By ED FLETCHER, Sacramento Bee

On hot California summer days, it makes all the sense in the world: Harness the power of the sun to cool your home, run your refrigerator and charge your gizmos.
After three years in his Placerville home, Brian Veerkamp decided to join the energy revolution. He had a 6 kilowatt solar array mounted on his roof.

Within the white walls of a suburban Sacramento, Calif. church, under the gaze of biblical characters in colorful paintings, about a dozen men sit in a circle on folding chairs to talk about changing their lives.
The group gathers weekly, but not to discuss their struggle to overcome addictions to alcohol, drugs or gambling.

Heeding a State Department warning about escalating violence along the Mexican border, area universities are urging students to take their spring break vacations elsewhere.
Bayside Church -- the area's largest mega-church -- has told 700 high school and college students who planned to take spring break in Mexico that it had canceled the trip and its outreach projects.

Heeding a State Department warning about escalating violence along the Mexican border, area universities are urging students to take their spring break vacations elsewhere.
Bayside Church -- the area's largest mega-church -- has told 700 high school and college students who planned to take spring break in Mexico that it had canceled the trip and its outreach projects.

Try this magic trick at your layoff-weary workplace: Make dollar bills appear out of nowhere by simply passing the hat for a collective shot at Friday's $171 million jackpot.
If nobody wins Friday's Mega Millions jackpot -- it's played in 12 states -- the new jackpot is expected to exceed $200 million.

There's a lot of bad news and a little good news for thousands of people hoping to be in the nation's capital in January, watching first-hand as Barack Obama is sworn in as president of the United States.

A wide swath of charities in California say legislation signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that bans electronic bingo machines will cripple their fundraising operations and force major cuts.