By DALE KASLER, Sacramento Bee

Squaw Valley USA used to be known as the place that hosted the 1960 Winter Olympics. It's now on its way to becoming North America's largest mountain resort -- a place that could transform Lake Tahoe into an international tourism draw.

California lawmakers thought they were targeting Amazon.com, the out-of-state giant, when they voted last week to force Internet retailers to collect sales tax.

It turns out eBay Inc., California's own golden child of e-commerce, isn't so thrilled about it, either.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - California lawmakers have taken another run at taxing online shopping, setting up a major confrontation with online retailers like Amazon.com.

The Legislature has approved a bill that would force Amazon and many other out-of-state Internet retailers to collect tax on goods sold to Californians.

In an effort to reduce the burden on their budgets, at least a dozen states have passed laws this year overhauling their retirement systems. Some have created less-generous pensions for newly hired workers. Others have increased the amount of money employees must pay into their pensions. Some have done both.

California's "cool cars" rule, so controversial it prompted the firing of a top state official three years ago, is being sent back to the shop.

So this is what economic recovery looks like: 12 percent unemployment, more vacant storefronts and a seemingly endless state budget crisis that will prolong the furloughs, layoffs and other wounds.

A prominent economist has declared California's recession over as of the fourth quarter last year but acknowledged that most Californians might not even notice.

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.

Federal officials have uncovered a $40 million Ponzi scheme in California that boasted glowing investment returns even as the financial markets were sinking.
The scheme lured about 150 customers, mostly from the Sacramento area, over a four-year period by advertising low-risk investments paying 42 percent a year, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said.

The million-dollar home became something of a rare bird in California last year, a victim of the continuing collapse in the housing market.
California saw a 42.5 percent drop in home sales at $1 million or above last year, according to a report this week by market researcher MDA DataQuick.

Google Inc. is ending its advertising experiment with hundreds newspapers, short-circuiting a program that could have funneled more dollars to the troubled newspaper industry.
The program called for Google's advertisers to buy space in the print version of newspapers through a kind of auction. The online giant announced Tuesday it would stop booking ads for print Feb. 28.