The mother of murder victim Chandra Levy is speaking out against a statewide proposal for early release of prison inmates.

An Oakland crowd turned unruly Wednesday night, protesting a shooting death at the hands of a transit agency police officer.  Violence Erupts

Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson says his first 35 days in office have been some of the most meaningful in his life.

The opening of a new women and children's center at Kaiser Permanente's Roseville Medical Center will make it Placer County's largest employer.

Hundreds of pelicans are falling ill, even dying, along California's coast, leaving experts baffled.

For one week, more than two dozen downtown Sacramento fine dining restaurants will offer three-course dinners for $30.

AP - More than 30,000 people were urged to leave their flood-endangered western Washington homes as swollen rivers, mudslides and avalanches engulfed neighborhoods and roadways.

AP - The chances that a teenager will be cited for talking on a cell phone while driving are pretty much zero in Oregon, a consequence of the way the law is written and a problem other states may be facing.

AP - Robert Vassallo and Angellette Smith never meant to spend the holidays in Cuba.

AP - Protests over the fatal shooting of an unarmed man by a Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer turned violent Wednesday night with windows broken, fires set and train stations closed.

AP - If you're a guy on a day hike in a national park in Utah, step carefully. You're among the most likely to need rescuing.

AP - Ted Johnson planned on using a set of logs to a build a cabin in Alaska's interior. Instead he'll burn some of them to stay warm.

AP - More than a hundred firefighters spent the night battling a stubborn, wind-driven wildfire that triggered the evacuations of more than 900 homes as it scorched grasslands near Denver.

AP - Contending it's not a federal crime to violate the service terms of a Web site, a defense attorney has asked a judge to dismiss the conviction of a Missouri mother in a cruel Internet hoax on a 13-year-old girl who committed suicide.

AP - Dozens of foreign species could spread across the Great Lakes in coming years despite policies designed to keep them out, causing significant environmental and economic damage, a federal report says.

AP - President Hugo Chavez will keep donating heating oil for poor American families in a costly decision that suggests the Venezuelan leader wants to keep to his pledges — and buttress his image — in spite of falling oil prices.

AP - A federal judge ordered an Alabama sheriff locked up in his own jail Wednesday after holding him in contempt for failing to adequately feed inmates while profiting from the skimpy meals.

AP - Firefighters say they have found three young siblings dead in an apartment building that caught fire on Chicago's southeast side.

AP - A Kentucky man who claimed to have a bomb aboard a Los Angeles-bound jetliner and was then tackled and bound by other passengers will not face federal charges, the FBI said Wednesday.