
JPMorgan to Pay California $50 Million for Credit-Card Abuse
JPMorgan Chase & Co. agreed to pay California $50 million to resolve claims the bank cheated tens of thousands of credit-card customers while collecting debts from them, California Attorney General Kamala Harris said.

Such Great Heights
A community push for revitalization efforts in one of Sacramento’s most historically troubled neighborhoods starts by identifying who, not what, Del Paso Heights is and wants to be
The internet does not paint a pretty picture of Del Paso Heights. When a national team tasked with proposing revitalization measures Googled the North Sacramento neighborhood, crime stories filled the screen. But that’s not the whole story, and local leaders say it is high time the community changed the narrative.

Skate with Friends
Cool nonprofit ramps up support for Sacramento kids with special needs
SkateMD connects youth with special needs with volunteers to learn how to skateboard. The Sacramento-based nonprofit was created by Melanie Tillotson (the “M”) and Andrea “Drea” Bibelheimer (the “D”), who saw a need in the community for a cool program in a safe space that would spread kindness to children facing developmental, physical, emotional and family challenges.

Clear Your Mind and the Cash Will Flow
Businesses are betting on meditation for employee health and corporate profits
You live a crowded life. We all do. You probably looked at your smartphone before you rolled out of bed. You immediately checked your email, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Maybe you glanced at your phone on your morning commute. Your job demands multitasking, so at work your computer has 25 open tabs — Outlook, Excel, Word, Powerpoint, and on and on and on. As you read this article, the odds are good that you’re also kind of doing something else.

You Can’t Work Your Way Through College Anymore
Working to pay for college doesn’t work. Despite the fact that 40 percent of undergraduates work at least 30 hours per week while in college, tuition is too high for those hours to make much of a difference, a new report shows.

Prosperity Is Good for Marriage, and Vice Versa
A new report from AEI and the Institute of Family Studies shows that the share of married adults, and especially married parents, are associated with higher per-capita gross domestic product and lower levels of violent crime.

You’ve Been Blocked
What the expansion of ad blocking software means for small publishers
According to Fast Company, as ad blocking software becomes more ubiquitous (consider Apple’s new iOS 9, which supports ad blocking applications), the entire ecosystem of small publishers and bloggers is threatened by an inability to adequately fund their sites

Biomass Energy Produces Clean Energy and Improves Forest Health
There is growing momentum to build a strong, sustainable biomass energy infrastructure in California — great news for our environment and our forests. But in the meantime, many facilities are struggling to survive, and changes are needed to guarantee a stable future for this important green energy industry.

Dirty Water
Wastewater injection in the San Joaquin Valley threatens farmland
Tom Frantz has the sierra mountains to thank for his livelihood, since the snowmelt that runs off the peaks eventually sinks into the ground and, over time, descends into the natural underground reservoirs of the Central Valley. In drier years, Frantz gets most of his water from wells that tap into this aquifer. But the water, Frantz says, is being poisoned.

Making a Scene in El Dorado Hills
Several local indie movie productions hint at our region’s filmmaking history and future
Sacramento may not be the TV and movie hotspot that places like Austin or Atlanta have become, but on the set of one locally-produced film being made in El Dorado Hills, optimism is high for the greater Sacramento area to develop a burgeoning filmmaking scene.