Opinion

Apple Inc. isn't doing anything outright illegal, or different than lots of other U.S. corporations are doing to shave their tax bills. It's just being more ingenious and aggressive than most about playing every possible angle.

It's pruning season in Sacramento, City residents can always tell.

The obvious clues are the growing piles of yard waste sitting along curbsides uncollected. Some of the piles have been there so long the leaves and grass have turned brown.

The beverage industry is in a real bind. On one hand, the major drink manufacturers that produce soda, energy drinks, sweet teas and sports drinks are an American success story. They have made some of the most iconic products in the world and have developed some of the most ingenious ad campaigns. They have found ways to sell their products everywhere, increase portion sizes, keep prices low, and expand product lines in response to changing consumer tastes.

To the distinguished California Public High School Class of 2013.

I'm sorry James Franco canceled at the last minute. I'm even sorrier that you wound up getting me as your substitute commencement speaker, but I was offered gas money plus a free lunch.

Networks are generally leery of shows that are set in the past.

TV executives think younger viewers don't care about history. And they're always on the hunt for the younger demo, working on the mistaken premise that millennials buy more and change brands more often than profligate and fickle baby boomers.

Federal judges should be on notice: The U.S. Justice Department seems fully prepared to stretch the truth – or worse, spread falsehoods – to obtain search warrants. That's what it did in labeling a journalist as an espionage "co-conspirator" for simply doing what reporters have always done – attempting to solicit information from government employees.

Since the infamous 2010 Citizens United ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, our elections have been inundated with gobs of secret donations for spending by outside groups on political ads.

Money flowing through Sacramento lately can mean only one thing: Gambling is front and center again in the Capitol.

California recently collected nearly half a billion dollars under its new emissions trading system, which "caps" industrial greenhouse gas emissions and requires firms to obtain pollution permits for every ton of carbon they emit.

About two years ago, the folks at Google released a database of 5.2 million books published between 1500 and 2008.

Meeting the Labor Day deadline for opening the long-delayed eastern span of the new San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge must no longer be the singular focus of Caltrans.

Given the promises to voters and the city's core duties, there's little doubt that nearly all of Sacramento's sales tax windfall will go to restore basic police, fire and parks services.

Why are so many so angry over the Kings staying in Sacramento? Judging by online reaction of Bee readers, you would think someone had stolen their firstborn.

The Obama administration has no business rummaging through journalists' phone records, perusing their emails and tracking their movements in an attempt to keep them from gathering news.

Good news: President Barack Obama asked Sen. Chuck Schumer to reintroduce the federal media shield law that failed in the Senate in 2009.

We know American politics are dysfunctional. But after a week of scandal obsession during which the nation's capital and the media virtually ignored the problems most voters care about – jobs, incomes, growth, opportunity, education – it's worth asking if there is something especially flawed about our democracy.

If it wins final approval, the eye-popping $2.25 billion penalty that the California Public Utility Commission's Safety and Enforcement Division has recommended against Pacific Gas and Electric Co. will be the largest ever imposed against a utility in the United States.

It's early morning on Point Reyes National Seashore north of San Francisco. Oystermen push an old wooden boat into low tide and leap aboard. Their leathered faces expressionless, lost in thought, their hoods pulled tight: it's cold. Their day will be long, their labor tedious, their futures uncertain. We head toward the sea, to the oyster beds.

A yawning gap has emerged between University of California health system administrators and rank-and-file health workers.

Part town crier and part town scold, Tim Crews arrives at work each day at the Sacramento Valley Mirror with one goal – to print the news as he sees fit, and maybe raise a little ruckus in the process.

Watchdog accountability of those in power takes many forms. So do the efforts to stop it.

Americans for Job Security, a political operation with a name that is a cross between pabulum and platitude, did what it was set up to do: help a rich man hide his multimillion-dollar donation to a campaign.

International travel is more than sightseeing, a planned itinerary or guide-organized interactions. It is about serendipity, experiencing the unexpected.

We love our forests in California. After a century of rapidly losing them to farming and logging, we finally succeeded in virtually ending deforestation in California. We were driven by our interest in the natural beauty, the wildlife, the sustainable timber supplies and the water-purifying functions of old-growth redwoods along the coast, the blue oaks growing across the Central Valley and the mixed pine forests of the Sierra. It was only possible because we had a clear vision of the importance of our forests and a successful strategy for protecting them.

An April 25 Viewpoints article, "Twin tunnels water grab is doomed to fail," noted a number of concerns with the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, citing the comments of the National Marine Fisheries Service on how to improve the current draft. The agency offers additional thoughts on the state's plan for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

At the end of a truly dismal week in his presidency, President Barack Obama remains lucky in one crucial category: his opposition.

At great political peril, George Ryan did the right thing.

When Californians passed AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act, we committed to one of the most forward-thinking pieces of climate legislation in the country, with comprehensive strategies to reduce carbon emissions from nearly all sectors of the economy. Unfortunately, the California Air Resources Board is considering a move that will undermine the best intent of this law by linking it to a benign-sounding yet dubious and untried scheme to protect rain forests in Mexico and Brazil.

The Internal Revenue Service and Benghazi stories may be consuming Washington, but in the rest of America, not so much.

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.