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To help you keep track of where both sides stand in the BART contract negotiations, here are our best estimates of current average salaries by bargaining unit based on the 2012 Public Employee Salary Database. This page will be updated as new contracts are proposed. Last updated 5:26 pm Oct. 14 to reflect the latest contract proposal by BART management.

In a move that portends a labor firestorm, San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed and four other city leaders filed papers on Tuesday aiming to put a public pension measure on the November 2014 statewide ballot. If approved, the measure would change the California Constitution to give state and local government authority to lower current employees’ pension and retiree health benefits prospectively.

(CN) - Concerns that a limitation on concealed-carry permits in Orange County, Calif., amounts to an all-out ban did not seem to resonate with the 9th Circuit. A three-judge panel with the federal appeals court met this week to consider a 2012 lawsuit challenging Orange County Sheriff Sandra Hutchen's policy of "denying law-abiding, competent adults ... state-required licenses to carry handguns in public for the purpose of self-defense." The policy requires gun owners to prove to the sheriff that they have a valid reason to carry their gun for self defense.

A pit bull attacked at least two children on a neighborhood street, wounding one, before someone fatally shot the dog Sunday afternoon, police said. The dog got loose in the 2400 block of North Genevieve Street (map) and began attacking people about 2:40 p.m., a San Bernardino police lieutenant told NBC4. The pit bull bit a child's thigh. Someone arrived with a gun and fatally shot the dog, the lieutenant said.

#BREAKING: Police arrest airport employee in connection with dry ice explosions at LAX. @ABC News -Headline only. Still developing.

SAN FRANCISCO - One reason the Republicans are so adamantly against Obamacare, is that it's driving individual insurance premiums up. And with the law now kicking in, the bills are coming due. In looking into this, we talked to health insurance companies, and representatives of Covered California, agency implementing the Affordable Care Act in California. What they told us may be a bitter pill to swallow, for those who will pay more. Cynthia Jaynes thought her family would benefit from the Affordable Care Act. The author of several young adult books says her family will see a minimum 11 percent...

Paul Preston discusses the deaths of Breitbart, Hastings and Clancy.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said Tuesday he would vote for a “clean CR” to end the government shutdown. “I’ll vote for a clean CR," Issa told CNN’s “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer. “Republicans in the House have always been for a clean CR increase if it meant we began the serious negotiations on the kinds of reforms that need to happen…entitlements as a shortcut for it. That's what the deal is about right now.” Democrats have pressed Republicans to bring a continuing resolutio to the floor that funds the government and does nothing else for weeks. GOP leaders have...

The Army's controlled burn has jumped past its containment line and is now burning a 72-acre parcel south of where it was supposed to stay. The fire is still within the Army's secondary containment line but has required York School's students and faculty to be evacuated... The fire is the latest in a long series of controlled burns intended to clear heavy brush so crews can find and remove hidden explosives left over from active operations at the base...

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — Detectives Tuesday continued their efforts to find the suspect wanted for planting dry ice bombs around Los Angeles International Airport. One dry ice bomb exploded and two plastic bottles containing the dangerous material were found around 8:30 p.m. Monday at the Tom Bradley International Terminal in a restricted area, Los Angeles Police Department Det. Gus Villanueva said. No one was injured, and no flights were delayed. Airport police and a bomb squad cleared the items around 9:45 p.m On Sunday, a dry ice device exploded inside an employee bathroom at LAX’s Terminal 2. No injuries were...

SAN DIEGO – Former San Diego Mayor Bob Filner, driven from office by sexual harassment allegations, was charged Tuesday with felony false imprisonment and two counts of misdemeanor battery involving three women.

Dry ice bombs have exploded for two successive nights in restricted areas at Los Angeles international airport, the world's sixth busiest. Two other devices that were found on Monday night before they detonated appeared to have been placed outside the main terminal buildings in an area near planes, according to television news footage. Detectives in America are investigating how the bombs, which consisted of water containers packed with dry ice, were planted in locations where access is barred to the public.

