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Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday afternoon vetoed the largest piece of a $4-billion package of bills lawmakers approved in recent weeks to reduce the state's nearly $20-billion budget deficit. The bill contained an estimated $2.2 billion in spending reductions, according to Democrats, some of them proposed by the governor himself. But Schwarzenegger, a Republican, and GOP lawmakers had criticized it as a parlor trick because Democrats, who hold majorities in the Senate and Assembly, made cuts to next year's budget even though they have not yet approved it, which is expected to be a much more difficult task.

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Despite steep odds, the White House has discussed prospects for reviving a major overhaul of the nation's immigration laws, a commitment that President Obama has postponed once already. Obama took up the issue privately with his staff Monday in a bid to advance a bill through Congress before lawmakers become too distracted by approaching midterm elections. In the session, Obama and members of his Domestic Policy Council outlined ways to resuscitate the effort in a White House meeting with two senators -- Democrat Charles E. Schumer of New York and Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina -- who have spent months trying to craft a bill.

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. The first public glimpse into the financial portfolio of the former EBay chief came Thursday, when she filed an economic-interest disclosure required of candidates. The holdings present potential conflicts of interest for a governor.

Corey Haim was in full teen-idol mode in 1988, swamped with letters from adoring young female fans and his face on the covers of teen magazines. But it was acting that was foremost on the mind of the Canadian-born 16-year-old, whose growing list of credits included "Lucas" and the teenage vampire movie "The Lost Boys." Haim, observed a visiting Times writer, "actually believes he is the next James Dean." "I know I can do it," Haim said. "Dean made only three movies, and he's such a legend.

For decades, no matter how grim the budget was, Los Angeles officials avoided laying off even small numbers of workers who had Civil Service protection. That changed Thursday. Pink slips were being issued to the first group of about a dozen such employees as the city embarks on an unprecedented process that could lead to the elimination of 4,000 jobs to help close a projected $485-million budget gap. More cuts could come as early as Friday, which is expected to touch off a seniority-based bumping process that could potentially force thousands of employees into positions they previously held, city officials said.

Eamonn Daniel Higgins spent seven years in college. Between 2002 and 2009, he attended 10 different schools in Southern California, including Cal State L.A., Irvine Valley College and Santa Monica College, according to federal prosecutors. During that time, he studied sociology, marketing, English, business and math. But Higgins was not a student and wasn't registered in any of the classes, authorities said. Rather, dozens of foreign students -- all from the Middle East -- were paying him to sit in class, take exams and write papers so that their student visas would remain valid, according to a charging document filed in the case.

Reporting from Ratsat, Dogo Nahawa, Nigeria, and Lagos, Nigeria -- The victims of Sunday's sectarian massacres were buried in mass graves in central Nigeria on Monday as survivors told horrific stories of Christian villagers being trapped in nets and hacked to death by Muslim herdsmen. Reports on the death toll differed wildly, with some placing it at about 200 and others reporting 528 killed and thousands injured. Casualty figures in the recurrent Muslim-Christian violence in Nigeria's volatile Plateau state are often difficult to ascertain, as each side inflates its losses.

At least 13 people were killed Saturday, some of them beheaded, around the popular beach resort of Acapulco, just as foreign visitors have begun arriving for spring break. Elsewhere in the Guerrero state where Acapulco is located, 11 other people, including soldiers and suspected traffickers, were killed, authorities said. The dead in Acapulco included five police officers, authorities said, who were ambushed while on patrol on the city's outskirts about 2 a.m. Over the next four hours, the bullet-riddled bodies of eight men were discovered in three locations, police said.

For most of a year, the small-government advocates of the "tea party" movement have stolen the spotlight from the Republican Party's veteran performers: the Christian conservatives who have long driven voters to the polls for the GOP. Now the veterans are stealing the tea partyers lines. In news releases, mission statements and interviews, prominent social conservatives increasingly are using the small-government rhetoric popular with the tea party activists and long used by economic conservatives -- but with a religious bent.

Each year before the Persian New Year of Nowruz, Iranians gather on Southern California beaches to celebrate a festival of fire. It's part party, part cathartic ritual. Participants build small bonfires -- meant to represent all the bad of the previous year -- and then leap over the flames. But on Tuesday night at Dockweiler State Beach, some of them didn't quite clear the fires. Los Angeles Fire Department medics were called out several times to treat people who got burned.

