Sep/Oct 2012

Stephen Joseph’s Save the Plastic Bag Coalition maintains that the bags are actually good for the environment, not to mention the economy.

• By Nick Welsh

Jorja Leap / Youth violence researcher / University of California, Los Angeles

• By Vince Beiser

• By Matt Novak

The real-life chemist behind television's preeminent crystal cook

• By Vince Beiser

Are South Asians the new "model minority" of American entertainment?

• By Tom Jacobs

• By Tom Jacobs

In 1896, William Randolph Hearst unleashed his pit-bull ace reporter, Ambrose Bierce, in the nation’s capital to expose the Railroad robber baron's grip on California’s Legislature. Reforms happened. The state was returned to its people. Trouble is, some of those fixes are bringing California to its knees.

• By Dennis Drabelle

A long list of politicians and a whole industry of fix-it professionals have failed to restore California to its former glory. Did Nicolas Berggruen—Paris-born, art collector, global investor—and his Think Long committee, know how to rebuild the Golden State? And if so, Why didn’t anyone listen?

• By Joe Mathews

Schools around the nation are 'detracking' classes, putting kids of all achievement levels in the same room. Does that sabotage higher achievers?

• By Julie Halpert

California's Jerry Brown—now pragmatic, but still profane—is banking on a last-gasp proposal known as Proposition 30 to save the biggest economy in the nation.

• By Marc Cooper