Assembly

SACRAMENTO - California's $8-an-hour minimum wage needs to go up, says Watsonville Democratic Assemblyman Luis Alejo. And he may be getting the votes he needs to make it happen. But don't count on it; Alejo has tried this before. Alejo is the author of AB 10, which would give the Golden State its first minimum wage increase since 2008. The bill would raise it 25 cents an hour next year, 50 cents in 2015 and an additional 50 cents to $9.25 an hour in 2016. In 2017 and annually thereafter, hourly pay would be adjusted upward automatically, based on the state's inflation rate.

SACRAMENTO - California has been flooded with revenue this tax season and is on track to finish the fiscal year with a surplus of billions of dollars, according to officials. State coffers contain about $4.5 billion more than expected in personal income tax payments. Nearly $2.8 billion of it arrived April 17, the third-highest single-day collection in California history, according to government figures. Business taxes have also rebounded and are likely to be $200 million ahead of projections.

When Bay Area designers Kevin McElroy and Matthew Wolpe of Just Fine Design/Build unveiled their mod chicken coop Chick-in-a-Box at a 2010 Maker Faire , they thought they were on to something. Chickens had moved from the farm to the backyard, after all, and coops had become popular design fodder for architects and artisans alike. But McElroy and Wolpe found little interest in their $1,200 handmade chicken coop, regardless of its post-and-beam-style composition or striking butterfly roof that doubles as a water catchment system.

PARIS - The French Parliament on Tuesday approved a bill allowing same-sex couples to marry and adopt, voting after months of often angry debate and sometimes violent protests in the streets. Members of the Socialist government chanted "Equality, equality" and stood up to applaud the results of the 331-225 vote in the National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament. The center-right opposition party immediately announced its intention to appeal the law. Justice Minister Christiane Taubira, a strong supporter of the bill, said she was "overcome with emotion.

SACRAMENTO - California may finally be free of deficits, but Gov. Jerry Brown unveiled a cautious budget Tuesday, saying the state's financial condition remains treacherously unstable. Brown put lawmakers on notice that he had no desire to ratchet up spending despite a multibillion-dollar windfall of tax receipts in recent months. Saying there is no evidence that the surge will last, he reduced his revenue estimates for the budget year that begins July 1. Only schools would get a substantial boost beyond what the governor proposed in January, before state income spiked.

A bill in the California Legislature would open jury duty to noncitizen legal residents, a risky experiment in fundamental U.S. law. The Assembly last week passed a bill that immediately drew nationwide attention - for all the wrong reasons. There goes that wacky Golden State again! Assembly Bill 1401, which now goes to the state Senate, would allow noncitizens who are legal residents to serve on juries. If this becomes law, California will be the only state that opens its jury pool to noncitizens.

Car: 1957 Mercedes-Benz 300SL "Gull Wing" Coupe. Owners: Tom and Toni Burniston. Annual mileage: 1,000. Total miles: 151,500. Annual maintenance costs: Under $100. Price when new: $6,200. Present value: $150,000 (estimated). Tom Burniston bought his two-seat Mercedes rocket at a used-car lot in Long Beach in 1961 and for the next 20 years used it pretty much as a daily driver.

SACRAMENTO - California legislative leaders and 10 public employee unions announced opposition Wednesday to any sale of the Los Angeles Times and other Tribune Co. newspapers to a pair of wealthy brothers who fund conservative causes. In a letter dated Tuesday to Bruce Karsh, president of Oaktree Capital Management, the largest shareholder in Tribune Co., and chairman of its board of directors, the unions said David and Charles Koch are "anti-labor, anti-environment, anti-public education and anti-immigrant.

Lee Johnson was living on the edge and shooting "John Belushis"--potentially lethal cocaine-heroin combos--into his arm when he wondered one day if he would ever crawl out of his own personal black hole. He was 40ish, going on dead. "I didn't want to go to some phoney-baloney dry-out place where the owner's son is doping the place and the counselors are hooked, so I started talking to the chaplain at the Union Rescue Mission" in downtown Los Angeles, he said.

Government bureaucrats want your water softener. The Culligan Man is fighting back. The company behind the renowned "Hey Culligan Man!" advertising campaign of the 1950s has launched a political and public relations offensive to kill a bill targeting its signature product. That proposal would allow regulators to ban conventional water softeners that discharge salt into municipal sewer lines.