A brazen attempt to steal an ATM left a drugstore with a gaping hole and the apparent thieves empty-handed.

California Secretary of State Debra Bowen is one of only five state elections chiefs on a first-of-its-kind trip to the Middle East.  

How the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta will be managed in an emergency situation is the focus of a new law signed by Gov. Schwarzenegger Tuesday.

Authorities say a man facing manslaughter charges after his personal watercraft struck and killed a 3-year-old boy last summer has died after an apparent suicide.

The city of Elk Grove has selected a new chief of police.

Wall Street ended sharply higher as investors bet that lawmakers will salvage a $700 billion rescue plan for the financial sector.

AP - The federal government took a new, ecosystem-based approach to the endangered species list on Tuesday, proposing an all-at-once addition of 48 species, including plants, two birds and a fly, that live only on the Hawaiian island of Kauai.

AP - Mayor Michael Bloomberg has decided to try to reverse the term-limits law he had long supported so he can seek a third term next year and help the city emerge from financial turmoil, a person close to the mayor told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

AP - The judge in the O.J. Simpson armed robbery-kidnapping case plans to release redacted jury questionnaires once the trial ends and is defending her decision not to release the full surveys immediately.

AP - The federal government is chipping in nearly $30 million for 15 passenger rail projects across the country as Americans continue to drive less and take the train more, U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters said Tuesday.

AP - First the bursting of the dot-com bubble in the 1990s, then the accounting scandals earlier this decade, forced ballparks and arenas around the country to change their names. Enron Field became Minute Maid Park, and names like PSINet Stadium and CMGI Field vanished.

AP - San Francisco's landmark universal health care program can continue to operate, after an appeals court ruled Tuesday that it does not violate federal law.

AP - The glittering, steel and glass domed rail hub had seemed for years to be the only thing that was going right at ground zero.

AP - East L.A. — birthplace of the lowrider, Los Lobos and Oscar de la Hoya — is to Mexican-Americans what Harlem is to the black community. Now it wants to become its own city. Commonly mistaken for a part of Los Angeles, East L.A. is actually an unincorporated section of Los Angeles County, with more than 130,000 people — 96 percent of them Latino — packed into 7.4 square miles.

AP - Environmental groups sued the federal government Tuesday to protect wolverines under the Endangered Species Act, saying the Interior Department disregarded scientific conclusions that the species was in jeopardy.

AP - A one-time admirer of Osama bin Laden who plotted a hand-grenade attack at a mall jammed with Christmas shoppers — and tried to trade two stereo speakers for the weapons — was sentenced to 35 years in prison Tuesday.

AP - Voters in Massachusetts will soon decide whether greyhound racing should continue there, though the real question might be whether the once-popular sport dies a quick death or a slow one.

AP - A federal jury that must decide whether a South Carolina state trooper deliberately rammed a fleeing suspect with his patrol car watched a video of the incident Tuesday, and heard the officer bragging about the collision.

AP - Voters in this crucial swing state began casting absentee ballots Tuesday, a day after state and federal courts upheld a disputed early voting law.