Efforts by California’s government to help students recover from the pandemic go back to its earliest days, with the state investing more than $36 billion to deal with pandemic impacts. The funding has gone to Learning Recovery Emergency Block Grants, expanded teacher recruitment, literacy specialists and much more.

FROM THE PUBLISHER: As it is with all catastrophes, there’s plenty of blame to go around. I guess this can be a useful exercise at some point, but it won’t rebuild people’s homes, restore their most valued possessions or, most importantly, stop this from becoming an annual, recurring heartbreak. We need to ask and answer some obvious questions.

Around the Capital Region, schools are still working to recover socially and academically from the COVID-19 pandemic. Test scores have been affected, as has school attendance. A new wave of behavioral issues has unfolded, too. Now, a variety of people are working to help students catch up.

CalMatters: Artificial intelligence uses so much energy that its rapid spread could endanger California’s goal of eliminating all carbon emissions by 2045 — even as AI companies may be flooding the state treasury with tax revenue. The conundrum has legislators considering what was once unthinkable: Bringing back nuclear power as a driver of innovation and economic growth, sort of like it was the 1960s all over again.

Addressing themes of reciprocity and stewardship, Jennifer Peart’s artwork draws inspiration from science fiction novels, retrofuturistic architecture and pristine natural landscapes. Her intricate, vivid landscapes, often featuring familiar landmarks, are delicately painted on sustainably sourced wood panels.

Many digital news outlets like the Folsom Times have popped up in the Capital Region over the past two decades. Are they destined to cease like the newspapers that came before them, or is it possible to build a local newsroom financially sustainable enough to last?

This past summer, my daughter graduated from UC Berkeley and my son from high school. Before she entered the job market and he went off to university, I decided to take them on one more epic adventure.

The influx of immigrants and refugees from a multitude of different countries has created an opportunity and a challenge for Capital Region architects to design educational spaces with greater cultural sensitivity that provide a sense of belonging for new students and families.

There were once dozens of theaters across the United States affiliated with Fox Film Corporation (also known as Fox Studios), in an era when moviemakers set up their own chains of theaters and sometimes commissioned grand film palaces. Some have long since been demolished, but others have shown what can happen after a successful push for preservation.

David Oorbeck and Tsutomu Kanaya, owners of Dru & Tsutomu Designs, say that some artist friends of theirs told them about Sacramento — that it was affordable and contained consumers “as attracted to creativity as in the Bay Area.”