California is in the fourth year of an unprecedented drought, with rivers and reservoirs running dry. The energy needed to help grow crops, including about 2 billion pounds of almonds annually, may reach a record this year, and utilities are responding by building new transmission lines and substations to handle the additional electricity.

For many years, I have been making furniture that I sell to friends and family, and at local fairs and boutiques. It has become so successful that I’d like to work toward officially starting my own business. I know there are many ways I could set up my company; how do I know what will be best for me?

“The administration’s ideas call for more than doubling the vehicle-registration fees and raising the price of fuel on all Californians,” Assembly Republican Leader Kristin Olsen said in a statement. “We disagree and think Californians have paid enough. Funds exist to fix our roads.”  

Artists in hard hats toured the Golden 1 Center construction site during the first week of September to get a first-hand look at the locations selected for four public art projects. Shelly Willis, executive director of the Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission, led four orientation sessions for the 17 artists who have been selected to submit proposals in late October.

This type of belt is popular overseas, not so much in the U.S. But for the past few years, Brig Taylor and his wife, Michelle, have been on a mission to make hole-less ratchet belts the go-to accessory for American waistlines.

I work for a small, established company, and we don’t have policies in place for employee reviews. Actually, we don’t really do reviews at all. I find this odd. Is there a reason a company wouldn’t ask for or provide formal feedback? If I wanted to put a procedure in place for the people I manage in my department, what would I need?

Trends in politics take hold as quickly as those in fashion, and minimum wage increases are definitely “in” this political season. But unlike in the past when Capitol Hill and state legislatures served as battlegrounds for minimum wage debates, cities are now the epicenter. Buoyed by increases enacted in a handful of megacities, American municipalities of all sizes have started asking whether they should follow suit, and if so, to what degree.

Have you ever walked into a semi-dried lake bed? You start out on firm sand, and little by little the ground gets softer and stickier and deeper until finally the mud pulls your boots straight off your feet. That’s the position of many companies battling today’s marketplace, particularly small-business owners set in their ways and family businesses unable to overcome Dad’s unwavering march into the ground.