15-year-old Morgan Hill teen-age girl’s disappearance frustrates, unites community

Cop goes undercover to bust students in small SJ Valley town of Exeter

Bay Area briefs

Tree falls on home, traps trio for short time FAIRFAX (AP) - Northern California residents are cleaning up after a big storm that sent a massive oak tree toppling onto a Marin County home. The massive oak tree briefly trapped three people in the house in Fairfax on Tuesday evening, but they were able to get out uninjured. Neighbors ...

Civil rights passion motivates California tax proponent that Brown is opposing

LAPD defends handling of profiling claims

California nuke plant to remain shut for probe

Lorax statue taken from home of Dr. Seuss's widow

SAN DIEGO (AP) - They took the Lorax, made of bronze, the thieves they came, and now he's gone. A 2-foot statue of Dr. Seuss' Lorax character was stolen from the San Diego backyard garden of the 90-year-old widow of the beloved author whose real name was Theodore Geisel. Audrey Geisel noticed the statue and its tree-stump base ...

Assemblywoman Olsen pushing for law to punish public school student-teacher dating

Most California state parks likely to stay open thanks to federal & local agencies

State news briefs

SAN FRANCISCO SHERIFF CHALLENGES SUSPENSION: SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi on Tuesday formally challenged his suspension as he faces a misconduct charge stemming from a domestic violence case.

Bay Area briefs

Court leaders pull plug on $2B computer system

South state storm leaves outages; motorist rescued

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Californians cleaned up Monday from a storm that hit many areas in frenzied bursts, flooding streets and freeways, zapping power and toppling trees and utility poles. Crews rescued an injured driver whose pickup truck plunged 300 feet off a snow-covered Southern California mountain highway. After the truck was spotted on a snow-covered slope below ...

Mitt Romney trumpets rush of conservative endorsements during swing through California

SF slaying suspect in five killings had had been ordered deported to Vietnam

Chief: No conclusions in beating death of Iraqi-American woman

Bay Area news briefs

LIVERMORE LAB JURY AWARDS $2.7 MILLION: OAKLAND (AP) - A jury has awarded more than $2.7 million to five former Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory workers in an ongoing wrongful-termination case.

State news briefs

LA schools consider banning defiance suspensions

Dad wants evidence in girl's stabbing

State Senate OKs ski safety legislation

Bay Area briefs

FEDS TO PROBE REPAIR WORK ON BAD BAY BRIDGE RODS: SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The Federal Highway Administration on Monday said it is investigating the state's response to broken steel seismic safety rods on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.

State news briefs

15 OF 23 CAL STATE CAMPUSES CHARGE GRADUATION FEES: SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Graduating students at more than a dozen California public universities will have to hand over money before they are handed their diplomas, a newspaper reported.

End near for evangelical radio network?

Girl , 7, escapes kidnapper's car trunk in Sacramento

Ginsburg: Roe gave abortion opponents a target

CHICAGO (AP) - U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg says she supports a woman's right to choose to have an abortion, but feels her predecessors' landmark Roe v. Wade ruling 40 years ago was too sweeping and gave abortion opponents a symbol to target.

Person of interest named in jogger killed by pit bull pack

PALMDALE . (AP) - Sheriff's authorities said a man who was arrested this week on suspicion of growing marijuana is now a "person of interest" in the death of a 63-year-old jogger who was mauled to death by a pack of pit bulls in the Mojave Desert.

Los Angeles, Paris project aims to track big city carbon footprints

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Every time Los Angeles exhales, odd-looking gadgets anchored in the mountains above the city trace the invisible puffs of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases that waft skyward.

Relentless thief still taking Tahoe crawfish traps - 160 stolen so far

INCLINE VILLAGE, Nev. (AP) - It's not that easy to catch crawfish in Lake Tahoe. Turns out, it may be harder to keep them.

Black student targeted with racist note

IRVINE (AP) - University of California, Irvine officials pledged to work on race relations on campus this week after a black student found a hand-scrawled note in her backpack calling her a slave, making it the second racist incident that has offended black students in recent weeks.

Mom: Accused boy, 12, ‘could never’ hurt sister

VALLEY SPRINGS (AP) - A day before a 12-year-old boy was arrested for the stabbing death of his 8-year-old sister, his mother described him as "protective" of his younger sibling.

State lawmakers debate how to spend $900M in new revenue from loophole

SACRAMENTO (AP) - California schools are expecting a boost from the $900 million to be raised over the next year through the closure of a corporate tax loophole, but Gov. Jerry Brown is locked in a disagreement with state lawmakers over how to hand out that money.