A bankruptcy judge is facing a decision on whether the struggling city of Vallejo is financially insolvent and can void labor contracts with four public employees unions.
More than 200,000 state workers could see their paychecks temporarily reduced to minimum wage next month as legislators battle over California's overdue budget.
Elk Grove has filed a request to extend its sphere of influence. Wilton residents believe the bid will bring more traffic, crime and development too close to their homes.
The state announced citations and over $250,000 in fines against an Atwater-based farm labor contractor who employed a 17-year-old worker who died of heat stroke.
AP - Hurricane Dolly barreled into South Texas on Wednesday, lashing the coast with winds up to 100 mph and dumping heavy rain that flooded some low-lying areas but spared levees along the heavily populated Rio Grande Valley.
AP - Texas executed a man Wednesday who was convicted of killing a woman and her child, while Mississippi put to death a man who took part in the fatal beating of another man.
AP - Texas authorities on Wednesday began looking for five indicted members of a polygamist sect, in a child sex-abuse case that the group's spokesman alleged was a face-saving move by officials who lost a court battle over their seizure of hundreds of children from a sect-owned ranch.
AP - Kentucky has started lowering flags to half-staff only for fallen soldiers from the Bluegrass State, upsetting veterans and lawmakers who say the policy dishonors tens of thousands of service members from other states stationed at installations such as Fort Campbell and Fort Knox.
AP - All six crew members aboard a B-52 bomber that crashed off Guam were killed, the Air Force said Wednesday as the search effort shifted focus from rescue to recovery of the crew and pieces of the wreckage.
AP - The judge in the trial of convicted Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui says she told jurors that they made the right decision in sparing his life.
AP - A state lawmaker who gained national notoriety with an anti-homosexual rant was stopped from entering the state Capitol Wednesday when she was found to have a loaded handgun in her purse, the Oklahoma Highway Patrol said.
AP - A woman mauled by a bear in rural Kern County was recovering Wednesday in a Los Angeles hospital as game wardens sought to trap and kill the animal.
AP - A federal judge on Wednesday upheld the corruption convictions of former Newark Mayor Sharpe James and his one-time mistress, but indicated that James probably will get less than the 15- to 20-year prison sentence prosecutors are seeking.
AP - Microsoft founder Bill Gates and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg are pooling their piles of money to pour $375 million into a global effort to cut smoking.
AP - The National Transportation Safety Board said Wednesday it is investigating a near collision of airborne planes at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport — the third such incident at a major airport this month.
AP - The head of a prominent cancer research institute issued an unprecedented warning to his faculty and staff Wednesday: Limit cell phone use because of the possible risk of cancer.
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