Undocumented immigrants may practice law under new California legislation spurred by Sergio Garcia's long, tortured quest It was not Sergio Garcia's decision to head north. His father made that choice. He was 17 months old when a couple with U.S. citizenship carried him across the border from Mexico, pretending he was their baby. It had somehow been arranged by Garcia's father, Salvador, who was in Northern California eking out a living by picking almonds. "We were so poor in Mexico, my father decided to head north, to find the American dream," said Garcia, now 36, who still breaks into tears...

Southern California has always been an invented place. Without a major river, a natural port or even remotely adequate water, the region has always thrived on reinventing itself – from cow town to agricultural hub to oil city, Tinsel Town and the “Arsenal of Democracy.” Today, the need for the region to reinvent itself yet again has never been greater. Due in large part to regulatory pressures, as well as competitive forces both global and national, many industries that have driven the Southland economy – notably, aerospace, garments and oil – are under assault. A high cost of living, particularly...

You don't go on television during a shutdown and tell the world that your party is shutting down the government. You don't go out and take vicious shots at other Republicans for advocating the strategy your party is engaged in, especially when you don't have the cahones to go after Democrats the same way. If conservative Republicans like Justin Amash and Tim Huelskamp were punished for not being deferential enough to leadership, how is it that establishment Republicans can actively work to undermine the Republican Party during a shutdown fight and get a complete pass? If these mediocrities are so...

RICHMOND -- A San Francisco-based group of financiers called Mortgage Resolution Partners has been calling on Sacramento and other California cities for more than a year, pitching a plan to use government powers of eminent domain to seize underwater mortgages and refinance them for the benefit of homeowners who owe more than their homes are worth. Most communities took a pass, saying the novel plan was too risky. Not Richmond, a largely working-class city in the Bay Area. There, a determined and articulate Green Party mayor has helped steer the plan through the City Council in recent months. Today, the...

From the racial makeup of University of California classrooms to the number of minority contractors working on BART projects, California's 17-year ban on affirmative action programs has indelibly marked the nation's largest state. But now the debate over whether that experiment has caused more harm than good will take a back seat to a larger national question: Are laws such as California's affirmative-action ban, Proposition 209, unconstitutional, and should be overturned? On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in a challenge to Michigan's Proposal 2, a 2006 voter-approved law that mirrored Proposition 209 by barring the use of...

The federal government shutdown claimed another casualty Monday - the annual American Indian ceremony on Alcatraz in protest of Columbus Day. Indian activists and their supporters could not take the morning ferry to Alcatraz, as they've done since the mid-1980s, for prayers, songs, dancing and speeches because the island - part of the National Park Service - is closed. Instead, they gathered at Pier 33, from where they usually depart, and marched to Washington Square Park in North Beach, heart of the city's Italian heritage and Columbus Day festivities, then headed for Coit Tower to protest by the Christopher Columbus...

A 72-year-old California deer hunter was recovering Monday after surviving on squirrels and packing leaves around him for warmth for nearly three weeks while he was lost and alone in the snowy wilderness, authorities said. Gene Penaflor was discovered by hunters on Saturday after 19 days in the Mendocino National Forest in the Coastal Mountain Range of northwestern California, according to a report by the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office.

When she was a college freshman, Shayona Dhanak told her Muslim boyfriend she was splitting with him because of her devout Hindu family’s opposition. Two months later, her father and sister were killed, her mother attacked and the family’s Southern California home doused with gasoline and set on fire.

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)MONTEBELLO, Calif. - There's nothing new about predictions that the end of the world is upon us. But there's plenty new about how some people are preparing for it. What began as a pipe dream for Ron Hubbard has become big business...underground "We call this the backyard bunker," Hubbard said as he showed us one of his survival shelters. These days, the fear market is booming. "I can't build them fast enough right now," he said. "It's better to have a shelter 10 years early than five minutes late." But unlike those Cold War-era concrete bunkers with just the basics,...

Los Angeles public schools are encouraging teachers and staff to wear badges that identify them as “LGBT allies” and supporters of the pro-gay movement. Superintendent John Deasy kicked off the effort Thursday, which he said was necessary to prevent gay kids from being bullied. “We want all our youth and staff to know that it is safe to be you in LAUSD,” said Deasy in a statement to the Los Angeles Times. The move is part of the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center’s “Out for Safe Schools” initiative. The front sides of the badges have the word “ally” written on...

