9th Circuit sides with feds in wiretap ruling

State news briefs

LA BANS SKATEBOARD "BOMBING" AFTER 2 DEATHS: LOS ANGELES (AP) - Los Angeles officials voted Tuesday to respond to two teen deaths by banning skateboard "bombing," where skaters zoom down steep hills at up to 40 mph.

Young men of color in trouble costs California billions of dollars

Loss of RDA cash hurts struggling cities

SF mayor ends stop-frisk consideration

Bay Area briefs

Car dealership settles discrimination suit FREMONT (AP) - A Northern California Toyota dealership has agreed to pay $400,000 to five former Afghan-American employees who say a manager called them terrorists and threatened them. The Fremont Argus reports that Fremont Toyota's former general manager allegedly called four salesmen names and threatened to blow them up with a grenade in a 2007 staff meeting. <p ...

Legislative pay hikes could hurt tax plan

Why Mars again? A look at NASA's latest venture

PASADENA (AP) - NASA's new robot rover named Curiosity landed safely late Sunday in a huge crater near the equator of Mars and will soon begin its scientific studies. This marks NASA's seventh landing on the red planet and is its 19th Mars mission, including those by orbiters and other spacecraft. WHY MARS AGAIN? <p style="line-height: ...

Quake felt in Coalinga was magnitude 4.5

COALINGA (AP) - A magnitude-4.5 earthquake has shaken a rural area of Central California. A U.S. Geological Survey computer-generated report says Monday's 12:36 a.m. quake was centered 16 miles south-southwest of Coalinga in the San Joaquin Valley and 123 miles southeast of San Jose. A Coalinga police officer says several people have reported feeling the quake but there ...

Weekend thunderstorms fuel California wildfires

BELDEN (AP) - A wildfire in Northern California's Plumas National Forest has now consumed more than 21 square miles although officials say calmer winds and higher humidity helped crews battling the blaze overnight. The Chips Fire was still at zero percent containment on Monday morning. The blaze jumped fire lines over the weekend, fueled by strong winds from thunderstorms. It is threatening ...

Woman tries to steal newborn in tote bag from Southern California hospital

GARDEN GROVE (AP) - A woman disguised in scrubs was caught trying to steal a newborn girl from a Southern California hospital in a duffel bag after sensors attached to the baby alerted employees, Garden Grove police said. The 48-year-old woman was arrested Monday at Garden Grove Medical Center after a hospital staffer stopped her from leaving with the baby, Lt. Jeff ...

Bay Area briefs

Man trying to rob pot operation killed OAKLAND (AP) - The caretaker of an indoor marijuana growing operation in Oakland's Chinatown district shot and killed a man early Monday after the man and two others tried to rob the operation, police said. The shooting occurred shortly before 5 a.m. after three men tried to barge into a duplex about two blocks ...

State news briefs

Couple reports finding baby's body FOLSOM . (AP) - Authorities are investigating how a baby reportedly found in the backyard of a Sacramento County couple's home died. The couple has told police they returned to their Folsom home after a vacation on Sunday and found the baby. Police are not releasing its sex or race or saying whether it had been carried to ...

Man wants to farm shellfish in federal waters

LONG BEACH . (AP) - A Southern California entrepreneur already has a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers provision permit to harvest a million pounds of mussels and oysters from an underwater shellfish farm nearly five miles offshore. The project, described as a milestone in aquaculture, now needs California Coastal Commission approval.

Donner Summit’s 3,000 acres of granite peaks & wildflowers becoming open space

. TRUCKEE (AP) - In what is being hailed as a major land acquisition in the Sierra Nevada, conservation groups announced Monday they had reached an agreement to purchase 3,000 acres of granite peaks and wildflower-dotted meadows atop Northern California's Donner Summit. Under an agreement reached last week with a court-appointed negotiator, three local nonprofits will buy the 3,000-acre Royal Gorge property for ...

Lansbury: Mistake to recycle 'Murder, She Wrote'

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Angela Lansbury says "it's a mistake" for NBC to call a new series "Murder, She Wrote."

