Overhaul

SACRAMENTO - California's computer problems, which have already cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, have mounted as state officials cut short work on a $208-million DMV technology overhaul that is only half done. The project was intended to revamp the process for registering vehicles and issuing driver's licenses, with the entire overhaul scheduled to be finished this year. But state officials said they were canceling the vehicle registration component because little progress was being made.

WASHINGTON - A sweeping bipartisan plan to overhaul the nation's immigration system headed to the Senate floor after a key committee approved it Tuesday, setting the stage for a debate next month that could lead to the biggest victory for advocates of immigrant rights in a generation. The centerpiece of the legislation - a 13-year path to citizenship for many of the 11 million people now in the country without legal status - survived intact. But the bill's supporters accepted amendments that tilted it to the right to attract GOP backing, including some to toughen border security.

SACRAMENTO - One of the state's biggest technology endeavors, a $371-million overhaul of the government payroll system, is beset with problems and "in danger of collapsing," according to the state controller's office. The company hired for the project is in over its head and may be unable to deliver on its promise to update a payroll system so old that even simple salary adjustments can tie it in knots, the controller's chief administrative officer said in a letter. The state has spent at least $254 million so far on contractors, staff salaries, software and more for the system upgrade, which is five years overdue and has nearly tripled in cost since lawmakers authorized it in 2005.

WASHINGTON - Senators pushed forward Monday with changes to a sweeping immigration overhaul over the objections of a union of immigration officers that announced its opposition to the bill. The legislation, written by a bipartisan group of senators, has largely withstood challenges and is on track for a key vote this week as the Senate Judiciary Committee prepares to pass the measure to the full chamber. As the committee convened for its fourth day of hearings, the National Citizenship and Immigration Services Council, which represents about 12,000 employees at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, announced its opposition, saying provisions in the bill could lead to fraud.

Overhaul: An Insider's Account of the Obama Administration's Emergency Rescue of the Auto Industry. Steven Rattner Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 336 pps., $27

Reform plan Highlights of Sen. Christopher J. Dodd's financial regulatory overhaul proposal: Creates an autonomous consumer protection bureau within the Federal Reserve Grants the government power to seize and dismantle large firms if they're near collapse Establishes a council of regulators to monitor the economy for signs of major risks Adds new regulations for hedge funds and derivatives markets ...

Overhaul plan Key provisions of the Senate financial regulatory overhaul proposal: Creates an autonomous consumer protection bureau within the Federal Reserve Grants the government power to seize and dismantle large firms if they're near collapse Establishes a council of regulators to monitor the economy for signs of major risks Adds new regulations for hedge funds and derivatives markets Takes away the...

Another classic Southern California theme park attraction is undergoing a major overhaul. Knott's Berry Farm's Timber Mountain Log Ride will close for five months, starting this month, for a renovation of the ride's automated figures and sets and to add new scenes and characters. The log ride, which opened in 1969, is housed in an eight-story building. Riders on log vehicles float in 24,000 gallons of water and glide past mechanical figures and taxidermied animals before dropping down a 42-foot free fall.

The president on Wednesday signed into law the most sweeping reform of financial rules since the Great Depression, saying, the "American people will never again be asked to foot the bill for Wall Street's mistakes." The signing ended the arduous, yearlong effort to push the lengthy bill through Congress in the face of heavy lobbying by the financial industry and nearly unanimous opposition by Republicans. And it sets the stage for midterm elections this fall, when Republicans hope to make significant inroads into the Democratic majority.

In the March 5 article, "State Says It Has No Plans To Close Hospitals," Stephen Mayberg, director of the state Department of Mental Health, says: "We haven't ruled out anything. But I think that if we come up with better approaches or strategies, I'd rather have better utilization of our facilities than less facilities. There are no plans to shut any hospital down." I wasn't convinced of anything. Better approaches or better strategies? Come on, Mr. Mayberg, you can do better than that.

SACRAMENTO - California dairy farmers and cheese processors are fighting again over milk prices. It's not Grade A, homogenized, pasteurized milk that's at issue in the state Capitol. Rather, agriculture lobbyists are focused on the price of whey, a milk byproduct probably best known to consumers who've read the Mother Goose nursery rhyme about little Miss Muffet eating her "curds and whey. " Once thrown away as waste, whey has become a valuable commodity, left over from processing cheese and then used in hundreds of foods, including baby formula and protein powder.

