Richmond soda tax measure foes spend $2.2M

RICHMOND (AP) - A group backed by the beverage industry is spending millions of dollars to defeat a soda tax measure on the Nov. 6 ballot in this San Francisco Bay Area city. Campaign finance statements released Friday show the "No on N" campaign has spent $2.2 million compared to just $25,000 by supporters of the tax, the Contra Costa Times reported ...

Bay Area briefs

Speeding car injures 3 outside Antioch school ANTIOCH . (AP) - Antioch police are investigating what caused the driver of an SUV to slam into three people outside an elementary school, including a crossing guard and her 11-year-old son. Two men fled the scene of Tuesday morning's accident outside Turner Elementary School, but that one returned and identified himself to police as the ...

State news briefs

JUDY GARLAND'S 'WIZARD OF OZ' DRESS UP FOR AUCTION: LOS ANGELES (AP) - The Dorothy dress is going up for auction.

Nickelodeon TV says Romney skipped kids' questions

Documents: FBI agent denies paying for sex

Obama: designates Cesar Chavez' home in Keene as national monument

California gas price surge really adds up

Dymally broke racial barriers in Calif. politics

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Mervyn Dymally broke racial barriers during his more than four decades in California politics but also was dogged throughout his career by a variety of corruption allegations. The Trinidad-born trailblazer who rose to become California's highest-ranking black politician died Sunday at age 86 in Los Angeles after a period of declining health, ...

Ending break for out-of-state businesses

Pipeline hearings suspended for closed talks over fines for deadly explosion

Group calls for boycott of Mi Pueblo grocery chain over immigration checks

SAN JOSE (AP) - A Northern California-based grocery store chain that caters to Latino immigrants has come under fire for participating in a federal program that checks the immigration status of prospective workers. A coalition of groups, including the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 5, on Monday called for a boycott of San Jose-based Mi Pueblo in part because of ...

Proposition 39 at a glance

Winter-blend' may reduce prices Gov. Brown orders dirty gas production to ease pump pain

'

Bay Area briefs

Oregon man wins Half Moon Bay pumpkin contest HALF MOON BAY (AP) - A grower from Oregon is the winner of this year's Half Moon Bay giant pumpkin contest with a gourd weighing in at 1,775 pounds. Forty-five-year-old Thad Starr from Pleasant Hill, Ore., set a contest record with his pumpkin Monday, beating last year's winner by 71 pounds. <p style="line-height: 18pt; background: ...

Initiative seeks to alter budget process

SACRAMENTO (AP) - How to end California's boom-and-bust budget cycles and perpetual deficits has perplexed governors, lawmakers and fiscal experts for years.

New Tahoe bear battle tactics

LAKE TAHOE (AP) - It's not your average bear battle.

Brown vetoes sex abuse lawsuit bill

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a bill Saturday that would have allowed some sex abuse victims who are now barred by the statute of limitations to file lawsuits against private institutions that employed their abusers.

Teacher stabbed in front of students

LONG BEACH (AP) - Nearly 100 people attended a memorial Saturday to mourn an elementary school teacher who was fatally stabbed in the neck while watching her students play at a park.

Growing backlash to government surveillance

SAN JOSE (AP) - From Silicon Valley to the South Pacific, counterattacks to revelations of widespread National Security Agency surveillance are taking shape, from a surge of new encrypted email programs to technology that sprinkles the Internet with red flag terms to confuse would-be snoops.

BART, unions negotiate as streak deadline looms

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - With a strike deadline drawing ever closer, negotiators for San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit system and its two unions prepared Sunday to resume contract talks that could prevent hundreds of thousands of commuters from having to find costlier and longer ways to work.

SF landmark Cliff House reopens

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A landmark San Francisco restaurant that became a casualty of the federal government shutdown has gotten the green light to reopen.