Waste, Fraud, and Abuse
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Oreo cookies and sustainability: the new drugs of choice
America’s favorite cookie is as addictive as cocaine or heroin. According to a new Connecticut College student-faculty study, Oreos are just as addictive as drugs in lab rats. Apparently the lab rats in the study devoured the cookie sandwiches. But is there
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AG Kamala Harris ensures she won't go down with bullet-train Titanic
The saga of the California bullet train took a twist on Friday that at first seems strange but at second look appears to be shrewd politics by an ambitious officeholder playing the long game. On Aug. 16, Sacramento Superior Court
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Rail authority offers no ‘remedies’ for bullet-train plan’s legal flaws
On Nov. 8, Sacramento Superior Court Judge Michael Kenny will hold a hearing at which “remedies” to the shortcomings in the state’s bullet-train plan are supposed to be discussed. Those shortcomings were detailed in an Aug. 16 Kenny decision that
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Stemming police violence/misconduct: Why LAPD should emulate Rialto PD
The more I watch the law-enforcement complex at work, the more I think our criminal-justice system is often akin to an industry designed to manufacture tidy narratives of guilt and innocence. This POV leads some officers to believe they should
Read MoreAs governor contemplates teacher 'discipline' bill, fresh classroom outrage
As Gov. Jerry Brown weighs whether to sign a teacher-discipline bill that actually makes it more difficult to discipline teachers, fresh evidence turns up of bad teacher behavior in the state's largest school district, the district where the outrages occurred
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Coming days could be pivotal in bullet-train fight
Friday — or sooner — will see a crucial development in the five-year fight over implementation of Proposition 1A, the 2008 ballot measure that provided $9.95 billion in bond seed money for a statewide bullet-train project while establishing a state
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$4.4 billion headache solved. How? Chronicle has no explanation
Members of the media's aversion to math — especially to explaining how numbers work when explaining spending decisions in public policy — is hard to miss. For years, few stories by California journalists on pensions and retirement benefits really dug
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Chart shows govt. shutdown HELPS markets
Government officials are warning that, if the shutdown continues, the economy will be harmed. President Obama said Thursday: academic assignment “It is important for [Wall Street] to recognize that this is going to have a profound impact on our economy
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CA tax board slow to act on protests
online essay If the California taxman unfairly penalizes you for an alleged infraction that you didn’t commit, don’t hold your breath waiting for justice. The Franchise Tax Board takes nearly four years on average to resolve many of its
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