Rubin rose before Chief U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken in Portland, where she pleaded guilty to a dozen crimes – in Colorado, Oregon and California – as part of the underground Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front. ... Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen F. Peifer recounted Rubin's crimes as part of the largest group of eco-saboteurs ever taken down by the FBI. They called themselves The Family and committed an estimated $40 million in damage from 1996 to 2001. ... the terms of the highly structured plea agreement sets limits on the number of years Rubin will spend in prison....

To some outside California, Gov. Jerry Brown always will be kooky Gov. Moonbeam, no matter what he does. To California Democrats, however, Brown is the political mastermind who persuaded voters to approve a ballot measure to increase taxes -- no small feat, considering that 65 percent of voters rejected a similar measure by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2009. The increased revenue and an improving economy lifted Sacramento out of its habitual shortfalls. To some Sacramento Republicans who fought Brown's efforts to put the tax increases before the voters, Dao Gov has become an object of worship. They call Brown...

WATSONVILLE — “I have been waiting for this day to come,” said Rosario Medina, a junior at Pajaro Valley High School and publicist for the school’s Queer Straight Alliance (QSA) club during the annual lunch-time rally in celebration of National Coming Out Day. “On this day I could just express myself and be me,” she said.

The government benefit cards that allow people on public assistance to buy food went down Saturday, impacting welfare recipients in Los Angeles and other cities across the country. Distressed shoppers began calling and emailing the KTLA 5 newsroom Saturday morning to report the Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) system wasn’t working. A Food 4 Less store in Hollywood confirmed that the EBT system went down at about 7 a.m. A Stater Bros. Market in Downey also said the system was not working. The California and federal government EBT websites remained out of service as of Saturday afternoon.

In what may be California's last chance to build a "hydrogen highway," lined with thousands of high-tech vehicles emitting nothing but water vapor from their tailpipes, Gov. Jerry Brown has approved a plan to construct 100 hydrogen fueling stations across the state by 2024. Only a year ago, the California Air Resources Board required Big Oil to pay for the new stations. But after oil companies threatened to sue, Brown agreed to a compromise in which the costs of building hydrogen stations will be shifted to car owners through existing vehicle registration fees.

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation Friday that will allow children in California to have more than two legal parents, a measure opposed by some conservative groups as an attack on the traditional family.

So far more than 16,000 people have signed up for health insurance on Covered California, which is the state's way to access Obamacare.Right now Rakesh Rikhi pays $950 a month to insure himself, his wife and two children with Kaiser. He came to the health trust in San Jose to get help determining if the new affordable care act truly will be affordable. Rikhi was stunned to learn that through covered California he can get a similar Kaiser plan for his family for $400 less a month. He quickly did the math and found he had just saved $5,000 a...

San Diego Judge Gary Kreep, a conservative legal activist who led a failed fight to challenge President Obama’s citizenship, has been exiled to traffic court after several Superior Court rulings favoring defendants’ constitutional rights. Kreep, 63, was reassigned on Sept. 9 from the downtown San Diego courthouse to a Kearny Mesa facility that handles traffic offenses and small claims. The move came after prosecutors from the City Attorney’s Office began to boycott his courtroom over his legal approach. For instance, Kreep often declined to take away a defendant’s 4th Amendment rights against search and seizure — something prosecutors can legally...

The wife of an 80-year-old man who was shot dead by deputies in a mistaken meth lab bust is suing the county for $50million, it emerged today. Eugene Mallory was shot six times in a June 27 raid by Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department who arrived at the property with a search warrant because it allegedly smelled of the ingredients used to make methamphetamine. No evidence of a meth lab was ever found at the Littlerock home but marijuana and marijuana-growing equipment were said to have been found. Police also found two guns on the property. The report says that...

SALT LAKE CITY — An 18-year-old missionary for the LDS Church was killed in Southern California Thursday when he was struck by a vehicle while riding his bicycle. It was the church's second missionary death in two days. Both missionaries had been in their assigned missions for less than a month. Elder Andrew Edward Page, 18, from Charlotte, N.C., was hit while riding on Newburgh Street in Azusa, Calif., a little after 4 p.m. Thursday, according to Azusa police. He had been in the Mexico City Missionary Training Center for six weeks and had arrived in California about three weeks...

