Want to dodge the city of Redding’s coming likely increase in water bills? Kill your lawn.
The largest public works project in Modesto history is under way at the city’s sewer treatment facility west of town. When completed in 2016, the plant will clean waste water so it can be released directly into the San Joaquin River.
The weather should be nice (what else?) for Tuesday’s municipal election, so roll out of bed and start humming Randy Newman. Maybe we’ll hit 25% turnout.No, wait, don’t turn the page.
Actress Angelina Jolie’s brave disclosure about her preventive double mastectomy is empowering to women with good insurance and financial means. But lower income women won’t have easy access to the same medical options
If you own property in Stanislaus County, then you are part of the Yosemite Community College District and you’re paying taxes for the new and renovated buildings at Modesto Junior College that were financed by the 2004 bond authorization known as Measure E.
As if you didn’t know this already, we’re coddling criminals in America.–
Former Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado is planning a run for the Republican gubernatorial nomination next year and also is pushing a ballot initiative to repeal California’s prison realignment, in which certain low-level offenders are moved from the state prison system to county jails.It is reasonable to assume that Maldonado plans to make the prison issue a centerpiece of his run for governor, but that’s just not so, he insisted at a news conference a few days ago.He told reporters he was “here to tell you today that this press conference is not about Abel Maldonado running for governor.” As we used to say as kids, “Liar, liar, pants on fire.”There must be something in politicians’ DNA that allows them to stretch the truth, obfuscate, mislead or downright lie and still look people in the eye and insist that their hearts are pure, their motives not to be questioned.In the same issue of The Bee that reported on the Maldonado press conference, there was a story about the Republican-dominated congressional committee investigating the September attack on our consulate in Benghazi that claimed the lives of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.The committee chairman, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, was quoted as saying the goal of the investigation is to “get answers because the families (of those killed) deserve answers,” which, of course, is pure baloney.The goal of the investigation is to embarrass the Obama administration in hopes of reaping political capital in future elections and, especially, to tar former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who right now is considered the most formidable Democratic candidate for president in 2016.And how often have you heard officeholders insist that the campaign contributions they take from special interests have absolutely no effect on how they vote on legislation?If you truly believe that, then you would fit right in as a voter in South Carolina, where former Gov. …
Unable to match the salaries of private and some public utilities, California cannot retain skilled employees to maintain and operate its complex and vital water delivery system.
In the nation’s socially conservative heartland, Minnesota voters were the first to reject a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, which had passed in 30 states. Opponents of same-sex marriage had won every popular vote until then, including in California.
Gov. Jerry Brown has renewed his push to eliminate the $700 million to $750 million a year business tax break known as enterprise zones, this time with the goal of using that money in ways that actually would stimulate economic development.
School will be out in just a few weeks, and thousands of high school students — some of them new graduates, others underclassmen — will be looking for things to do with their time. Parents who may previously have assumed that summer school remains an option may be in for a surprise, too. Summer school is now primarily “recovery credit” driven, meaning most of the students are taking classes to make up for poor grades or performance. Summer school for students looking to “jump ahead” by earning credits for things like college enrollment
Since U.S. News & World Report began ranking colleges 30 years ago, that magazine has discovered a niche in the ratings industry.
The first time I held a gun I was 11. It was heavy and silver, a revolver.
The width and breadth of the Justice Department’s actions in secretly obtaining phone records of The Associated Press are, in our view, a dangerous reach too far.
Russia’s propaganda apparatus may need an infusion of fresh talent to impart a much-needed touch of realism for what movie theaters used to call “selected short subjects.”
The most recent movement to reform government in San Bernardino is focused on the personalities running City Hall, not the process that put them there.
Tea parties aren’t the problem and hassling them isn’t the solution — but the flood of anonymous campaign money laundered through nonprofits needs to stop.
How much does your city spend on economic-development incentives? And when it spends money on land deals, discount utilities, fee waivers and other subsidies to attract business and help them grow, does it get its money’s worth?
The woes in Hercules’ dysfunctional city government have been well detailed in these pages during recent years.A witch’s brew of gross financial mismanagement, breathtaking incompetence and rampant corruption pushed this lovely bayside community to the brink of financial ruin and placed it in a
The unfunded liability at the California State Teachers’ Retirement System is perhaps lawmakers’ most difficult fiscal challenge. Yet Gov. Jerry Brown, who claims he wants to reform pensions and brags about retiring state debt, ignores the elephant in the room.
Any gardener who has wrestled with crab grass, and any parent who has struggled raising a teen-ager learns unintended consequences can result from trying to ameliorate those conditions. It is the hubris of the gardener and the parent that leads them…
“This is politics,” the consultant said. Yes, the politics of deceit.
We don’t often praise San Diego Mayor Bob Filner, but we must give him credit when credit is due.
It’s quite common to read about Gov. Jerry Brown’s Jesuit training and his tendency to made obscure references grounded in religious scholarship. He has mastered a more common vernacular, too.
One of the biggest challenges California’s 1,000 or so school districts face — the implementation of transformational new Common Core standards, curriculum and testing over the next two years — may be about to get a lot easier. Gov. Jerry Brown announced Tuesday that he wants to give $1 billion in one-time surplus revenue to schools to help them with this massive project, to be used for essential teacher training and technology. We can imagine few better uses for the money; the Legislature should approve it. …
For all Jean Quan’s declarations to make public safety her top priority, she has yet to specify where the money will come from to return the department to previous staffing levels. She knows residents must give up other city services, but she’s unwilling to name them.
When, after a courtship of at least five years, school teacher Nellie Gail, 29, said “I do” to cattle baron Lewis Moulton, 54, wedding guests may well have reflected that any children born of the union would be highly individualistic. They were….
This is the second installment in a series about 13-year-old Ladera Ranch resident Katie Hawley, who has neuroblastoma, a form of pediatric cancer. Last Saturday night was pasta night at the Hawley house. More than 20 people sat gathered around…
Pakistanis cast ballots this week in parliamentary elections, voicing their dissatisfaction with a government that has tolerated the United States’ controversial drone killing program. The consequences for U.S.
New stem cell research could lead to the cloning of a human, but with proper safeguards, it could also lead to medical breakthroughs. A breakthrough in stem cell research has again raised the specter of human cloning. The discovery by a team at Oregon Health and Science University moves the world incrementally closer to that result, but its more immediate effect will be to spur efforts to regenerate healthy tissue for the injured and the ailing
