California

Starting Sunday, cash-strapped California will dig deeper into the pocketbooks of wage earners -- holding back 10% more than it already does in state income taxes just as the biggest shopping season of the year kicks into gear. Technically, it's not a tax increase, even though it may feel like one when your next paycheck arrives. As part of a bundle of budget patches adopted in the summer, the state is taking more money now in withholding, even though workers' annual tax bills won't change.

California on Wednesday became the biggest issuer so far of a new type of municipal bond that has caused investors to rethink the muni market overall -- in a way that is driving down bond interest rates. Robust investor demand allowed Treasurer Bill Lockyer to boost the size of a planned $4-billion bond offering to $6.85 billion. Proceeds from the securities will finance voter-approved infrastructure projects. Included in the deal were $5.

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.

Utility regulators have approved $350 million in rebates to encourage Californians to install water-heating systems powered by solar energy. The state Public Utilities Commission on Thursday established the California Solar Initiative Thermal Program, which will be funded using $250 million to replace natural-gas-powered water heaters, with $25 million set aside for low-income customers. An additional $100.8 million will be used to swap out water heaters powered by electricity. The rebates could reduce the cost of a solar water heater by 15% to 25%, industry experts said.

The line forms even before the doors open at FixNation in Sun Valley. The trappers come, five days a week, back seats and trunks loaded with feral cats. Inside is a highly organized production line: On an average day, about 80 cats will be neutered and sterilized, then released 24 hours later into the neighborhoods they came from. This largely volunteer effort seeks to control a problem that vexes cities everywhere: how to manage homeless, free-roaming cats -- thought to number at least 1 million in Los Angeles -- while trying to avoid euthanizing them.

Proponents of an initiative to make California the first state to legalize marijuana have collected about 693,800 signatures, virtually guaranteeing that the measure will appear on a crowded November ballot. "This is a historic first step toward ending cannabis prohibition," said Richard Lee, the measure's main backer. Advocates, trailed by television cameras and photographers, dropped off petitions with elections officials in the state's largest counties, including Los Angeles, where organizers said 143,105 voters signed.

As California lawmakers struggle with a budget gap that has now grown to $26.3 billion, one of the hottest topics for many taxpayers is the cost to the state of illegal immigrants. The question of whether taxpayers should provide services to illegal residents became a major political issue in California's last deep recession, culminating in the ballot fight over Proposition 187 in 1994.

California prison officials, facing severe overcrowding and a financial crisis, have been granting early releases to inmates serving time for parole violations. State officials said the dozens of prisoners set free from the California Institution for Men in Chino and from lockups in San Diego and Shasta counties had 60 days or less left on their terms, or had been accused of violations and were awaiting hearings. The releases were approved by the state parole board.

Tens of thousands of Californians out of work for more than a year soon will be getting an extra 20 weeks of unemployment insurance checks, thanks to the federal economic stimulus program. The Legislature approved the extended benefits Thursday, and processing of them is expected to get underway as early as today after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signs legislation authorizing the state to receive more than $3 billion from Washington.

California must shrink the population of its teeming prisons by nearly 43,000 inmates over the next two years to meet constitutional standards, a panel of three federal judges ruled Tuesday, ordering the state to come up with a reduction plan by mid-September. The order cited Gov.

An unexpectedly powerful rainstorm unleashed a torrent of mud that inundated more than 40 houses Saturday, leaving La Cañada Flintridge's northernmost neighborhood awash in boulders, dented cars and broken homes. The force of the mudflow appeared to catch residents and officials off guard, as the forecast initially called for a light to moderate rainstorm. No evacuations had been ordered Thursday or Friday, when the rain began to fall. But before dawn on Saturday, an intense band of rain cells formed over the mountains burned in the massive Station fire.

