Legislators Arizona

An embattled record industry is circling its wagons to fight a multifront war over an issue that has parents' groups and state legislatures up in arms, record retailers worried about stiff legal penalties and recording artists protesting assaults on their freedom of expression.

Arizona state Rep. Rusty Bowers began campaigning against environmental education after his son came home from a grade school ecology class declaring that coyotes didn't kill sheep. In Virginia, business consultant Jo Kwong questioned how environmental issues were being presented in local schools when her children became obsessed with recycling household waste but couldn't explain what recycling did.

Arizona sold its state Capitol, privatized prisons and closed some of its state parks, all to bridge a budget deficit that rivals California's. But on Tuesday, voters in this state that is famously averse to government spending decided enough was enough. Gov. Jan Brewer was able to persuade a conservative electorate to do what Californians would not do for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger — give the state more money. They voted 64% to 36% for a temporary sales tax increase to 6.6% from 5.6%.

Alarmed by a flurry of horror stories, state lawmakers are rushing to resolve a long-standing complaint about homeowners associations: the power that they have to seize properties without going to court. By law, associations are entitled to foreclose on the homes of members who fail to pay their dues. Though most residents pay their bills before their houses are actually sold, thousands have lost their homes, sometimes over disputes involving a few hundred dollars.

In his jacket and baseball cap, Ronald Reagan ambles along the beach near the Santa Monica pier mostly unnoticed, looking like just another duffer out for a Sunday afternoon stroll. With his memory vanquished by Alzheimer's, he is a man in his fading years, if not moments, unaware of the wave of nostalgia for his leadership and the ideological battles raging over the meaning of his life and eight-year presidency.