California employees can't be fired just because they use medical marijuana, according to a bill that has passed the Legislature. 

The mother of a missing Florida toddler bailed out by Sacramento bounty hunter Leonard Padilla was back behind bars again late Friday.

Fire response possibly slowed by a "browned out" Sacramento fire station may have played a role in a three-alarm blaze that destroyed two homes Friday.

The threat of Biggs-Gridley Memorial Hospital closing its doors has the community scrambling to raise money.  

A young woman walked into a Stockton funeral home Friday afternoon and left a newborn infant, police say. 

Overspending, not job loss nor medical bills has been the culprit behind most personal bankruptcies in recent years, according to a new UC Davis study.

AP - Police with bullhorns plan to go street to street this weekend with a tough message about getting out ahead of Hurricane Gustav: This time there will be no shelter of last resort. The doors to the Superdome will be locked. Those who stay will be on their own.

AP - At 9:38 a.m. on Friday, about 200 mourners rang handbells to mark the moment three years ago when New Orleans' levees were breached by high waters from Hurricane Katrina, flooding most of the city and leading to the deaths of about 1,600 people.

AP - DNA evidence has linked an air conditioning repairman to the stabbing deaths of three women, including a former girlfriend of actor Ashton Kutcher, police said Friday.

AP - Many things have gone wrong for Navy Senior Chief Tommy Gura while disarming nearly 200 improvised explosive devices in Iraq. He's been shot at and targeted for mortar attacks. His robots have blown up and he's lost communication to call for backup.

AP - A series of fast-moving thunderstorms packing winds of up to 100 mph plowed through the Phoenix area, leaving tens of thousands without power, damaging several airliners and collapsing a brand-new college football facility.

AP - Two airliners were one minute from colliding when at least one of the planes turned away from the other over the Atlantic Ocean this week, federal authorities said Friday.

AP - NASA's staff will study whether the space shuttle program could continue operating past its scheduled retirement in 2010, according to an internal e-mail sent this week.

AP - The difference between a monster and a wimp for Gulf of Mexico hurricanes often comes down to a small patch of warm deep water that's easy to miss. It's called the Loop Current, and hurricane trackers say Gustav is headed right for it, reminiscent of Katrina.

AP - A mother was convicted Friday of killing her month-old daughter by burning her in a microwave oven, with jurors rejecting a defense attorney's claims there was evidence that someone else was responsible.

AP - Homicide investigators used ground-penetrating radar Friday to determine if the bones of a long-vanished couple were buried in the backyard.

AP - A defense attorney says his client will plead guilty to conspiracy in a bizarre 2003 bank robbery that led to the collar-bomb death of a Pennsylvania pizza delivery man.

AP - Farmers in "America's Salad Bowl" are turning into hunters — stalking wild pigs, rabbits and deer — to keep E. coli and other harmful bacteria out of their fields.

AP - On the same day that residents marked the three-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's wrath, another storm strengthened into a hurricane miles away and threatened to hit the Gulf Coast once again.