The wait is over for California’s law-abiding gun owners, sportsmen and Second Amendment supporters. Governor Brown has signed some anti-gun bills and one anti-hunting bill into law. However, he also vetoed several anti-gun bills. Below is a list of the bills signed into law and vetoed as well as a link to the respective descriptions given by Governor Brown. The NRA will be looking over all the recently signed laws and our legal options for law-abiding Californians. Thanks to NRA members, gun owners, sportsmen and Second Amendment supporters who tirelessly called and e-mailed their state legislators and the Governor urging...

An Orange County man who had fought with Syrian rebels against the Assad regime was arrested Friday morning as he tried to leave the U.S. with a fake passport to fight for al Qaeda against U.S. soldiers overseas, said authorities. Twenty-four-year-old Sinh Vinh Ngo Nguyen of Garden Grove, also known as Hasan Abu Omar Ghannoum, was stopped at a bus station in Santa Ana, Calif. at 7:30 a.m. by members of the Los Angeles Joint Terrorism Task Force and arrested on suspicion of providing material support to al Qaeda. At the courthouse, his mother, Hieu Nguyen, told The Associated Press...

Luisa Blue, head of the local Service Employees International Union in San Jose, has five more months to spend a million dollars. The union received a grant from Covered California, the state’s health insurance marketplace and is using some of the money to call people in their homes at night and on the weekend, as part of a massive education effort.

SAN DIEGO — Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his wife, Anne, can move forward with plans to remodel and expand their beachfront La Jolla home, the California Coastal Commission ruled Friday. By a 7-4 vote, the panel rejected an appeal by Anthony A. Ciani, an architect and former La Jolla resident, who had argued, among other things, that the expansion would be illegal and exceed the size allowed on the 0.41-acre beachfront lot. Coastal Commission staff had said in their report to the panel that Ciani’s claim was in error. They had recommended the appeal be denied. The...

A passenger door fell off a private plane taking off from Monterey Regional Airport onto the roof of nearby motel, but wasn't discovered for 17 hours. "Every hour we didn't hear we felt better that it didn't hit someone or cause injuries," airport general manager Thomas Greer said Friday. The estimated 75-pound door plummeted about 1,000 feet before crashing into the roof of a rear, second-story building at the El Castell Motel at North Fremont Street and Casa Verde Way. The crash site was less than a block from the Monterey County fairgrounds.

San Jose, California – Oct. 11, 2013 – Controversial anti-virus software pioneer and YouTube sensation, John McAfee, disclosed on The Costa Report, his next venture will be headquartered in “Silicon Beach,� otherwise known as Santa Cruz, California.  In his only one-hour radio interview since returning to the United States, McAfee disclosed to host, Rebecca Costa, that his next foray into technology will target “privacy issues.�  According to the former founder of McAfee Associates, the right to private communications is under attack.  He plans to make available a simple, inexpensive technology which will ensure that internet, telephone and other communications are...

<p>SACRAMENTO (CBS/AP) — Gov. Jerry Brown has vetoed a bill that would have banned future sales of most semi-automatic rifles that accept detachable magazines, part of a firearms package approved by state lawmakers in response to mass shootings in other states.</p>

Gov. Jerry Brown has vetoed a bill that would have banned future sales of most semi-automatic rifles that accept detachable magazines, part of a firearms package approved by state lawmakers in response to mass shootings in other states. The governor announced signing other gun-related legislation on Friday but rejected the centerpiece bill, which would have imposed the nation’s toughest restrictions on gun ownership.

When it comes to Obamacare, the big date we’ve heard for a long time is Jan. 1, 2014. That’s the day the Affordable Care Act takes full effect, requiring most Americans to be covered, or pay a fine. We’ve also heard that there’s a grace period — that in this first year, people have until March 31 get covered before the fine will kick in. But, whoops! It turns out that Mar. 31 date is wrong, the Obama administration confirmed to the Associated Press on Wednesday. In order to have coverage by March 31, you need to enroll by Feb....

There are radio and television commercials galore, along with Twitter and Facebook posts and scores of highway billboards. There are armies of outreach workers who speak Spanish, Tagalog, Cambodian, Mandarin and Cantonese, all flocking to county fairs, farmers markets, street festivals and back-to-school nights across the state. There are even dinner parties in Latino neighborhoods designed to reach one family at a time. With enthusiastic backing from state officials and an estimated seven million uninsured, California is a crucial testing ground for the success of President Obama’s health care law.

