California

California corrections officials released a photograph taken Wednesday of aging convicted mass murderer Charles Manson, replete with receding hairline, fading forehead swastika carving and a thick, heavily graying beard.

Lis Sines of Hermosa Beach loves watching her electric meter run backward. When that happens, she knows that the 20 solar panels on her roof are producing more power than she needs to run her 3,800-square-foot home. The excess electricity flows to the electric company's grid, and she gets its full retail value credited to her utility bill. Sines' electric bill has plunged since she and her husband, William, installed a photovoltaic system on their roof three months ago.

Three years after falling short in a bid for higher office, Los Angeles City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo has taken the first step toward launching a second campaign for California attorney general, a spokesman said Thursday. Term limits prevent Delgadillo, 48, from seeking reelection as city attorney this year. Papers filed with the secretary of state this week allow Delgadillo to begin fundraising for a statewide campaign for attorney general in 2010, according to Delgadillo spokesman Stephen J.

Unemployment in California shot to 11.2% in March, the highest level since the state began keeping records. What's more, the number of people out of work for almost a year rose by 9.4%, and has now doubled in the last 12 months. Carpenter Luiz Vasquez knows the frustration all too well. In the last year, he said, he worked only two weeks. "I go through town, and I do not hear the sound of work," said Vasquez, 40, who is seeking help through a Chrysalis job center in Santa Monica.

An actress who works in Southern California's pornography industry has tested positive for HIV, renewing county and state health officials' concerns that the adult entertainment industry lacks sufficient safety measures to prevent the spread of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.

After a Lutheran school expelled two 16-year-old girls for having "a bond of intimacy" that was "characteristic of a lesbian relationship," the girls sued, contending the school had violated a state anti-discrimination law. In response to that suit, an appeals court decided this week that the private religious school was not a business and therefore did not have to comply with a state law that prohibits businesses from discriminating.

As bad as California's budget crisis is for the state's $1.8-trillion economy, just wait. It could get worse. The spectacle that played out in the national media this week of a state unable to get its fiscal act together is reinforcing the notion that the Golden State is a rotten place to do business, experts say.

The influential lobby group Consumer Electronics Assn. is fighting what appears to be a losing battle to dissuade California regulators from passing the nation's first ban on energy-hungry big-screen televisions. On Tuesday, executives and consultants for the Arlington, Va., trade group asked members of the California Energy Commission to instead let consumers use their wallets to decide whether they want to buy the most energy-saving new models of liquid-crystal display and plasma high-definition TVs. "Voluntary efforts are succeeding without regulations," said Doug Johnson, the association's senior director for technology policy.

In a cheery classroom decorated with posters exhorting students to "Dive into a Good Book," four first-graders, who are struggling to read, recited words ending with the "ang" sound -- bang, rang, sang, fang, gang. The Foothill Ranch Elementary School students used their index fingers to trace the letters into squares of felt and carpet, imprinting the connection between the letters and the sound into their minds.

In a stretch of desert just north of the U.S.-Mexico border, men and women in khakis and the colors of the American flag recently gathered at a border watch post they call Camp Vigilance and discussed their next offensive in the nation's immigration wars. The target: Illegal immigrants and their U.S.-born children who receive public benefits.