Bay Area briefs

FIREBALL ACROSS SKIES IN WEST WAS FLAMING COMET: MOUNTAIN VIEW (AP) - A California researcher says a fireball seen streaking across Western skies last week was a flaming comet.

Mickelson sorry for airing of tax issues

California foreclosures hit 6-year low

ACLU pushes English classes for 20,000 kids

Pro golfer Mickelson may move over taxes

SJ senior community sterilizing deer

SAN JOSE (AP) - A gated California senior community overrun by deer has decided to sterilize the critters. The deer population has doubled in two years to a herd of 170 at The Villages in the San Jose foothills. The 1,200-acre development has 4,000 residents. The deer are no longer intimidated by people and they are sometimes aggressive, ...

State news briefs

POLICE: SACRAMENTO HOMEOWNER KILLS MAN: SACRAMENTO (AP) - Police say a homeowner in Sacramento shot and killed a man in self-defense after the man refused to leave his yard and became increasingly violent.

Cal State system: $250M funding gap

Police say Los Angeles hospital nurse arrested for sex with corpse

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A nurse was arrested for committing a sex act with a corpse at a hospital, police said Tuesday. Alejandro Lazo, 61, was arrested at Sherman Oaks Hospital on Sunday for investigation of a state Health and Safety Code violation, a felony. Lazo, who lives in suburban Reseda, was released after posting $20,000 bail, and ...

5 held in shooting of Oakland officer

OAKLAND . (AP) - Five men were in custody Tuesday in connection with the shooting of an undercover police officer in Oakland. Two of those arrested are suspected gang members on parole, Officer Johnna Watson, a police spokeswoman, told The Associated Press on Tuesday. More arrests could be made in Monday's shooting, she said. <p style="line-height: 18pt; background: ...

World's best big wave surfers compete at Mavericks as faces reach 30 feet

Governor attends funeral for fallen Galt police officer

ROSEVILLE (AP) - California Gov. Jerry Brown joined hundreds of law enforcement officers from around the state Monday in honoring a Sacramento-area police officer who was killed in the line of duty last week. Funeral services were held in Monday for Kevin Tonn, a K-9 unit officer with the Galt Police Department. Tonn, 35, died Tuesday after he was shot while trying ...

Californians avoid jail for assisted suicides

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Californians who helped kill their friends or spouses have avoided jail time as prosecutors struggle with the troubling issue of assisted suicide. An Orange County social worker received probation last week for providing yogurt laced with the drug Oxycontin to an 86-year-old man who wanted to end his life. And a judge in San Luis Obispo County sentenced ...

AG seeks money for prescription database

UP Railroad line through Colfax open again

COLFAX (AP) - A Union Pacific Railroad spokesman says trains are running as scheduled again through a section of Northern California where a freight train derailed on Sunday.

Bolts on Bay Bridge that haven't failed may go

OAKLAND (AP) - Long seismic safety bolts on the new eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge that haven't failed may have to be replaced nonetheless, a regional transportation official said Wednesday.

State news briefs

GROCER TRIES TO PROFIT OFF BOTCHED BURGLARY: REDDING (AP) - A Northern California grocery store owner is trying to profit from a suspected thief's botched burglary attempt that was caught on video and went viral.

2 a.m. still last call for alcohol in California

Educators sued over English instruction