The sweeping ruling shot down the arguments of a Sacramento atheist who has been trying in the courts for a decade to end the morning practice because he considers it government endorsement of religion.

More than a year after taking a beating at the ballot box, the California Republican Party is energized by "Tea Party" revivals and declining Democratic poll numbers as it heads into a three-day state party convention this weekend, charged up and "on the offense" for the statewide and mid-term elections.

Targeting California's bitter budget fights, Democratic legislative leaders proposed a wide-ranging overhaul Thursday that would allow lawmakers to pass budgets by a simple-majority vote and would require them to forfeit pay if they are late in passing a spending plan.

Democratic legislative leaders, acknowledging the dysfunction of state government, say they want to place reforms before voters this year.

Billionaire GOP gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman has invested her vast wealth in firms that sought to profit from the country's credit crisis, in venture capital and hedge funds open only to the wealthy, and in oil, gas, healthcare and other concerns seeking to influence state policy.

California's two big public pension funds took fresh hits to their troubled real estate portfolios this week, suggesting the fallout from the real estate bubble hasn't completely run its course.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom will announce Friday that he is running for California lieutenant governor, according to people who were contacted by him.

SEATTLE -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday it will consider ways the states can address rising acidity levels in oceans, which pose a serious threat to shellfish and other marine life.

California's chinook-salmon fishery is likely to be opened this year after two straight closed fishing seasons — but with restrictions, according to recommendations released Thursday by a federal panel.

The nation's immigration courts are choked by the largest backlog of pending deportation and asylum cases in history, more than 18,000 of them in Texas, a Syracuse University-based data research institute reported Thursday.

Robust investor demand allowed California to increase the size of a bond offering to $2.5 billion from $2 billion in a deal that wrapped up Thursday.

The California Public Utilities Commission approved more than $9 million in solar research grants Thursday and also gave the go-ahead to a solar contract for the Pacific Gas & Electric Co.

New Assembly Speaker John Pérez (D-Los Angeles) will call for a 15% cut in the Assembly's operating budget in a speech in Los Angeles on Friday.

A huge swath of Wine Country, including vineyards where some of the world's best grapes are grown, was quarantined this week after an invasive moth was discovered.

"Big money interests have come in and shut out the people," said Ted Costa, chief executive of the Sacramento-based anti-tax organization People's Advocate, one of the initiative's original sponsors.

Both Republican candidates for California governor have released books as they campaign for their party's nomination this spring.

Here's the taxpayer tab for former Assemblyman Mike Duvall's boasts of sexual conquests: $1.6 million. A key question, now, is whether state or county coffers will eat it.

Officials believe that the public is so fed up with poor road conditions and bus and rail cuts because of reduced state funding that they may agree to higher fees in economic hard times.

Both political parties are taking tea party activists seriously and are wary of offending them – if they are not already actively wooing them for state races this fall. Just look at the governor’s election in Ohio. Republican gubernatorial candidate John Kasich openly touts his tea party credentials in his bid to defeat incumbent Democrat Ted Strickland. “I think I was in the tea party before there was a tea party,” Kasich famously told a Columbus crowd earlier this year. “This is a real movement with a real message about people’s frustrations by broken promises that leaders on both sides of the aisle would be foolish to ignore,” he went on to write in a blog posting.