Projected

SACRAMENTO - State Capitol politicians may have an extra $3.2 billion to play with. Or they may not. It depends on whose figures you believe: nonpartisan Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor's or contrarian Gov. Jerry Brown's. I tend to have more confidence in Taylor, suspecting that Brown may be lowballing it to be on the safe side so legislators won't try to overspend and plunge the state back into a deficit hole. That's noble. But it may not be looking at the world as it really is and making wise use of the revenue that taxpayers are generating.

CANNES, France - Writer-director Alexander Payne has been nominated for three screenplay Oscars and has won two. So what did the man responsible for films including "Election," "Sideways" and "The Descendants" feel about working with someone else's script for the first time? In a word: "relief. " "Writing is wonderful, I've mined some things out of myself, but I'm interested in the art of directing," Payne said here this week, ahead of the festival premiere of "Nebraska," his latest movie.

Amazon has a plan to monetize fan fiction: It's called Kindle Worlds. On Wednesday, Amazon announced a new scheme in which writers of fan fiction can self-publish and sell that writing with the sanction of the original copyright holder. The idea is that everyone, including Amazon, will profit. The fan fiction authors will get 35% of net revenue for full-length books; Amazon and the original copyright owner will split the other 65%, in terms that the company will not disclose. Until now, fan fiction has largely been available for free; in the cases where it was not, sales definitely fell into a gray area.

Surprisingly, little has changed at the Eames House since 1949, when Charles and Ray Eames designed their Pacific Palisades home and studio as a model of affordable modern living. Most of the objects they lived with remain in place at the two-part, rectangular structure on a bluff overlooking the ocean. Charles died in 1978; his wife and professional partner passed away 10 years later. But they are remembered for their creative use of materials and innovative design of architecture, furniture and industrial products.

WASHINGTON - President Obama said Friday he wanted to put more Americans to work by slashing the amount of time it takes to grant federal approval for big job-creating projects. But Obama's choice of venue for his remarks - a Baltimore company that makes mining and pumping equipment - provided fodder for Republicans. They noted that the company president had, just the day before, testified on Capitol Hill in support of the Keystone XL pipeline, which the Obama administration has delayed for years over environmental concerns.

Billionaire Larry Ellison has hired UC San Diego energy expert Byron Washom to help fulfill his vision of sustainable energy for the Hawaiian island of Lanai, according to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Washom became the school's first director of strategic energy initiatives in 2008 in an effort to turn the 1,200-acre campus into a "living laboratory" of sustainability. On Lanai, he will work to maximize renewable energy efforts using a microgrid similar to one he manages at UC San Diego as well as produce more fresh water through desalination.

WASHINGTON - President Obama said Friday he wanted to put more Americans back to work by slashing the amount of time it takes to grant federal approval for big job-creating projects. But Obama's choice of venue for his remarks of a manufacturing company that makes mining and pumping equipment provided fodder for Republicans. They pointed out that its president had just the day before testified on Capitol Hill in support of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, which the Obama administration has delayed for years.

The last several months have been wildly up and down for David Mamet. The Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright saw his new play "The Anarchist" flop on Broadway, while a revival of his "Glengarry Glenn Ross" proved a box office hit thanks to Al Pacino. Mamet received mixed notices for his HBO movie "Phil Spector" last month, but the writer-director has apparently already moved on, casting his next big project.  Variety reports Cate Blanchett will star in Mamet's "Blackbird," a screen thriller about a woman who travels to Los Angeles for the funeral of her grandfather,  a Hollywood visual-effects artist who also worked for the government.  PHOTOS: Hollywood stars on stage The story involves a hidden conspiracy involving the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, according to the report.

BEIJING -- Surrounded and pushed back by police, hundreds of people shouted and marched again in the southern China city of Kunming to protest the construction of a petrochemical plant. It was the second time this month that demonstrators gathered in large numbers to display their concerns in Kunming, a provincial capital, in what has become a familiar scene in China as citizens demand more accountability for decisions affecting the environment. The protest crowds Thursday were estimated to number as many as 2,500.

- Invariably, the Cannes Film Festival chooses a striking image for its official annual poster. But the 2013 version can be seen as a particularly apt metaphor for the dual nature of the world's most essential cinema event. Paris-based graphic designers have adroitly repurposed a black-and-white photo from 1963's "A New Kind of Love" featuring Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward in an embrace. As sinuously as they are entwined, that's how fluidly the American and international components of the film world come together at Cannes, which opens Wednesday night with the big Warner Bros.