Swift

Check off another milestone for Apple Inc. — it's now the most valuable company of all time. The technology behemoth achieved that distinction with the latest jump in its seemingly irrepressible stock price. Apple shares have been on a steady uptick for years, and investors now value the company at $623.5 billion. That surpassed the previous high of $616.3 billion, not adjusted for inflation, notched by rival Microsoft Corp. at the end of the late-1990s dot-com boom. To put that in perspective, Apple is now worth 17 times as much as Ford Motor Co., seven times as much as McDonald's Corp.

By the hundreds of thousands each year, they sail to Avalon by ferry and cruise ship for diving trips, glass-bottom boat tours and to lounge on the beach in the Catalina Island town 26 miles off the Southern California coast. Yet the same crystal-clear water that draws tourists also harbors an embarrassing hazard. For most of the last decade, Avalon Harbor Beach has ranked among the most polluted in the state, tainted with human sewage that puts swimmers at risk. Even though the city of 4,000 has spent $3.5 million testing and rehabilitating sewer lines, the water is no cleaner.

California finds itself in an unaccustomed place these days: behind the curve. Another state, Rhode Island, and two more countries, France and New Zealand, were just added to the steadily growing list of places where same-sex marriage will receive full recognition and status. The roster now encompasses 14 nations and 10 states - as soon as the Rhode Island legislation is signed - as well as Washington, D.C. Missing from it is California. How could California, with its frontier live-and-let-live sensibility and a reputation for social progressiveness that verges on downright weirdness, have ended up in this situation?

Brit­ish roots mu­sic band Mum­ford & Sons took the top hon­or for its album "Ba­bel" at the 55th Grammy Awards ce­re­mony Sunday. The night mostly dis­trib­uted hon­ors broadly to an ar­ray of young­er gen­er­a­tion acts in­clud­ing New York in­die trio Fun., Aus­trali­an elec­tron­ic pop artist Gotye, rap­per-R&B sing­er Frank Ocean and Ak­ron, Ohio, rock group the Black Keys. See the complete list of 2013 Grammy winners and nominees below. #story-body-text h2 { font-weight: bold !

It all started with the Kingston Trio. One day in 1963, a San Diego kid and his friends got their hands on an album by the popular folk group. Greg Deering, 12 at the time, recalls studying the musicians on the cover and thinking, "I've got to get a banjo" - not out of love for the twangy instrument but mainly because his pal already had a guitar. Fifty years later, Greg, his wife, Janet, and daughter Jamie preside over the bestselling banjo-making business in the U.S. From a small Spring Valley factory, the Deering Banjo Co. is having its best year ever, defying the U.S. skills gap and California's manufacturing doldrums.

The new documentary “Family Band: The Cowsills Story,” premiering tonight on Showtime, opens with a compelling scene showing musician Bob Cowsill setting up single-handed for another thankless gig in the corner of a restaurant-bar of an Indian casino. As patrons chat, eat and drink, barely paying attention, he says, “I had four hit records between the ages of 17 and 21… I did!” As is obvious in that scene, the Cowsills long ago fell off the radar of most pop music fans, and are remembered today primarily for their hit recording of the title song from the musical “Hair,” which spent two weeks at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1969.

The Food and Drug Administration announced Wednesday that it would allow 17-year-olds to buy the emergency contraceptive pill Plan B without a prescription, signaling a major shift in the agency's approach to what has been a polarizing debate on reproductive rights.

Any uncertainty over the long-term home for Goldenvoice's Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival and its country cousin Stagecoach has come to an end. Indio on Wednesday granted approval of Goldenvoice's proposal to stage and expand its festival offerings in the desert city, clearing the way for an agreement that will keep Coachella and Stagecoach in Indio through at least 2030. Goldenvoice, a subsidary of AEG Live, has in turn agreed to increase the amount of per-ticket revenue it shares with the city begining in 2014.

Long before it opened, "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire" had racked up plaudits for its groundbreaking depiction of the inner life of a black, overweight, ghetto-dwelling teenage girl. But since its release, a story-outside-the-story has developed that's equally fresh and complicated: black people's reaction to the movie and what it means. FOR THE RECORD: 'Precious': An article last Sunday about reaction to the movie "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire" referred to the comments of a blogger named Tiffany on the website Racialicious.

The backlash over Apple's redesign of Final Cut Pro video editing software two years ago was so severe that even slashing the price by $700, to $299, caused an uproar. Video editors jeered that Apple had abandoned loyal professional users to create a cheap product aimed at consumers. References to "Apple's lemon" and "debacle" became common refrains in blog posts and industry trades scrutinizing the fallout. "It may sing and dance and create unicorns, but you've got a well-deserved PR mess on your hands," read one comment about Final Cut Pro X in Apple's App Store.