"While CalPERS reported weak earnings in 2011, a prominent private-sector invest ment manager, Robert Arnott of Research Affiliates, told the board last week he thinks the most they can expect from stocks and bonds next decade is 4 percent."
The state Supreme Court's decision last week to toss out the Republicans' challenge to the newly drawn state Senate districts got it only half-right.
California Progress Report's Peter Schrag offers his thoughts: "In effect, while Friday’s unanimous decision kicked the Republicans out the door, at least for this year, it didn’t slam it against future attempts, even more frivolous ones, to manipulate a political process that the creation of the Commission was supposed to clean up."
"Justice Goodwin Liu, the court’s newest member, quoting Frankfurter, cautioned that the court’s ruling “leaves too much to ‘prudence’ and places insufficient emphasis on language in the California Constitution that channels and checks our discretion.” In effect, he said, the same end could have been achieved by simpler means inviting less future litigation."
The federal judge who put into receivership California's prison health care system says it's now time to consider ending the process and wants reports on the wrapup sent to him by April 30. But J. Clark Kelso, the receiver, says not so fast.
From the AP's Don Thompson: "Receiver J. Clark Kelso told The Associated Press that the state must begin all the upgrades before it should be allowed to retake control of a prison medical system once deemed so poor that it was found to have violated inmates' constitutional rights. They are his first public comments since a federal judge last week told officials to begin preparing for an end to the receivership."
"That leaves a court order that the state is now out of compliance with," Kelso said during the 75-minute interview. "The courts have been promised construction for the last half-decade. Somehow those promises don't get kept."
And from our "Hollywood Confidential" file comes the tale of Scotty Bowers -- rent boy, party animal and pleasure purveyor to the stars.
"Scotty Bowers, now 88, has opened up his little black book and told all, shedding light on his prostitution ring which he claims catered for the royal couple as well as gay and bisexual A-listers such as Cary Grant, George Cukor and Rock Hudson. 'Full Service: My Adventures In Hollywood And The Secret Sex Lives Of The Stars' opens the doors of the closeted, X-rated underworld of old Hollywood through three decades."
"Stories in the 286-page book tell of arranging bedroom partners for actresses like Rita Hayworth and Katharine Hepburn, who he claims he set up with 'over 150 different women', reports the New York Times. His own lovers included Edith Piaf, Spencer Tracy, Vivien Leigh and Cary Grant, he says."
And the winner is ....
