Live_Online guest Miss California - Jackie Geist had some interesting things to share about changes to that American tradition, the Miss America Pageant.

President-elect Barack Obama is urging Congress to postpone the Feb. 17 switch from analog to digital television broadcasting.

Millions of consumers by year's end should be able to watch free, over-the-air television on cellphones, PDAs and other portable digital devices.

More than a third of elective C-sections are performed too early, increasing newborns' risk of respiratory distress and other problems, researchers reported Wednesday.

The state's high court has barred emergency room doctors from directly billing insured patients when their HMOs refuse to pay the entire bill.

UC Davis is among a handful of California schools ranked best values for the money.

AP - Floods, mudslides and avalanches in the Pacific Northwest kept tens of thousands of people from their homes Thursday, brought freight trains to a standstill and stranded hundreds of trucks along the major highways that link Seattle's busy ports with markets around the country.

AP - Gov. Rod Blagojevich's defense attorneys have asked a federal judge to throw U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald and all his assistants off the fraud and bribery case against him.

AP - A fugitive police sergeant said Thursday he won't contest being sent back to Alabama, where he's accused of faking his abduction, stealing evidence money and flying to Las Vegas to try to win enough money to pay off personal debts.

AP - Prosecutors said Thursday that investigators found 100 signed checks worth $173 million in Bernard Madoff's office desk that he was ready to send out to his closest family and friends at the time of his arrest last month.

AP - The Illinois House committee investigating Gov. Rod Blagojevich released a draft report Thursday that concludes the Democratic governor has abused his power and was poised to recommend he be impeached by the full chamber.

AP - Republican Sen. Kit Bond announced Thursday that he will not seek re-election in 2010, saying he wants to go out "at the top of my game" and setting the stage for what one expert said could be a "land rush" for the seat.

AP - With her Camelot pedigree and Park Avenue address, Caroline Kennedy is not exactly the average American woman. But many women identify with her impulse to enter the work force after two decades of child rearing.

AP - A quick-thinking woman put her lifeguard experience to good use, saving herself and her two small daughters after their car slid off a road into a deep, frigid pond.

AP - Georgia, Ohio and Minnesota are among the states that are part of a national salmonella outbreak that has sent at least a dozen people to the hospital and sickened nearly 400 people, officials said Thursday.

AP - Think you know what time your mail arrives each day? Think again.

AP - Massachusetts health officials plan to follow the lead of New York City and California in requiring fast-food chains to post calorie counts for their products on boards behind the order counter.

AP - Heavy police presence greeted Bay Area Rapid Transit commuters Thursday, a day after more than 100 people were arrested in violent protests over the fatal shooting of an unarmed black man by a transit police officer.

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