order aims to curb carbon pollution from cars and trucks and boost the number of zero-emission vehicles driven in California,” Brown said in a statement.

Times journalists annotated Gov. Jerry Brown's State of the State speech. If you see a passage highlighted in yellow, you can click on it to see what we have to say about it. You can also highlight passages and leave your own comments.

The candidates who hope to be California's next governor clashed Thursday about immigration, healthcare and how they made their fortunes at a boisterous debate in front of a packed hall with a predominantly Latino audience.

As the clout of Latino voters continues to grow in California, the governor's race could hinge on which candidate appeals most to this critical slice of the electorate. Many of the debate's questions revolved around immigration, a touchstone issue to many in the audience.

But front-runners Gavin Newsom and Antonio Villaraigosa also unleashed deeply personal attacks in the debate at UCLA’s Royce Hall over how the other made his money, a shift from the policy spats that have emerged in prior clashes.

In his 16th and final State of the State address, Gov. Jerry Brown largely pivoted away from familiar warnings about California's future to instead offer a valedictory message on what's been accomplished since his unprecedented return to Sacramento in 2011.

"Very few places in the world can match that record," he said on Thursday to an audience of state lawmakers and guests gathered in the Assembly chamber of the state Capitol.