Local Transportation Sales Taxes: California's Experiment in Transportation Finance

Over the last 25 years, voters in 20 California counties approved “local transportation sales taxes” to pay for transportation projects. A growing source of revenue, they generate roughly $2.5 billion per year. Four features explain their popularity: they require direct voter approval; funds are raised and spent within the counties that enact them, so voters experience benefits directly; most automatically expire; and they usually specify the improvements to be financed. These taxes are an important revenue source, but tend to favor capital investments over operations and maintenance. They have enhanced local governments' decision‐making authority, but may have made regional transportation planning in multicounty regions more difficult to achieve.     

Thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura causing sudden, unexpected death--a series of eight patients

Eight patients were presented to the medical examiner after dying suddenly and unexpectedly from thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura. Compared with patients who die after prolonged hospitalization and treatment, these patients showed fewer neurologic symptoms and correspondingly fewer or no microthrombi within the brain. Only four of eight subjects developed fever, which further contributed to misdiagnosis. The differences in clinical presentation between our cases and most published series is striking and may be explained by shorter duration and no treatment. Each case contained the characteristic histology of thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura. Ischemic injury to the heart and conduction system was the most likely mechanism of sudden death. Included in this series is a patient with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) diagnosed at autopsy, a concurrence that is now appearing more frequently in the medical literature.     

The lay component in Scottish juvenile justice

A recently completed study of the Scottish juvenile justice system, employing a variety of methodological approaches, is used as a source of information on the behavior and attitudes of the lay volunteers who make up children's panels and are responsible for decisions concerning young people who are alleged to have committed an offense or are believed to be in need of care and protection. The reported data relate to the beliefs of panel members as to the causes of delinquency and the objectives of intervention and alternative disposals; the topics they raise for discussion in children's hearings and the factors which influence the decisions they make; and the manner in which they are perceived by the children and parents who have appeared before them.