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The House of Representatives passed a controversial cybersecurity bill as expected on Thursday, moving toward a possible confrontation with the Senate and White House . The  Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act of 2013 , or CISPA, passed by a vote of 288 to 127, with 17 abstentions. The bill makes it easier for companies to share information with other companies and the government about cyber attacks. Large tech companies pushed hard for the legislation amid escalating cyber attacks, calling it a necessary step to shore up their defenses.  MORE: Cybersecurity bill pits tech giants against privacy activists The companies threw their lobbyists and pocketbooks behind the bill, according to an analysis by the Sunlight Foundation : " Sunlight's review of lobbying disclosures from the last session of Congress in  Influence Explorer shows that backers of the  Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act  had $605 million in lobbying expenditures from 2011 through the third quarter of last year compared to $4.3 million spent by opponents of the bill.

Los Angeles mayoral candidate Wendy Greuel will be on the air at 4 p.m. Wednesday with the first broadcast television ad buy in the runoff election campaign. The 30-second spot is biographical and features some of the city controller's most prominent backers - basketball legend Magic Johnson, Sen. Barbara Boxer and former Mayor Richard Riordan. Called “Crises,” the ad highlights Greuel's role in delivering federal aid during the Northridge earthquake when she worked in President Clinton's administration, helping former Mayor Tom Bradley start the LA's BEST afterschool program and her work as controller.

On night two of "The Voice" Season 4 battle rounds, six more sets of singers squared off in the ring, and the coaches listened closely, waiting for the right time -- the right person -- to steal.  Usher again proved himself to be a different sort of coach than we've seen on the show before: more exacting, less nurturing, willing to try a few tricks to elicit the best performances from his singers, a serious combatant, uninterested in joking around....

A 38-year-old homeless man suspected of fatally setting a man on fire outside a Long Beach 7-Eleven has pleaded not guilty to capital murder. Raymond Sean Clark stood behind the inmate holding cell and was not visible to reporters as Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge James D. Otto read him the charges. Clark is charged with special circumstance murder and arson causing great bodily injury in the Friday attack that killed Jerry Payne, 63. No bail was set for Clark, who remains in police custody.

On a little-known launch pad off the coast of Virginia, a team of about 200 engineers and technicians is readying a 13-story rocket for its maiden flight to space in a test mission for NASA. The Antares rocket, developed by Orbital Sciences Corp., is going through final preparations for a 2 p.m. Pacific time blastoff planned for Wednesday. The eyes of the U.S. government will be on the launch to see whether the two-engine booster has the right stuff. NASA has invested about $288 million in seed money to help the Dulles, Va., company develop its technology, and has an additional $1.9 billion on the table with a contract for eight flights to transport cargo to the International Space Station in the coming years.

WASHINGTON - President Obama vowed Tuesday to get to the bottom of the Boston bomb attacks but kept to his previously planned schedule, saying it is important to carry on. “We mourn the victims,” Obama said at an event on the South Lawn. “We pray for their loved ones. “We don't let such cowardly acts get in the way of our lives,” he said, and then went on with a ceremony honoring the winner of this year's NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. Obama's response to the Boston attack reflects an approach developed over five years in the Oval Office, shaped by past experience in handling terrorism and the chaos that follows an attack.

WASHINGTON - After four months of debate and maneuvering, the Senate headed for a showdown over gun control - a series of back-to-back votes on rival plans Wednesday afternoon that could end in the collapse of the entire effort. The impending climax, after weeks of inconclusive negotiations, came as gun control supporters tried, without apparent success, to get enough senators to commit themselves to a compromise reached last week by Sens. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.)

Mark Yudof likes to point out that he was the first real outsider in more than a century chosen to run the sprawling University of California system. And he often jokes that, as a result of his leadership, it is likely to take a hundred years more before UC hires another. Maybe not. But the comment does represent a dilemma facing the UC regents as they look for his successor: No obvious heir apparent is lined up inside the system. So experts predict the search for a new president will concentrate on large public university systems elsewhere in the country that dealt, like UC, with dramatic declines in state support.

A 63-year-old man who was set on fire while sitting inside his sport utility vehicle outside a 7-Eleven store in Long Beach on Friday has died, authorities say. The victim was pronounced dead Monday morning at a local hospital, three days after the incident. Long Beach Police Department identified him as Jerry Payne. Raymond Sean Clark, a 38-year-old homeless man, was initially booked on suspicion of attempted murder and on two outstanding warrants Friday night. Authorities say they will now rebook Clark on suspicion of murder.

Long Beach police Monday night were looking for at least three people who witnessed a 63-year-old man being set on fire last week as he sat inside his sport utility vehicle. Jerry Payne was trapped inside his green SUV as flames quickly devoured the vehicle Friday evening. Payne died Monday morning , the Long Beach Police Department said. Payne was alone in the SUV outside a 7-Eleven store in the 5100 block of Pacific Coast Highway when a man walked up to the driver's side and threw a flammable substance into the vehicle, which exploded into flames, police said.  Some people rushed to help Payne, who lived in Long Beach.