Starting next January, health insurance plans in California must offer coverage for fertility treatments to homosexual couples and unmarried individuals under a new law signed by Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday. The law amends the state’s Insurance Code to prohibit insurers from withholding coverage for most fertility treatments based on “age, ancestry, color, disability, domestic partner status, gender, gender expression, gender identity, genetic information, marital status, national origin, sex or sexual orientation.” … A.B.460 was introduced by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, a San Franciso Democrat and LGBT rights activist who portrayed himself in a film starring Sean Penn about the murder...

Gun-rights advocates are ready to launch a recall attempt aimed at some of California's most vulnerable Democratic state lawmakers - and the party's supermajority hold on the Legislature - if Gov. Jerry Brown signs some of the dozen-plus gun-control bills sitting on his desk. They're emboldened by the successful recalls last month of two Colorado Democratic legislators who supported gun restrictions, including the leader of the state Senate. Voters replaced both with Republicans. "As soon as the results came in Colorado, our phones started ringing," said Jennifer Kerns, the California political consultant who helped lead the Colorado recalls. "Until then,...

With the spotlight turned on the dangers and dysfunction that result from the sorry state of double-parking enforcement in San Francisco, Mayor Ed Lee has staked out a position on the matter that seems to show a tone-deaf windshield perspective on city streets more than an actual commitment to making them safer. Supervisor Scott Wiener, who grilled parking enforcement officials at a hearing on double parking last week, asked the mayor at this week’s Board of Supervisors meeting what he will “do to ensure that double parking enforcement is a priority where it impacts transit riders, pedestrians, and cyclists.” “What...

Marwa Bouabibsa put an awful lot of thought into how to design a sand castle. It wasn’t going to be one of those run-of-the-mill fill up a plastic bucket and dump it upside down jobs. This was going to have pizzazz. “I just imagined something,” said Bouabibsa, a fifth-grader at San Francisco’s John Yehall Chin Elementary School. “It just came up to me and it was an octopus.” This Saturday, Bouabibsa planned to join 500 other San Francisco school children sculpting their sandy designs on Ocean Beach as part of the 30th annual LEAP Sandcastle contest. But like the beach...

EL CAJON (CNS) - An investigation was under way Tuesday in El Cajon, where a 75-year-old man shot and wounded a teenage boy who had broken into the man's home, police said. The shooting in the 700 block of Terra Lane was reported around 11 a.m. Monday, according to El Cajon police. The man heard a noise coming from a back bedroom and armed himself with a handgun as he relayed information to a police dispatcher, Lt. Mark Coit said in a statement.

More than twice a month, on average, those who've lost all hope come to San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge, climb over the railing and, tragically, plunge 220 feet into the Pacific Ocean to end their pain. That number would be higher, if not for California Highway Patrol Sgt. Kevin Briggs, nicknamed the "Guardian of the Golden Gate." Since 1994, through sheer compassion and expert listening skills, Sgt. Briggs has helped convince more than 200 people on the precipice of death not to take their lives (so far, he's only lost one). "People who come to jump don't necessarily want to...

The intense political polarization of the United States is most clearly reflected by the dysfunctional nature of the federal government. At a more local scale, it is seen as well in the growing movement to create new states by splitting existing ones. Most of these cases involve the desire of people in rural, conservative counties to secede from the more liberal states in which they are currently located. A front-page story in the October 7 edition of the New York Times, for example, highlights a drive to devise a new state of “Northern Colorado.” Eleven Colorado counties will vote on...

Aggressive actions and double standards used by the National Park Service are vindictive and designed to inflict maximum inconvenience and fear among visitors, say Republican lawmakers whose efforts to reopen the parks are gridlocked by Senate Democrats. World War II veterans were blocked by barricades and armed guards from paying tribute at their memorial last week. However, the national mall where the memorial is located was opened Tuesday to allow hundreds of illegal immigrants to stage a protest demanding amnesty. ... the administration has closed the Mall and memorials to some groups and not others, giving preferential treatment under the...