By Andrew Becker, California Watch As California’s outdoor marijuana growing season nears its end for 2012, drug officials are reporting a sharp decline in crop seizures for the second year in a row. The latest figures show that local, state and federal law enforcement agencies are on track to eradicate an estimated 1.5 million plants […]
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By Kevin McCoy, USA Today While most Americans worry about gas and heating oil prices, water rates have surged in the past dozen years, according to a USA Today study of 100 municipalities. Prices at least doubled in more than a quarter of the locations and even tripled in a few. Consumers could easily overlook […]
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By Suzy Khimm, Washington Post The first presidential debate hasn’t even happened, but voters have already started to cast their ballots this week in Iowa. Thirty-two states and the District of Columbia allow early voting in person without any excuse required, and over the course of October, polls will beginning opening in Ohio, North Carolina, […]
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By Anne Knowles MINDEN – Public-private partnerships, including the commercial use of public lands, dominated the discussion at the 18th annual Critical Issues Conference hosted by the Business Council of Douglas County. Speakers from both sides of the equation talked about a federal lands bill stuck in the U.S. Senate and the bill passed last […]
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By Donna Leinwand Leger, USA Today Prescription-drug abuse in the United States declined last year year to the lowest rate since 2002 amid federal and state crackdowns on drug-seeking patients and over-prescribing doctors. Young adults drove the drop. The number of people 18 to 25 who regularly abuse prescription drugs fell 14 percent to 1.7 […]
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By Jim Sanders, Sacramento Bee The Sacramento region will get a seat on the California Air Resources Board under legislation signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown this week. Assembly Bill 146 will expand the ARB from 11 to 12 members, with the new seat reserved for a representative from the Sacramento, Placer, Yolo-Solano, El […]
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By Mark Shapiro, California Watch Ten miles outside of Modesto, in the farming town of Hughson just off Highway 99, the Duarte Nursery is at the front line of dramatic changes now under way in California’s immense agriculture industry. The family-run nursery, founded in 1976, is one of the largest in the United States, and […]
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By Kathryn Reed TAHOE CITY – A hotel where Safeway is as well as one along the golf course. Residences above street level businesses. Side streets with commercial offerings instead of just along the highway. Expanded recreation. Improved public transit. Those are some of the visions a group of business owners and others have for […]
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By Ed Vogel, Las Vegas Review Journal CARSON CITY – A state legislator who helped lead the effort to pull Nevada out of the bi-state agency that controls planning and growth at the pristine Lake Tahoe has changed his mind. After meeting with California legislators, state Sen. John Lee, D-North Las Vegas, said he does […]
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By Karoun Demirjian, Las Vegas Sun WASHINGTON — The online poker bill-making process has never been pretty. But a collection of emails released by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s chief of staff Friday reveals an especially brambled picture of what has kept legislation crucial for Nevada’s biggest industry on ice for so long. The story […]
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