Protesters seeking to drive the ruling party from power doused the grounds of the Thai prime minister's residence with plastic bags of their own blood Wednesday as they continued their attempt to draw attention to their cause. At the same time, the number of red-shirted protesters camping out across Bangkok dropped by about half, to roughly 50,000, and the Thai stock market hit a two-year high when it became evident the disturbances had been contained. On Sunday, more than 100,000 demonstrators opposed to Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva had gathered in Bangkok and pledged to remain until he dissolved parliament and called new elections.

The 1st Amendment doesn't protect hostile Internet banter among teenagers if the messages can be taken as genuine threats of harm, a California appeals court has ruled in a case that more clearly defines when free expression crosses a line into cyber-bullying. The 2-1 ruling by the 2nd District Court of Appeal will allow a lawsuit to go forward that was brought by the father of a 15-year-old student at the elite Harvard-Westlake School in Studio City. The father's lawsuit accuses six of his son's classmates and their parents of hate crimes, defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress caused by their posting of death threats and anti-gay diatribes against the boy on his website.

President Obama is expected to sign into law Thursday the first significant job-creation measure passed by Congress since Democrats vowed this year to attack the nation's high unemployment rate. The bill, passed by the Senate on a 68-29 vote Wednesday, is a $17.6-billion package intended to spur hiring by, among other things, granting employers a payroll tax holiday for the rest of the year for hiring new workers. Obama will sign the bill in a Rose Garden ceremony. "It is the first of what I hope will be a series of jobs packages that help to continue to put people back to work all across America," the president said Wednesday.

President Obama's visit to Indonesia next week will offer the unexpected image of an American president delivering a major diplomatic speech to the Islamic world, from a country that has frequently been the source of terrorist plots against Western targets. Obama's three-day trip to the world's most populous Muslim country is intended to demonstrate Washington's improving relationship and closer security ties with the government of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. It is also a vote of confidence in Indonesia's security apparatus, once notorious for human rights abuses, but which in recent years has found itself back in favor with the U.S. as it battles home-grown and foreign Islamic extremist networks.

Their numbers and influence may be declining, but American nuns demonstrated Wednesday what generations of schoolchildren already knew: They are a force to be reckoned with. By sending a letter to Congress in support of the Senate healthcare bill, a wide coalition of nuns took sides against not only the Republican minority but against their own church hierarchy, as represented by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which opposes the bill. The nuns' letter contributed to the momentum in favor of the legislation, despite opposition that is partially rooted in a disagreement over abortion funding.

A senior Al Qaeda operative being hunted in the December bombing of a U.S. base used by the CIA in Afghanistan was among those killed in a missile strike in Pakistan's tribal area, U.S. officials said Wednesday. Hussein Yemeni, an Al Qaeda bomb expert and trainer, is believed to have been among more than a dozen people killed in the strike last week in Miram Shah, the largest town in North Waziristan, the officials said. Yemeni is thought to have had a major planning role in the Dec. 30 suicide bombing in Afghanistan that killed seven CIA employees and contractors and a Jordanian intelligence officer, a counter-terrorism official said.

Residents of this scruffy border town thought they had seen the worst of the violence five years ago, when rival drug gangs staged wild gunfights in the streets and a new police chief was slain just hours after being sworn in. The warfare gave way to an uneasy calm after one of the warring groups took de facto control. The number of deaths here ebbed, even as violence soared out of control in other border cities, such as Ciudad Juarez, about 500 miles to the northwest. Now, like a recurring nightmare, dread again hangs over Nuevo Laredo amid a new bloody feud that has ignited widespread fear of a return to the earlier carnage.

MICHIGAN 44 more Detroit schools will close, manager says The emergency financial manager for Detroit Public Schools said 44 schools and a support building will close in June as the district addresses budget issues and declining enrollment. Six more schools are scheduled to close in June 2011, and seven more will close a year later. Robert Bobb publicly announced the closures as part of a proposed five-year plan to reorganize and create a leaner district. The closures are in addition to the closing of 29 schools before last fall.

The head of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland apologized Wednesday for failing to tell police 35 years ago about an abusive priest who went on to molest more children before being convicted and imprisoned. Amid calls for his resignation, Cardinal Sean Brady expressed regret for his part in a 1975 case in which the church asked two boys to sign oaths of secrecy after they reported being sexually abused. The offending priest, Brendan Smyth, was transferred from parish to parish, where he victimized more children.