A volunteer searcher who broke his back while looking for a teenager who was lost in Orange County wilderness wants restitution if the teen is convicted on drug charges.

A former South Lake Tahoe police officer faces up to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to multiple counts of witness tampering and obstruction.

The Jodi Arias trial had all the ingredients of a circus the minute it started: sex and violence, a defendant more than willing to seek the spotlight, a judge who extended leniency in allowing lengthy testimony and cameras in court - and a media-savvy sheriff ready and willing to set up jailhouse interviews with his most famous inmate.

New California rules will require the makers of new thermostats to do a better job of keeping old ones containing the neurotoxin mercury out of landfills.

An unmanned jet built for U.S. Navy high-altitude maritime surveillance missions has made its first flight.

Jurors in the Jodi Arias murder trial told the judge Wednesday they were unable to reach a unanimous verdict on whether the convicted murderer should be sentenced to life in prison or death for killing her one-time boyfriend, prompting the judge to instruct them to continue deliberations and try to work through their differences.

Toy maker Fisher-Price said Wednesday it's moving or eliminating roughly 100 jobs from its operations in the state as part of restructuring by parent company Mattel Inc.

Women's-rights attorney Gloria Allred says federal complaints have been filed against four U.S. colleges over how the colleges handle rape allegations.

The California Highway Patrol is looking for witnesses, as it investigates the death of a man who was impaled by a metal rod while driving on Interstate 580 around Livermore.

The U.S. Interior Department has awarded more than $20 million in grants for water conservation projects in 11 Western states, including several in Utah, Nevada and California.

Five Baltimore men killed when a van careened off a southern Illinois freeway were members of an evangelical Christian church returning from a weeklong international conference in California, officials said Wednesday.

A California tourist who drowned at a Hawaii waterfall over the weekend wasn't trying to save a woman, as was previously believed, Honolulu police said.

The California Teachers Association has chosen sides in the incipient conflict over Gov. Jerry Brown's school funding proposal, backing the governor's call to earmark additional money for disadvantaged and English language-learning students.

Twitter is adding an extra security measure to users' accounts in an effort to prevent unauthorized logins.

Five of the California State University's 23 campuses are getting new leaders, the system's board of trustees announced Wednesday.

A witness testified that a heated argument led to the early morning fatal shootings of two teenage girls gunned down on an Oakland street.

Gov. Jerry Brown , whose public remarks occasionally include a phrase or two in Latin, explained Wednesday two reasons he liked learning it.

The modest Los Angeles suburb that became the poster child for municipal corruption when it was discovered three years ago that its municipal leaders had looted millions of dollars from its treasury remains deeply in debt and on the verge of financial crisis, according to a report released Wednesday by the state Controller's Office

Gov. Jerry Brown this morning downplayed an estimate by the nonpartisan legislative analyst that California will collect about $3.2 billion more in revenue than Brown projected in his budget revision last week, saying the difference is minor and he will hold the line on spending.

Gov. Jerry Brown acted Wednesday as California's cheerleader-in-chief, countering the state's anti-business reputation in an address to hundreds of business, agriculture and education leaders.

California State University trustees named new leaders for five of the system's 23 campuses today, setting off a game of musical chairs in California's higher education landscape.

Microsoft is the last of the three big video game console makers to unveil its latest gaming system. The unveiling comes nearly eight years after the Xbox 360 went on sale. It follows last fall's debut of Nintendo's Wii U and a preview in February of the upcoming PlayStation 4 from Sony.

The Assembly has passed a bill that gives state employees more due-process protections if they are prematurely terminated for being off work without permission.

Five Baltimore men killed when their van careened off of a southern Illinois freeway and overturned several times were members of a Christian ministry returning from a weeklong international conference in California.

The Democratic supermajority in the state Senate thinned a bit Tuesday when Republican farmer Andy Vidak captured more than 50 percent of a special election vote to win in a heavily Democratic San Joaquin Valley district.

North Carolina lawmakers and passersby stopped to take in a display of Tesla Motors' award-winning electric cars Wednesday as the company presses against a bill in the General Assembly that effectively outlaws Tesla's Internet-based sales model.

Ventura County has changed its land-use process to regulate hydraulic fracturing, an oil and gas extraction method that some fear can contaminate groundwater.

A San Francisco Bay area postal worker accused of stealing thousands of pieces of mail to obtain credit cards has been sentenced to 18 months in jail.

A pastor in Virginia has been arrested in the wake of claims by two women that he sexually assaulted them as juveniles in North Texas.

Passion for geography runs deep in Sathwik Karnik's family.

California's heavy industries spent $280 million on greenhouse gas permits in the state's latest carbon auction – a sign to environmentalists that the controversial program is hitting its stride.

The U.S. Air Force launched an unarmed intercontinental ballistic missile from a California base on Wednesday, a month after the test flight was postponed because of tensions with North Korea.

Six current and former San Francisco school district employees have pleaded not guilty to charges that they embezzled $15 million in grant money from the school system.

Santa Clara County is on the hook for a $5 million settlement in a crash involving a sheriff's deputy who allegedly took his eyes off the road while eating a McDonald's hamburger, a newspaper reported.

A Riverside County city has become the latest to try banning medical marijuana dispensaries in the wake of a state Supreme Court ruling permitting prohibition.

Your daily look at late-breaking California news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about Wednesday:

Orange County wants state permission to charge reckless people for the cost of rescuing them.

Even as law school graduates struggled to find work in a saturated market, California opened a new law school at the University of California, Irvine - and now Dan says, the consequences are surfacing.

Los Angeles voters have approved a proposition limiting the number of medical marijuana dispensaries in the city.

Some of us like to start our day off with a quiet and leisurely cup of coffee and a copy of the paper (hint, hint), but today Gov. Jerry Brown is easing into things at a breakfast with the California Chamber of Commerce.

Los Angeles voters have approved a proposition limiting the number of medical marijuana dispensaries in the city.

Los Angeles Mayor-elect Eric Garcetti says he's going to focus like a "laser beam" on the economy when he takes office July 1.

Ten young geography experts will field questions about history, cultures, landmarks and climates from "Jeopardy!" host Alex Trebek as they vie for the title of National Geographic Bee champion.

Sacramento lobbyists and others looking forward to attending a mixed-martial-arts fight in Las Vegas with Sen. Ricardo Lara on Saturday will have to find another way to enjoy the holiday weekend.

California, it's now acknowledged, has a glut of lawyers.

Absent legislative action, taxpayers will have to pay about 50 cents per letter to notify more than a million households that a 10-cent public benefit is about to expire.

San Jose police say an 81-year-old man was hit and killed as he crossed a street Monday night - the second traffic fatality of the day on the city's streets.

As non-emergency surgeries were postponed and fill-in medical technicians were brought in from out of state, thousands of employees walked off the job Tuesday at the UC Davis Medical Center and four other University of California hospitals.

A loophole in California's upcoming health care overhaul could be exploited by families gaming the system or responding to hardship in a way that doctors say could leave a pile of unpaid bills.