Capitol and California

Furious over fee increases and emotionally charged by the arrests of 53 fellow students, a few hundred UC Davis students demanded action – and accountability – Friday from administrators and the campus police chief.

An anti-tax recall movement against Assemblyman Anthony Adams, R-Hesperia, has failed to gather enough valid signatures to go to the ballot, the California secretary of state's office announced Friday.

The most powerful voices in the state's recent $11 billion water talks might have been two water districts – one speaking for half the state's population and the other for just 600 San Joaquin Valley farmers.

As California's legislators stare at a forced 18 percent pay cut next month, one legislator who volunteered for a 5 percent reduction last July rescinded her decision.

California teamed with Sacramento County officials Thursday to launch a first-in-the-state multi-agency task force to investigate fraud in In-Home Supportive Services.

Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Thursday ordered the U.S. Office of Personnel Management to quit interfering with health care benefits for federal judicial employees just because they are married to a person of the same sex.

Pay for California's top elected officials will be slashed by 18 percent next month, one year earlier than expected, to abide by an opinion issued Thursday from Attorney General Jerry Brown.

Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina must be sharing speechwriters, maybe someone from their tech pasts.

LOS ANGELES – The governing board of the University of California approved a $2,500 student fee increase Thursday after two days of tense campus protests across the state.

California Attorney General Jerry Brown set the stage Thursday for the state's lawmakers and top elected officials to receive an 18 percent pay cut beginning next month -- a year earlier than expected.

Amid rowdy protests, a committee of the University of California regents voted to raise student fees by 32 percent in two steps over the next year, bringing the annual cost of a UC education above $10,000 not including room, board or books.

California once again will look under sofa cushions and scour every sector of state government to find another $20.7 billion to balance its budget over the next 19 months.

A judge ruled Wednesday an assistant federal public defender's spouse must be compensated for health care benefits withheld since July 2008 because the couple are gay.

Sacramento real estate developer and philanthropist Eleni Tsakopoulos-Kounalakis appears headed for confirmation as the next ambassador to the Republic of Hungary after winning strong backing from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday.

Two California prison system inmates have died from possible H1N1-related complications, officials said Wednesday.

Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, D-Los Angeles, is planning to bring the lower house back into session next month to vote on legislation she hopes will allow California schools to compete for a piece of $4.3 billion in federal “Race to the Top” stimulus funds.

Sylvia Zedlar's left leg was nearly severed when a car struck her in south Sacramento County in 2002. Now, because of state budget cuts, she is among about 9,000 frail and mostly elderly Californians who must pay, on average, $200 to $250 more each month for care.

Thirty-three banks across the country that received federal bailout money didn't pay the government a dividend this summer – and one-third of them are based in California, federal data show.

Winning strong backing from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sacramento real estate developer and philanthropist Eleni Tsakopoulos-Kounalakis promised today to focus on economic and energy issues if she's confirmed as President Barack Obama's ambassador to the Republic of Hungary.

Despite revenue projections that are holding relatively firm, California faces a $21 billion state budget shortfall over the next year and half, according to sources who have been briefed on a projection from the Legislature's budget analyst.

The holiday season begins at the Capitol with the precarious arrival of the official state Christmas tree Tuesday on the west lawn.

A big chunk of the money that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger collected last year to finance a redistricting ballot measure came from a Florida man now being accused of running a massive Ponzi-style fraud in Florida.

When California's political consultants share war stories, 1988's immensely expensive, multifront battle between insurance companies and lawyer-backed consumer groups takes center stage.

It's been eight months since the state of California started furloughing workers. Meanwhile, the number of full-time employees has continued to increase. Use this interactive to track state wages and payroll, hiring and the number of part-timers.

Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O'Malley will probe covert recordings of conversations with reporters made by an ex-spokesman for Attorney General Jerry Brown.

Jerry Brown's first governorship was marked by what one might term – charitably – a high degree of flexibility.

The social networking Web site Tokoni officially hit the Internet last year with attractive selling points, including its unique network of blogs and funding from alumni of online auction giant eBay.

At the top of the real estate bubble, CalPERS invested $600 million in two deals that were 3,000 miles apart but linked by a common vision: Buy apartments governed by rent-control laws and turn them into cash cows.

Native San Franciscans have known for years that the city can be rough on its pedestrians. But a recently released report confirms those suspicions.

TODAY: The California Air Resources Board meets from 9 a.m. to noon on its plans to set an emissions cap for the state's cap-and-trade program.