Having given her campaign $104 million, the GOP candidate buys TV, direct mail and a Web presence. Yet she and Jerry Brown are in a competitive race.

Meg Whitman's record-breaking spending in the race for governor has enabled her campaign to blanket California with more TV ads and mailers than any other in state history, while also tapping new technologies to further broaden her reach.

Former city manager Robert Rizzo's latest contract divided his nearly $800,000 salary between his main job and various city boards. Excluding the side pay could drastically cut his retirement income.

California pension officials are investigating the pay received by former top officials of Bell with an eye toward excluding large chunks of their salaries from retirement calculations.

The draft environmental impact report does say, however, that the project will give riders more options and allow them to travel across town much faster than the buses on Wilshire Boulevard.

Though the proposed Westside subway extension is expected to provide substantial benefits for transit users, the multibillion-dollar project — contrary to one of its selling points — will do little to relieve traffic congestion in West Los Angeles or the county, a new environmental review shows.

Recently unsealed affidavits show son tried to get armed intruder to leave. Detectives say DNA evidence links Jonathan Packer to the mysterious 2009 killings in Ventura County's Faria Beach Colony.

The 9-year-old son of a Ventura County couple who were stabbed to death by an intruder last year attempted to get the man to leave by offering him his mother's and father's wallets.

The donation to the Proposition 23 campaign comes from a subsidiary of Kansas-based Koch Industries, which owns refineries and controls 4,000 miles of oil pipelines.

The fight over a November ballot initiative to suspend California's global warming law has escalated sharply with the Koch brothers, oil billionaires and "tea party" backers, making a million-dollar entry into the fray.

In a 'mind-boggling case,' the owner and four employees of Global Horizons Manpower Inc. are indicted on charges of engaging in a conspiracy to coerce the labor of hundreds of Thai nationals.

In 2003, a farmworker showed up in the Hollywood offices of a Thai community organization with a harrowing tale.

Officials say three terminals at the Los Angeles International Airport were briefly shut down after an airport contract worker left an exit from a secure area unattended.

Scientists are hailing the confirmed find of a Sierra Nevada red fox about 90 miles south of Reno, a native subspecies feared extinct in the range since the last verified sighting in 1990.

A former food company executive at the center of a tomato price-fixing investigation was released from jail Friday on $6 million bail.

The wreckage of small plane that crashed in a lagoon off San Francisco Bay and killed the three people on board was recovered Friday. The founder of a local steel company was believed to be among the dead.

A convicted child molester who became the public face of Megan's Law in the 1990s has made another bid for freedom.

Authorities say a man suspected of the attempted extortion of a law enforcement officer and wanted in a string of burglaries in Malibu has been arrested in Honolulu.

A rare Sierra Nevada red fox has been seen in the Stanislaus National Forest near Sonora Pass, confirming that the species continues to survive in a region where it was thought to be extinct for nearly a century.

A naked man who climbed to the top of a towering rock at Goat Rock state beach near Jenner and then jumped off to the shock of onlookers suffered severe fractures and other injuries Thursday evening, emergency medical personnel said.

A great white shark with a seal lion in its mouth was seen Thursday at Doran Beach, long considered one of the safest places on the North Coast for surfing, kayaking and swimming.

LOS ANGELES -- Officials say three terminals at the Los Angeles International Airport were briefly shut down after an airport contract worker left an exit from a secure area unattended.

Most immigrants who have kids are long-term residents

The state Assembly this week began enforcing a long-forgotten rule that constrains media coverage of legislative debates by prohibiting audio or video recorders without permission. The rule requires reporters, television stations -- and even lawmakers themselves -- to receive advance permission from the Assembly speaker's office before recording or videotaping Assembly sessions. The state Senate does not have a similar rule.

The Los Angeles County sheriff has escalated his war of words against California medical marijuana dispensaries, saying as many as 97 percent operate as criminal enterprises.

Two environmental groups are suing to block the redevelopment of San Francisco's abandoned Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, saying a key part of the plan could permanently damage shoreline and wildlife.

Authorities are searching a Northern California landfill for signs of a missing man whose father was killed last week.

A federal appeals court has overturned a businessman's tax fraud conviction because the Los Angeles judge didn't postpone the case so the man could be at his son's deathbed.

Ne-Yo says T.I. has had many chances _ and it's time he gets his act together.

A helicopter has gone down on a busy California highway in Salinas, sending its pilot to the hospital and snarling traffic.

People in the Tahoe area are getting aggressive in controlling a rash of bear break-ins this summer.

A helicopter pilot survived a crash early Friday morning just seconds after taking off from Salinas Airport.

State and federal officials have announced an agreement to remove all radioactive contamination from a partial nuclear meltdown in 1959 at a rocket testing site just outside Los Angeles.

Police are searching for two robbers who ran over and killed a man after he won several thousand dollars at a Southern California casino.

Republican Senate candidate Carly Fiorina on Friday endorsed an oil-company funded ballot initiative that seeks to indefinitely delay California's landmark global warming law.

A man who helped in the gang rape and murder of a woman at a San Diego park in 1986 has been sentenced to 26 years to life in prison.

There are two lotteries - one free, one not - for tickets to attend the debates between gubernatorial candidates Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown. The Oct. 12 debate will be held at Dominican University in Marin County and be moderated by veteran NBC...

As the Bell scandal and the debate over government transparency rages, we ask you to consider these revealing numbers from our friends at the U.S. Census Bureau: In the five years between 2002 and 2007, the number of full-time equivalent employees in...

A powerful earthquake near New Zealand's South Island on Thursday is not expected to cause a tsunami on the U.S. West Coast, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The agencys' West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center...

A political signature gathering firm that's been accused of wrongdoing in seven states registered dozens of Orange County residents to vote in February under the name of a 69-year-old woman who insists she was in Puerto Rico the entire time. The...

Labor Day weekend traditionally marks the beginning of the campaigning season. But in advance of the fall start, a group of political prognosticators known for their accurate and nonpartisan records say in essence that Democrats would need a miracle...

Blue whales are still appearing in force off the Southern California coast, whale watchers say, apparently taking advantage of abundant krill. "We're seeing upwards of 15 whales per trip," said Michele Sousa, senior biologist at the Aquarium of the...