Editorials

The day before a House Ways and Means Committee hearing last week, Republican leaders sprang a radical change to U.S. transportation policy.

It may turn out to be merely a statistical blip that already this year, Sacramento County sheriff's deputies have fired at six suspects. That's more officer-involved shootings for the department than in any recent full year except 2009, when there were seven.

Since the Great Depression of the 1930s, Americans have had access to a basic safety net to see them through hard times, from food stamps to unemployment insurance.

To get a strong mayor plan on the ballot, Mayor Kevin Johnson is making concessions to remove any and all reasons for City Council members to object.

I don't watch "Glee" or "Keeping Up With The Kardashians," "Kourtney & Kim Take New York" or "The Real Housewives of New Jersey," Atlanta or Dog Patch. I'm addicted to Turner Classic Movies, Hollywood fare mostly from the 1930s, '40s and '50s.

Results from investigations into the Nov. 18 incident, where student protesters were pepper-sprayed by campus police, have been delayed.

If we had our druthers, we'd let voters decide this November on the once-delayed $11.1 billion water bond, passed by lawmakers in 2009. The sooner voters dispatch this albatross, putting it out of its misery, the sooner California can get serious about smarter and more equitable alternatives for financing needed water infrastructure.

The blockbuster Facebook public stock offering will produce a welcome windfall for the state.

California voters made a pact in 1988 when they approved Proposition 98.

Years from now, students of public relations will examine Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation's actions over the past week as an object lesson on what not to do.

Few people believe the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation when its leaders say they cut off funding for Planned Parenthood because that organization was under congressional investigation. Why should they?

The message from last weekend's fatal collision between a Regional Transit light-rail train and an SUV is obvious: Never, ever drive around railroad safety gates.

Claremont McKenna College, an expensive, 1,300-student private school in Southern California, has been falsifying SAT scores since 2005 to get better rankings from for-profit ranking companies such as U.S. News & World Report.

With aging pipes and stricter environmental rules, the bill is coming due for decades of neglect of the city of Sacramento's water and sewer system. To its credit, the Utilities Rate Advisory Commission is trying to ease the pain for homeowners and businesses.

The California Air Resources Board has pushed the envelope yet again.

California finally is making headway in reducing numbers in overcrowded prisons – enough to get the federal courts to say that the end of federal receivership "appears to be in sight."

Over the years, Apple has built a loyal following because of its ingenuity and willingness to buck norms.

The problem with election-year speeches of the kind that Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson delivered Monday is that they tend to be laundry lists – a new program for every interest group.

The recent double-digit percentage pay raises the board of the Sacramento County Employees' Retirement System approved for its top executives underscore the fallacy of compensation surveys.