AP State News

Los Angeles County park officials say they will close beaches at three lakes this summer because of budget cuts.

Questions about Michael Jackson's use of prescription drugs are intensifying after a powerful sedative was found inside his home.

One of three armed robbers has been killed during a gunfight at a barbershop in Compton.

Douglas Booth will never forget the summer of '88.

Los Angeles city officials are preparing for massive crowds downtown during Tuesday's public memorial for Michael Jackson at Staples Center, even though only 17,500 tickets are being offered to the public.

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge has been arrested on suspicion of drunken driving.

Sacramento firefighters have agreed to freeze their salaries for two and a half years, averting layoffs for at least a year.

Authorities say the June stabbing death of a 61-year-old woman in a Ventura home was likely a targeted killing and not the result of a bungled burglary.

Authorities say a Good Samaritan who was hurt while trying to rescue an apparently suicidal woman from being killed in traffic has died of his injuries.

Authorities say an inmate who hanged himself in a San Diego Central Jail cell has been accused of seven sexual assaults on women over the past year.

Two people have been struck and killed by the same Amtrak train, one in Berkeley and the other about two hours later in Oakland.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has set Nov. 3 as the date of a special election for the Congressional seat vacated by former U.S. Rep. Ellen Tauscher.

Police have identified the officer who shot and killed a sexual assault suspect this week.

Last November, more than 60 percent of voters on the San Francisco Peninsula supported a $9.9 billion bond measure to help pay for a high-speed rail line between San Francisco and the Los Angeles area.

The undersecretary who oversees California parolees and adult and juvenile prisons says he will plead guilty to driving under the influence.

Authorities have called off a search for any sign of human remains on land near Redwood National and State Parks.

Like an old Western boomtown, the funky little makeshift village that sprang up around the gates of Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch was vanishing Friday, its residents and vendors packing up tents, tarps and piles of Jackson posters and CDs.

Lt. Col. Luke Thompson sometimes skims his C-130 cargo plane just 150 above the ground, battling smoke, shifting winds and rugged terrain on his way to blast thousands of gallons of gooey pink fire retardant onto the front lines of a wildfire.

A 23-year-old woman has been arrested and charged in the drowning of her 5-year-old daughter.

Facing a projected $2.6 million budget deficit, Caltrain plans to reduce service and increase fares.

A jury has found two former Marines guilty of murdering a 22-year-old Long Beach man in a dispute over a laptop.

Tropicana Las Vegas has emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy with new owners.

A Northern California man is in jail on suspicion of murder in the dragging death of a 69-year-old man.

The Nevada State Board of Nursing is investigating complaints against five managers at a Reno hospital and its emergency department.

State health officials say a Las Vegas doctor's office has been performing outpatient surgeries without a license.

Los Angeles city officials are preparing for massive crowds downtown during Tuesday's public memorial for Michael Jackson at Staples Center, even though only 17,500 tickets are being offered to the public.

Colin Daymude was out of work last year after his business failed and eagerly filed his taxes in mid-January, figuring he'd get his refund sooner. He was wrong.

A man on death row for a Clark County murder will have his appeal heard by the Nevada Supreme Court.

A law enforcement official says the powerful sedative Diprivan was found in Michael Jackson's home.