WASHINGTON - Few regions will absorb the impact of future immigration reforms more than Los Angeles County, home to an estimated 1.1 million people in the country illegally, one-tenth of the nation's total. As the Senate Judiciary Committee began debating the bipartisan immigration bill last week, county officials voiced concerns that local taxpayers will be "left holding the bag" to pay for the brunt of healthcare and other services for multitudes of immigrants who apply for citizenship.

SACRAMENTO - Responding to complaints from businesses, Gov. Jerry Brown is proposing an overhaul of California's 26-year-old landmark clean water and anti-toxins law that he said is being misused by "unscrupulous lawyers" filing lawsuits. At issue is the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act, or Proposition 65, approved by voters in 1986. It requires product manufacturers, retailers and property owners to post signs warning the public if goods or premises contain chemicals known to the state of California to cause cancer or birth defects.

For more than two decades, Wanda Remo has battled one illness after another. Asthma, chronic lung disease, heart disease, high blood pressure, arthritis, depression, chronic pain, strokes. Specialists treat her lungs, her heart and her joints. Her litany of ailments brought her to emergency rooms six times last year, between numerous additional visits to a federally subsidized health clinic in South Los Angeles. "You are one of the million-dollar patients," her doctor, Derrick Butler, tells the 57-year-old as she leans on her walker during one appointment.

WASHINGTON - President Obama nominated Democratic Rep. Mel Watt to be the top regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, moving to replace a career bureaucrat who has been sharply criticized by liberals for not doing more to help troubled homeowners. But confirmation of Watt, a 20-year congressman from North Carolina, to be director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency is expected to be blocked by Senate Republicans. And the fight over the nomination could make it even more difficult for Republicans and Democrats to come together on legislation to overhaul the housing finance system and replace taxpayer-owned Fannie and Freddie.

SACRAMENTO - Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday promised lawmakers "the battle of their lives" if they balk at his bid to overhaul state education. A day after Democratic state senators announced their differences with him over his proposal to change the way schools are funded, the governor came out swinging. "This is not an ordinary legislative measure. This is a cause," a combative Brown said at a Capitol news conference, flanked by 20 school superintendents who support his program.

SACRAMENTO -- Gov. Jerry Brown, whose personal lobbying efforts helped close a complex deal to overhaul California's $17-billion-a-year workers' compensation insurance system, is praising both Republican and Democratic lawmakers for their overwhelming support. "I commend the Legislature for an extraordinary workers' compensation reform bill that helps injured workers and averts an imminent crisis of skyrocketing rates," Brown said just before lawmakers adjourned for the year at midnight Friday.

Less than a week after declaring an impasse in bipartisan negotiations to overhaul U.S. financial regulations, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) said he's now working with a new Republican partner: Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee. The inclusion of Corker injects new hope in the Obama administration's attempt to enact the most sweeping reforms since the Great Depression to try to prevent a repeat of the 2008-09 financial crisis. "For over a year, the Senate Banking Committee has been grappling with how best to address the many problems that led to the financial crisis," Dodd said.

WASHINGTON - The divide within the Republican Party over immigration reform was on full view Monday, as top party leaders made a case for overhauling the laws even as conservative senators argued that the Boston bombings showed the need to go slow. Momentum appeared to be on the side of the reformers. They have amassed an unusually robust alliance of business, labor and faith leaders that on Monday included the head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who said "now is the time" to fix the immigration system.

- Moments before a group of eight senators unveiled a sweeping bipartisan immigration overhaul Thursday, a smaller group launched the GOP opposition. Led by Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the Republican push-back emerged as a muted affair. With just one other senator joining the afternoon event, the opponents created something of a lonely gang of two. That is a stark contrast to the heated Republican rhetoric in 2007 that greeted the last attempt to reach a deal on comprehensive immigration reform, before the party's leaders made a strategic decision after the November election to embrace an issue that is a priority among the growing Latino electorate.