Students in Tioga High School’s personal finance class learn everything from balancing a checkbook to home mortgages and consumer rights. These students participated in an online personal finance contest (from left) Zac McBryde, 18, Scott Ewen, 18, teacher Ryan Dutton, Teddy Wolf, 17, Tyler Hawkins, 17, Andrea Weeks, 14, Lili Powell, 18, and Sam Salwasser, 18. Maggie Beck/Union Democrat, copyright 2010

Math teacher Ryan Dutton’s fifth-period personal finance class recently came in second place in California’s www.lifesmarts.org competition.
 

Environmental groups are praising a move by air regulators that they say could hamper Sierra Pacific Industries’ efforts to get paid for raising trees on logging lands under a landmark climate-change law.

SPI, meanwhile, says its planned carbon-offset projects — including a deal worth millions of dollars to grow trees in Tuolumne County — are proceeding as planned.
 

“Get up, quickly! Get in the doorway!”

These words greeted Elias Britton, 9, of Tuolumne, at 3:36 a.m. Saturday. He was sick, and his father had stayed with him through the night in his room in the family’s temporary home near Santiago, Chile.

The Angels Camp City Council on Tuesday will re-examine a $6,000 payment to fund fishing tournaments at New Melones Reservoir as part of an ongoing effort pushed by Councilman Craig Turco to make the city more financially transparent.

The council agenda also includes votes on final phase of adoption of the city’s new brand identity, the Police Department’s annual presentation and five public hearings on zoning and ordinance changes.
   

A presentation on an innovative system of locally financing energy efficiency improvements, like double-pane windows and solar panels, will dominate the Calaveras County Board of Supervisors’ Tuesday agenda.

Supervisors will hear about AB 811, a state law under which local governments can sell bonds to provide loans for property owners doing energy efficiency projects, then recoup those debts through assessments on the owners’ property tax rolls.
   

“Bump-bump.”

It sounds almost as if your tires have just rumbled over a pair of wayward snakes.
   

Calaveras County Undersheriff Mike Walker announced Friday that he will resign his position in August after 35 years with the department and will not seek election as sheriff.

The news came two days after Sheriff Dennis Downum revealed he would not run for a fifth term and further opened the field for the position’s lone candidate, former Sheriff’s Lt. Gary Kuntz.
  

The Sonora resident who died in a car crash Thursday morning was identified by the Kern County Coroner as Bill Wayne Vartan.

Vartan, 65, was driving north on Highway 99 in a 2003 Honda Element at an unknown speed at 4:55 a.m., according to a report by the California Highway Patrol.
  

 The Mother Lode Fair will move back to July this year after being pushed ahead a few weeks last year.

It will be held July 9, 10 and 11 at the Mother Lode Fairgrounds, off Stockton Road in Sonora.
  

Wet and snowy weather will return to the Sierra this week, as a series of storm systems makes its way across Northern California.

The National Weather Service says rain is forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday, with more wet weather arriving Friday.