With a hard hat perched on his head and an orange safety vest enveloping his burly figure, Tim Leiweke leaned against a window 52 stories up. He peered north, taking in a vista from downtown to the San Gabriel Mountains. "It's amazing, the view, eh?" he asked. With the ease of an urban planner and the affection of a doting uncle, Leiweke pointed out symbols of downtown's revitalization. There, he gestured enthusiastically: a Ralphs supermarket, the refurbished Eastern Columbia building, and finally, the light-filled and logo-emblazoned L.A. Live district that his company, Anschutz Entertainment Group, has built.

Ever since railroads and orange groves brought great wealth to Pasadena more than a century ago, the city has carried out a tradition of giving back in the form of art. At the turn of the last century, Pasadena's love of the arts was part of what historian Kevin Starr called a "genteel tradition," which included a Shakespeare Club and a Grand Opera House. Later, museums such as the Norton Simon and the Pacific Asia (not to mention the Huntington in neighboring San Marino), and venues including the Pasadena Playhouse and the Pasadena Civic Auditorium, added to what many in the region regarded as one of the best cultural offerings for a city of its size.

The story goes that in the 1880s, a woman spotted some tobacco-chewing debaters on the veranda of the Long Beach Hotel and complained to a friend: "All they do is spit and argue." And, so, the Spit 'n' Argue Club became the name of the informal group of mostly-retired characters who met daily in Long Beach to chew and whittle while tackling such issues as God, world peace and the proper methods of plowing a wheat field. The colorful conclave eventually became a tourist attraction, drawing upward of 1,500 spectators a day and surviving more than three-quarters of a century.

In late 2004, Chris Cooper left the Marine Corps after four years of service, deciding to give civilian life a chance. At one point, living in Oceanside, Cooper worked for a contractor renovating homes and commercial buildings. But military ways were hard to shake. When he made a mistake on the job site, he would punish himself by doing push-ups, recalled Dave Moffat, the contractor who employed Cooper and rented him a room. At home, Cooper practiced packing a backpack and singing military cadences in his room.

Republican Assemblyman Chuck DeVore was riding high from his party's recent Senate election victory in Massachusetts when he bounded into the town library here. The meeting of the Lincoln Tea Party Patriots was already buzzing over Scott Brown's win in one of the bluest of blue states, and DeVore tried to convince them that with his consistent conservative credentials, he could take incumbent Sen. Barbara Boxer. "A sleeping giant has been awakened," he said. "Some of you are scared.

Last week brought confirmation of a parallel universe. Or two. In one, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced that to deal with this year's $212-million deficit, he was ordering the elimination of 1,000 Los Angeles city jobs, although some workers may be shifted into vacancies not financed by the hemorrhaging general fund. That universe of hurt was not the one inhabited by some of those seeking the state's highest elected offices this year. Theirs appeared to be centered far, far away, where the hot topic of the week wasn't jobs.

As legislators consider making California the first state in the country to legalize and regulate Internet poker, a coalition of Indian gaming tribes warned them Friday that the proposal would not create the budget windfall backers claim and could actually cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars. The tribes, which have hired Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's former budget chief to help make their case, argue that the legalization of Internet poker would violate existing gaming compacts and allow the tribes to stop paying the state its $365-million annual cut of slot machine revenue.

Gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman stumbled out of the gate this week with the campaign's first TV commercial fudging how long the Republican candidate has lived in the state. "The state is in the worst shape that I've seen in the 30 years that I have lived in California," Whitman says in the ad. One problem: Though the former EBay chief first moved to California nearly 30 years ago, in 1981, she hasn't continuously lived here since then. Whitman was out of the state from roughly 1992 to March 1998.

Fred Davis -- the man who introduced vermin, Paris Hilton, bad hair and now demonic mutton into our political discourse -- is a bit taken aback by the reaction to his latest creation. "More sheep in my day than I was expecting," he said after sorting through messages from reporters across the country, all of them wanting to talk about the online video -- an instant cult classic -- he created for Republican U.S. Senate hopeful Carly Fiorina. "You certainly never know what's going to catch on."