03/29/2024

News

Bumpy Roads Ahead: America’s Roughest Rides and Strategies to Make Our Roads Smoother

More than a quarter of the nation’s major urban roads are rated in substandard or poor condition, providing motorists and truckers with a rough ride and increasing the cost of operating a vehicle.

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DWP Seeks to Increase Water and Power Rates

The Los Angeles City Council is expected to vote on the rate hike by December. If approved, power rates would rise an average of 3 percent annually starting in 2016, and water rates would rise over the same period by 3.8 percent.

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Workforce Training a Big Jumble

It’s a shame these programs operate so haphazardly because $5.6 billion, if spent effectively, could be a major factor in bolstering California’s middle class, which is shrinking rapidly, making us a two-tier society with the nation’s highest poverty rate.

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U.S. Jobless Claims Fall To Lowest Level Since 1973

An important measure of layoffs hit its lowest mark since the Nixon administration, a sign of increasing momentum in the labor market and a possible hint at the extent of job growth for the full month of July.

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Republicans Open to New Road Fees–With Strings Attached

Some Senate Republicans are open to raising costs on motorists, said Senate Republican leader Bob Huff. But Democrats must first agree to bureaucratic changes that will increase efficiency and redirect existing road funds back into transportation, he said.

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Brown’s Words Quash Needed Debate

On governance and budget matters, Gov. Jerry Brown has earned a reputation for being reasonable and moderate. Even many Republicans describe him as the “last adult” in the Capitol, given his refusal to embrace far-reaching programs. Yet when it comes to global warming, the governor is anything but measured these days.

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California Can’t Stop Global Warming Alone, but It Can Fix Its Highways

The governor is in Europe saving the planet. The Legislature is on a monthlong vacation. And we motorists keep getting our cars beat up on California highways.

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On Climate, a Rough Road Ahead for California

Change did not come as swiftly as Pavley and Schwarzenegger had hoped. Democrats and some Republicans in Congress tried to pass a bill that would cap greenhouse gas emissions nationally, but it failed. Pavley’s effort to clean up cars’ tailpipes did eventually become the basis of a national policy. But federal rules on climate change still lack the breadth of California’s. Nations like China and Brazil have also moved slowly, at least until recently.

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LA County Supervisors Agree To Boost Minimum Wage to $15 an Hour by 2020

Organized labor won an important victory Tuesday when the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted to increase the minimum wage to $15, but it now faces a more daunting political challenge: convincing other local governments to join the movement.

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Union Bills Proliferate in Capitol

The bill, passed by the Senate on a party-line vote, is clearly aimed at discouraging other local governments from adopting COIN. Those voting for SB 331 are, therefore, voting for more secrecy in how countless billions of dollars in salaries, fringe benefits and pensions are committed.

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Dan Walters: High Rate of Poverty Bites California

When the Census Bureau began calculating poverty a half-century ago – as a “war on poverty” became a hot issue in Washington – it devised a rather simple formula. The formula defined income that would be counted – excluding non-cash income such as food stamps and housing subsidies – and applied it to a narrow “market basket” of food and other living necessities.

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California Unemployment Rate Drops to 6.3 Percent in June

California’s jobless rate dropped back to 6.3 percent in June after seeing a slight increase in May.

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Energy Improvement Program Can Hobble Home Sales

But the approach can add a layer of complexity to home sales and refinance applications. Interest rates also tend to be higher than for mortgages and home equity loans, from 6.75 to 8.35 percent in the Home Energy Renovation Opportunity, or HERO, program that Elk Grove has authorized.

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Sky-High California Gas Prices Have a Green Additive

As usual, purported consumer activists are blaming collusion among putatively monopolistic oil companies. The real culprit is anti-carbon regulation promoted by a cartel of green activists and liberal politicians that is aimed at raising energy costs to discourage consumption. Sticker shock at the pump, like water rationing and high electric rates, is the price Californians must pay for their environmental virtue.

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Gas Prices to Stay High as Exxon Mobil Refinery Woes Drag On

The refinery that has historically produced about a fifth of Southern California’s gasoline has been crippled since a February explosion — and may stay that way for months to come.

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