Marcos Breton

The story is so outrageous, it seems unbelievable: A mother walking down a street on a sunny day with her 7- and 4-year-old daughters can only look on in horror as a man pulls up in his car, grabs the older girl, throws her in the trunk and speeds off.

When hedge fund billionaire Chris Hansen on Friday raised his group's now-obscene offer to buy the Kings, lifting the franchise's value to $625 million, two thoughts came to mind:

Buster Posey. He barely played Wednesday, but he was the key figure in a key sequence that led to a key Giants win.

There is a key building that needs to be utilized in Sacramento so surrounding neighborhoods can be lifted beyond blight.

On Feb. 11, 1989, I woke to one of the two happiest days of my life as a slender 26-year-old who easily slipped into his wedding day tuxedo.

Each time a prominent gay person "comes out," a little bit of intolerance dies.

That a key NBA committee would vote 7-0 to block the Kings' relocation to Seattle is a resounding first step. This almost surely means the franchise will remain in Sacramento.

The Rev. Samuel Rodriguez preaches at a large church in Elk Grove, but his influence is growing beyond his many worshippers at the corner of Elk Grove and Stockton boulevards.

If Wednesday was a foreshadowing of rivalry moments to come between the Giants and Arizona Diamondbacks, then 2013 is going to be an insanely satisfying baseball season.

Like many of us, I'm ready for the Kings story to be resolved – for it to be decided whether the team is staying in Sacramento or moving to Seattle. Make a choice already. We've had it.

It was 20 years ago this week that Cesar Chavez, the iconic labor leader and Mexican American hero, died too soon and was feted across the globe as a champion of the poor and the oppressed.

One of the great joys of achieving a renewed state of fitness at 50 is being able to run longer distances after years of obesity and ill health.

With the NBA board of governors meeting this week to decide the fate of the Kings, it may seem as if Sacramento and Seattle were vying for the team on equal footing – as if the franchise were a jump ball up for grabs.

At first blush, it seemed like a big setback for Sacramento to lose billionaire Ron Burkle as a potential Kings owner and developer of a downtown arena to block a franchise move to Seattle.

If today's parents accomplish anything, it's to teach our daughters that there is nothing any man – including the president of the United States – could say to diminish them.

It turns out we hardly knew Barry Zito. We had him pegged as an overpriced failure, a vanity purchase that was intended to move the Giants beyond the specter of Barry Bonds – but had veered close to being a franchise wrecker.

It's not only unprecedented that Seattle and Sacramento will be bidding against each other for the future of the Kings before the oligarchs of the NBA in New York today.

The A's set an unwanted American League record with their ninth straight Opening Day loss Monday, a sour stat on an otherwise festive evening that was dampened by a world-class nemesis.

Vivek Ranadive, the man who would be the Kings' new majority owner, is an innovator, a job creator and a walking billboard for immigration reform.

Sacramento may lose the Kings, but if that happens through an NBA decision in April to relocate the team to Seattle, there is a better option than mourning a lost asset. It's called turning the page.

Somewhere in baseball heaven, Roberto Clemente is smiling.

It's hard to notice with the possible departure of the Kings dominating the news, but Sacramento has a healthy dose of civic momentum going after years of dismal recession.

Outside Sacramento, one can find knowledgeable people who think it's a fool's errand for the city to be pursuing a last-minute arena deal to retain the Kings.

Who would want to be superintendent of Sacramento's public schools?

If the offer to keep the Kings in Sacramento equals a rival bid to move them to Seattle, how could the NBA vote to tear the franchise out of here?

A few weeks ago I addressed an audience of more than 300 senior citizens, many of them quite hostile to the idea of a public subsidy to finance a downtown arena for the Kings.

One way or another, this Kings saga can't end soon enough for the good of the Sacramento region.

Her name is Tina Ford, but the formerly homeless woman with almost no memory of her past life isn't completely sure how she came by it.

According to Slate magazine, there have been nearly 2,000 gun-related deaths in the U.S. since 20 children and seven adults were massacred in Newtown, Conn., on Dec. 14.

Giovanni Peri, an Italian-born economist at UC Davis, is quickly becoming one of the most important voices in America's immigration debate.

This isn't a "not in my backyard" story.

My father-in-law used to love Chinese New Year, which is being marked today by 1.5 billion people from Sacramento to Shanghai.

If you're not a humble parent, you will be at some point in a way that your hubris would never imagine. You're going to have your feelings shanked with the tenderness of a serrated blade on a vital organ.

Bless me, Father, for I have sinned – today I will skip Mass to pray at the altar of a 55-inch TV screen.

As President Barack Obama gave the most important speech on immigration reform in years on Tuesday, it became clear that his greatest foe is not the Republican Party on this terribly divisive issue.

What is it going to take to revive the death penalty in California and to begin exacting punishment on those who deserve the ultimate sentence?

It seems very likely that the Kings could relocate to Seattle in a matter of months, but there is a very legitimate reason for the community to try hard to prevent it: Losing the Kings would be a huge setback to a Sacramento region in the early stages of a sustained economic recovery.

Anne Marie Schubert is not a household name in her hometown of Sacramento yet, but that could soon change with the career prosecutor in line to be the next district attorney.

Rarely have so many known so little about something so important and yet so absurd.

Get your popcorn ready. The stage is set. If not for Kevin Johnson, the Kings would have been gone already. But he was born for this fight.

Whether the Kings ultimately move or stay, it's time that Sacramento embraces an undeniable truth: None of the turmoil surrounding the team is the fault of this community.

If Barry Bonds is not fit for the Hall of Fame, then no player of the last quarter century is.

It's not easy being a Catholic and a lover of major league baseball, two institutions that have lifted me up as they've fallen from grace.

Sean Merold's most treasured gift this Christmas wasn't that he is a valued member of a Sacramento firm that closed a $600 million real estate deal last week – the largest in California this year.

No more distractions. No more fake arguments that lead nowhere.

For the first time since he died more than a decade ago, I am glad the late Sacramento Mayor Joe Serna Jr. is not around to see this.

I'm tired of debating gun violence with people who cling to ideology as the bodies pile up.

There are so many things you wish you could say to someone once that person is gone.

Mort Friedman was one of those indispensable people who uplifted Sacramento with his intellect, his guts, his money, his work ethic and his unwavering sense of community.