http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/01/08/california-democratic-sen-barbara-boxer-to-retire/
The bad news: It's California, and they'll almost certainly elect another lunatic. 
I actually have hope the next person, while likely liberal, may not be as bad. There may even be hope of a "California conservative" getting in. During these last elections, if you dig into the data, CA became a much lighter blue in many areas on the county level. Even in my own very liberal county, the congressional rep only beat the Republican contender by ~5000 votes*. That's VERY close for this district. A county "fracking ban" initiative was also hammered by a 2/3 "No" vote.
That kind of scenario was the case in many other districts as well. It's as much seeing some of the fence sitters and conservatives getting more active as it is with liberals getting tired of their favored politicians, much like so many conservatives are now disgusted by the possibility of another Bush running for President.
So we'll see. I'm not getting my hopes up, but there's a chance for something at least a little better.
*Totally tangential, but the 5000 votes she won by are almost exactly the amount of students her team claimed to have registered at the local university. I've never been a big fan of university students voting in the elections of the districts where they're going to school, then like carpetbaggers, not sticking around to see the damage they've caused or to live with the consequences. Unless they're really residents, they need to absentee vote in their home districts. I don't mind legitimate voters voting the exact opposite of how I would vote, but University student voters are just too often like locusts, especially on local issues.
