AP State News

A judge has reinstated the prison term of a former Monterey County social worker convicted of stealing nearly $150,000 from county welfare clients.

New York and 10 other states have filed a lawsuit designed to force the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to issue new regulations on soot pollution.

A criminalist has told a Los Angeles jury that DNA taken from a former police detective matched saliva from a bite mark on the arm of a murdered woman so closely that no one else on Earth could have produced the genetic match.

An endangered butterfly population in a preserve near Los Angeles International Airport grew about 8 percent last year, inching closer to a comeback.

A Stanislaus County judge has ordered a Modesto man to stand trial for murder in the shooting death of a 16-year-old boy with Down syndrome.

An ammonia leak that caused an emergency alert at the San Onofre nuclear plant in November was caused by employees who failed to recognize degraded equipment and fix it, federal regulators said Friday.

A veteran police officer was sentenced Friday to nearly nine years for sexual battery and other crimes in a case that was part of a series of embarrassing officer-misconduct incidents that led to department-wide scrutiny in the nation's eighth-largest city.

A federal appeals court's decision to delay the deportation of seven illegal immigrants until the Obama administration re-evaluates their cases could encourage thousands of other illegal immigrants to seek similar rulings and could open the door to uncomfortable questions about the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S, experts said.

Will.i.am said he hoped to raise $1 million for his charity that benefits needy students at a concert Thursday night. Instead, he raised $5 million.

A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by a group of Republicans challenging California's newly drawn congressional maps, the California Citizens Redistricting Commission announced Friday in its latest court victory.

The government could lose nearly $3 billion on Energy Department loans for green energy programs - far less than the $10 billion Congress set aside for the high-risk program, according to an independent review.

Occupy Cal protesters are back on the University of California, Berkeley campus.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told the Marine Corps on Friday to re-investigate and take appropriate action against the Marine snipers who posed with a logo resembling a notorious Nazi symbol.

Former San Diego Union-Tribune publisher Ed Moss has been named president and chief executive officer of The Denver Post.

A nonprofit Nevada fire safety group mismanaged $2.7 million in federal grants and should repay the money issued for fuel reduction projects at Lake Tahoe, federal auditors recommended in a scathing report released by the Office of Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Eight school district employees were placed on leave during an investigation of their handling of allegations that a special education teacher kicked and slapped students.

A car is floating in the surf off San Francisco's Ocean Beach after authorities say a woman drove it into the water.

A federal judge in Delaware has ordered a former DuPont Co. engineer charged with conspiring to steal trade secrets from the company released on bond.

A Marine shot to death by an Orange County sheriff's deputy in a high school parking lot was deeply religious and regularly took early morning prayer walks with his daughters, a supervisor said.

A missing, mentally challenged teenager was rescued and a woman was charged with false imprisonment after she befriended the girl and taunted her mother with text messages giving phony information on the girl's whereabouts, investigators said.

The former third-grade teacher charged with committing lewd acts on students was paid $40,000 to drop an appeal of his firing, a newspaper reported Friday.

In a meeting room at a Spenard hotel this weekend, Alaskans seeking a medical marijuana card can line up to see a Los Angeles ophthalmologist in town to evaluate their medical need for pot - at $225 a "patient."

Investigators say a missing mentally challenged teenager has been rescued after a Southern California woman befriended the girl and taunted her mother with cellphone texts.

A suspected drunken driver has crashed a pickup truck into a San Diego County condominium, injuring the driver and a father and daughter at the home.

Norma Merrick Sklarek, the nation's first female African American licensed architect, has died in Los Angeles at 85.

The Bay Area Rapid Transit Agency has agreed to look into the possibility of extending train service about 5 miles to Livermore.

A former Southern California high school coach has been charged with having an ongoing sexual relationship with a student that started when she was 14 years old.

The City of San Francisco is honoring legendary crooner Tony Bennett, whose famous song, "I Left My Heart in San Francisco," was recorded 50 years ago.

A fugitive has been captured in Mexico and is now facing a murder trial in Southern California on charges he deliberately ran down a man with his car following an argument more than two years ago.