Olympic gold medal won by Jesse Owens to be sold

LAGUNA NIGUEL (AP) - One of the four Olympic gold medals won by track and field star Jesse Owens at the 1936 Berlin Games is set to go on the auction block. SCP Auctions says the medal could sell for upward of $1 million in the online auction that runs from Nov. 20-Dec. 7. Owens won gold in the 100- and 200-meters, the 400 relay and the long jump at the games attended by Adolph ...

Thieves bypass luxury cars, opt for watches

SAN DIEGO (AP) - Police say burglars smashed a plate glass window at a San Diego County luxury car dealership, but it wasn't the Rolls-Royces, Bentleys or Lamborghinis they were interested in. They walked out with watches worth between $20,000 and $60,000 apiece. Tthe break-in at the Symbolic Motor Car Company showroom in La Jolla was reported about 2:50 a.m. Monday. They then tipped over and smashed a glass case containing four Breitling for Bentley ...

Burglary suspects caught after online post

ROCKLIN (AP) - Four burglary suspects have been arrested in Northern California after posting a photograph online of an expensive fast food feast that they allegedly purchased with a stolen credit card. Rocklin Sgt. Scott Horrillo says three adult suspects and one juvenile were arrested Sunday for breaking into four parked cars in Rocklin on Friday and stealing GPS units, wallets and other items. Horrillo says that after the burglaries, the suspects stopped at a ...

Girl burned playing with glass of gasoline

VICTORVILLE (AP) - A girl is recovering from burns over 20 percent of her body including her face after she and friends lit a glass of gasoline on fire in a playhouse in Southern California. San Bernardino County fire officials tell the Victorville Daily Press (http://bit.ly/1fveUFj) three girls removed the gasoline from an all-terrain vehicle last week at a Wrightwood home. They put the gas in a glass and took it to a playhouse behind ...

DNA to determine if rare fox spotted

TRUCKEE . (AP) - Wildlife biologists are conducting a DNA test to determine if a rare native fox has been spotted at a lake in northern California near the Nevada state line.

Officials seek to find how 2 California condors died

TEHACHAPI (AP) - State wildlife officials are trying to learn how two endangered California condors died after the birds were found last month in water tanks used by firefighters in California's Central Valley.

Four hurt in S. California hot air balloon explosion

TEMECULA (AP) - Officials say a hot air balloon exploded after landing in Southern California wine country leaving four people hospitalized, one of them with severe burns.

Atheist ‘mega-churches’ take root

LOS ANGELES (AP) - It looked like a typical Sunday morning at any mega-church. Hundreds packed in for more than an hour of rousing music, an inspirational sermon, a reading and some quiet reflection. The only thing missing was God.

Transgender law repeal will qualify

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Opponents of a new California law that gives transgender students certain rights said Sunday that they had collected enough signatures for an initiative that would repeal the law.

2 men charged with murder in Turlock slaying

TURLOCK (AP) - Two men have been charged with murder for the slaying of a 21-year-old man in Turlock.

ABC picketed over kid’s kill everyone in China joke

BURBANK (AP) - More than a thousand people picketed ABC's Burbank headquarters over the weekend to protest a "Jimmy Kimmel Live" show in which a youngster said the United States could resolve its debt to China by killing everyone in the Asian country.

Bullet train land acquisition moving slowly

FRESNO (AP) - The body overseeing plans to build California's bullet train has started the daunting and expensive process of acquiring thousands of acres in the Central Valley, where the rail line's proposed path would slice through farms, stores and motels.

State’s low community college fees face scrutiny

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The fees to attend California's community colleges are by far the lowest in the United States - less than half the national average - yet at least 40 percent of the 2.4 million students in the largest U.S. system of higher education do not pay them.

New research on shallow shoreline waters

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE. (AP) - For more than 40 years, scientists have carefully scrutinized the cobalt waters in the middle of Lake Tahoe, documenting a steady and disturbing decline in the lake's famed clarity.