Steve Lopez: The bleeding Bell blues
Posted in Education, News, what on July 21st, 2010 by admin – Comments Off
In the newspaper business, when editors are asked what kinds of stories they want to go after, there’s a popular two-word answer. The first word is “holy” and the second word is unprintable.
Well, friends, my Times colleagues Ruben Vives and Jeff Gottlieb dug up a genuine “holy [cow]” story in the town of Bell last week, exposing the staggering, colossal, unconscionable salaries that city officials have awarded themselves under the radar of the struggling town’s residents.
On Monday, I drove to Bell to see if I could make sense of how it all happened. I parked at City Hall, walked up to the counter and asked to speak to the nearly $800,000-a-year city manager, because I was dying to see what such a specimen looks like.
Oakland could go to pot in a big way with four proposed factory farms
Posted in Crime, Health, News, economy, what on July 20th, 2010 by admin – Comments OffOakland could approve a plan Tuesday to set up four marijuana factory farms, a step that could usher in the era of Big Pot.
The proposal is a testament to just how fast the marijuana counterculture is transforming into a corporate culture. And it has ignited a contentious debate in Oakland that could spread as cities face pressure to regulate marijuana cultivation and find ways to tax it.
“Everybody knows it’s going bigger and big money is moving in,” said Dale Gieringer, an Oakland resident and prominent marijuana activist. As the state edges toward legalization, he said, more businessmen will seek to capitalize on a fast-growing market in a recession-hindered economy, forcing cities to make difficult choices on how to exert control.
Senate passes sweeping financial overhaul legislation
Posted in Health, News, Politics, economy on July 16th, 2010 by admin – Comments Off
Nearly two years after a financial crisis triggered the worst recession since the Great Depression, the Senate approved bold and controversial legislation aimed at preventing a repeat — and set the stage for a showdown over the issue in this fall’s midterm elections.
The 60-39 vote Thursday was a major victory for President Obama and Democratic leaders and marked the second landmark overhaul — the first was healthcare reform — that the administration has pushed through Congress this year.
Google says China has renewed its license
Posted in News, Tech on July 9th, 2010 by admin – Comments OffA Google official said China has renewed the search engine’s license to operate its website in China, a move that comes as a surprise after the company engaged in a contentious spat with authorities over censorship.
The announcement was posted early Friday morning on a blog belonging to Google’s Chief Legal Officer David Drummond.
“We are very pleased that the government has renewed our [Internet Content Provider] license and we look forward to continuing to provide web search and local products to our users in China,” Drummond wrote.
