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.

A Lodi cardroom wants to the city to allow an increase in games, hours and the number of tables it offers to players.  

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said he will restart talks in hopes of a deal to handle the projected $42 billion deficit.

AP - Rain and high winds lashed Washington state Wednesday, causing widespread avalanches, mudslides, flooding and road closures as the heavy snowfall that has buried parts of the state began to rapidly melt.

AP - Wind-driven wildfires swept across Boulder County grasslands Wednesday, destroying at least four structures and prompting mandatory evacuations of at least 500 homes.

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.

AP - A 16-year-old girl suspected of drowning an infant boy in a toilet and throwing the body in the trash was charged with murder Wednesday.

AP - Watch out, Las Vegas: New York City wants to become the new No. 1 place to tie the knot.

AP - Lawyers for a former Orange County sheriff blasted federal prosecutors Wednesday for failing to call one of his ex-assistants as a key witness in his corruption trial.

AP - Galveston officials pleaded with state lawmakers Wednesday for help in rescuing their island city from the dire financial straits it finds itself in nearly four months after the devastation of Hurricane Ike.

AP - A grand jury indicted a Baltimore councilwoman and a prominent developer Wednesday, the first public corruption charges in a three-year probe of city finances that has targeted the mayor.

AP - One of Gov. Bill Richardson's close friends and advisers worked as a consultant for the California firm at the center of a federal pay-to-play probe that derailed the governor's appointment as commerce secretary.

AP - Six veterans who say they were exposed to dangerous chemicals, germs and mind-altering drugs during Cold War-era experiments filed a federal lawsuit against the CIA, Department of Defense and other agencies Wednesday.

AP - The search for the remains of a Jersey City baby apparently thrown in the trash by a hospital has moved to Kentucky, but police fear the corpse has already been incinerated.