western news

CAL-HOMELESS (Lundstrom, Sacramento Bee) -- Study: California second worst in the nation for violent attacks on the homeless. 600.

They were beaten, shot, stabbed, raped, pelted with paintballs and set on fire.

Last year, 22 homeless men and women were attacked -- 10 of them killed -- in 10 California cities, according to a study released this month.

Gambling interests in California, the nation's most populous state and one of the world's largest regional economies, are pushing legislation to allow online wagering in that state.

Republican Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO, took her first formal step Tuesday to challenge incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer -- but does she pass the Citizenship 101 test?

Critics suggest maybe not, considering that Fiorina, 54, who has a spotty California voting record, never cast a ballot in two other states where she lived, according to public records.

Weeks after wrapping up a deal to close a $26 billion budget deficit, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is taking aim at what he calls California's next great fiscal problem: the state's battered pension system.

A new state report tries to tackle one of the touchiest issues in California's effort to expand renewable power, suggesting possible routes for new transmission lines to carry electricity from wind farms and solar plants.

California card clubs and tribal casinos, long bitter political rivals, are working together in a concerted, behind-the-scenes drive to legalize Internet poker in the Golden State.

Operators of an Arizona company are suspected of collecting $32.6 million in California beverage container redemptions by fraudulently cashing in truckloads of out-of-state plastic bottles.

On Sunday, a group of men and women who lived on a grim rock in San Francisco Bay will gather to mark the 75th anniversary of the opening of Alcatraz as a federal prison.

A few of them were guards, many were children of guards who grew up on the island -- they called themselves the Island Gang -- and two were once prisoners on The Rock.

California's celebrated Pacific coast gained 30 new ocean sanctuaries this week.

The new preserves cover 153 square miles of ocean between Half Moon Bay and Mendocino. Starting Jan. 1, fishing will be permanently banned or restricted in the zones.

The seagull killers come in the dark of night, when Washington ferries have idled and witnesses are few.

They come clad in dark uniforms, riding in federal trucks with government plates, armed with carbon-dioxide death chambers and air rifles.