Rancho Cordova recently celebrated the annexation of a finger of land — Folsom Boulevard east of Sunrise Boulevard and south of Highway 50 — with the rest of the incorporated city.

For years, the debate over climate change centered almost exclusively on science: Is global warming occurring, and if so, are humans causing it? But with the economy still struggling, the argument has shifted to one of dollars and cents.

Dr. Jan Nolta is a whirlwind of energy, and this July morning she is blitzing through UC Davis’ brand-new Institute for Regenerative Cures, a state-of-the-art lab where scientists and researchers are working on breakthrough discoveries and stem cell therapies.

Transforming the Power Inn area bears a striking resemblance to the way an ancient lake transforms into a meadow. It takes a lot of infill, it happens over decades and the result can be a jewel that brings new vitality to the landscape.

For decades America has been steadily approaching a major social development — a time when the number of women in the work force would surpass the number of men. That moment has now arrived, brought on by, of all things, a recession.

When Barack Obama was running for president in 2008, he vowed that if elected he would take up George Bush’s failed 2007 effort to reform the nation’s immigration policy, secure U.S. borders and provide a path to citizenship for undocumented persons who had lived in America for years. Since then, however, issues such as health care reform have pushed immigration to the back burner.

San Joaquin County needed 3,000 more unemployed workers like it needed a hole in the head, but that’s what it got with the closing of the NUMMI auto plant in Fremont and the related layoffs at its major suppliers.

Steve Moore, of Rex Moore Electrical Contracting, spent a decade handing over the reins of the family business to a fourth generation.

For decades, the contours of the Capital Region economy seemed etched in stone. Government, manufacturing and construction employed the bulk of the population. After the boom and bust of the past decade, however, the job profile of the future could be almost unrecognizable.

Last November, San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank President Janet Yellen gave a speech on the national economy and put the prospects for the commercial real estate market in stark perspective.