Scott Gerber

U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein delivered a lengthy, impassioned speech Wednesday about the need for this country, other nations and every individual to step up the fight against global warming. Then she drove off in a gas-guzzling Lincoln Town Car.

For the 10 months of the school year, the sunny sands of summer--and the attendant bliss of sheer mental shutdown--seem like an unattainable paradise. But often the occasional boredom and monotony of summer is only marginally better than the boredom and monotony of school, and some teen-agers end up parched by summer disillusionment. Hot Topics wonders, "What don't you like about summer vacation?" "I don't like not being with my friends every day.

California politics can be brutal, but seldom is blood actually drawn. In Ventura County, however, one political fight is headed for criminal court, with the chief advisor for a Republican lawmaker accused of attacking three protesters. They include a 69-year-old Episcopal priest who complains he was body-slammed, his shoulder damaged so badly that a year later he still has trouble raising the chalice during Mass.

It's amazing what sticks in the human mind. Last week, in the riveting Sacramento drama starring Insurance Commissioner Chuck Quackenbush, his chief deputy testified that he didn't recall much about what transpired during a lunch meeting with a political consultant, but he definitely remembered that the consultant had paid for lunch with "a black American Express card." Say what?

Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown has launched an investigation into the brouhaha over videotapes of a conservative group's sting operation against ACORN, the community organizing group credited with helping push Barack Obama to the presidency. Brown's office plans to look into circumstances surrounding both the making of the videos and any possible misdeeds by ACORN employees in California caught on tape. In what has become a staple of TV and radio talk shows in recent weeks, ACORN workers in several states were shown allegedly offering advice on tax evasion, human smuggling and child prostitution.

Three Southern California mortgage brokers have been arrested on suspicion of stealing nearly $1 million from borrowers seeking to adjust their home loans. Michael McConville, 31, and co-workers Garrett Holdridge, 23, and Alan Ruiz, 28, are scheduled to be arraigned Monday in Los Angeles County Superior Court on charges of bilking more than 70 homeowners, said Scott Gerber, a spokesman for the California attorney general's office. The three were arrested Thursday, after a complaint listing 44 criminal charges was filed by the attorney general's office.

American museums have caught a break on the insurance premiums they must pay when they borrow hugely valuable artworks for public display. California museums in particular could benefit from an expanded federal insurance program, to be administered by the National Endowment for the Arts, because the coverage will include earthquake premiums that can be far more costly than those for loss and theft.

After a 16-month investigation that revealed "gross misconduct and widespread abuse" by the Maywood Police Department, California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown announced Tuesday that he would seek a court order to impose reforms on the troubled force. His comments coincided with the release of a 30-page report that detailed the findings of the investigation into the tiny department, which polices the densely populated cities of Maywood and Cudahy southeast of downtown Los Angeles.

Five months after the sudden dismantling of the public corruption unit in the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles, questions are still being raised in Washington, D.C., about the controversial move. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has been exchanging letters with a top Justice Department official over the unit's disbanding, and the subject came up during a congressional oversight hearing late last month. In March, Los Angeles U.S. Atty. Thomas P.

Bureaucratic bungling, red tape and political gridlock don't come cheap -- especially when they get in the way of paying California's bills. The state has shelled out more than $8 million in late-payment penalties to vendors, contractors and others over the last two years because Sacramento did not send the checks when they were owed, records show. The late budget last year was one reason bills didn't get paid when they were due, but not the only one. Confusion over which offices should make payments, delays in invoices being sent from field offices to headquarters and shortages of staff to pay the bills also are responsible.