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SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – A majority of Californians back Governor Jerry Brown's plan to ask them to extend tax increases to help close a $25.4 billion state budget gap, poll results released on Wednesday showed. Brown, a Democrat sworn in to a third term earlier this month as leader of America's most populous state, wants lawmakers to help him put a measure to voters in June that would propose extending tax increases that expire this year to raise money for California's cash-strapped government. Revenue from tax extensions, $12.5 billion in spending cuts and other moves would balance the state's books...

The federal credits, provided under the nation's healthcare overhaul, would help low- and middle-income people slash the cost of coverage through a new state health insurance marketplace. An estimated 3.5 million Californians would be eligible for federal tax credits to slash the cost of their health coverage when they begin buying policies through a new statewide insurance marketplace in 2014, a study released Tuesday found. Under the nation's healthcare overhaul, tax credits will be available to low- and middle-income people once insurers begin selling policies through state-based insurance exchanges like the one being set up in California. The federal law...

     EL CENTRO, Calif. (CN) - Federal prosecutors charged two 21-year-old men with trying to buy grenade launchers, 40mm grenades and an M-4 rifle and export them to Mexico. Yoahjan Lara Flores, of Heber, Calif., and Arturo Lara, of El Centro, were arrested last week and pleaded not guilty. 
     Lara Flores also was charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm. He was convicted in 2009 of importing marijuana and was on supervised release when he was arrested, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.
     Mexico has complained - to little effect - that many of the guns used in the...

A once-in-a-generation voter revolt is brewing. This revolt is growing quickly and will test the very ideals of democracy to fix a state that has fallen far and fast. The movement for a constitutional convention offers Californians who passionately love their state a chance to cease armchair criticism and instead stand up to lead. The cause of the revolt is obvious, .. Our public schools, once the nation's best, are now among the worst. Our crumbling transportation and water systems were the envy of the world just a generation ago. Our business climate is ranked among the lowest in the...

Supporters of a proposed $11 billion water bond say the money is urgently needed to fix California's water supply problems, yet billions of dollars in previous bond money still hasn't been spent, according to the California treasurer. About half of the $20 billion in water and levee improvement bonds passed since 2000 was unspent as of July, according to the State Treasurer's Office most recent report on debt affordability. It is unclear how much of that money is actually available for new efforts, since lawmakers have appropriated billions for specific projects, according to Jason Dickerson, debt service analyst for the...

When Illinois Senator Everett Dirksen remarked a half-century ago, “A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money,” it was said with a sense of irony. I offer this clarification because a billion dollars no longer has the impact that it once had. Now with a former senator from Illinois occupying the White House, the federal government is throwing trillions of dollars around as if it were nickels. Still, for the average taxpayer, whether it is billion dollars or a trillion dollars, it’s a mind numbing amount. When the Legislature approved $12.6 billion in new...

Billionaire former eBay CEO and political neophyte Meg Whitman officially announced her candidacy for California governor today in Orange County, vowing to cut 40,000 state government jobs and lower taxes. The 53-year-old Atherton resident, who registered as a Republican in 2007, told supporters in Fullerton that "Californians want to trust their leaders again. They want to be told the truth. "And most of all," she said, "they want to live in a place of opportunity and optimism, not a place of small dreams and scaled-down ambitions." Whitman will battle state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner and former Rep. Tom Campbell in...

SACRAMENTO — In a bid to avoid mass closures of state parks, Assembly Democrats on Monday offered a financial trade-off: Pay an additional $15 to register your car, and in return, the state will waive vehicle entry fees at all state parks for anyone with a California license plate. The proposal, outlined by Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, D-Los Angeles, is part of a sweeping budget plan Democrats aim to unveil this week and vote on as early as next week. ... But Bass said the majority party would also push for at least a handful of tax increases. In addition...

Reporting from Yuba City -- Five years ago, Donnette Shaffer was one of nearly 5 million Californians who did something unprecedented: she voted to fire Gray Davis, just months after he had been reelected governor. Now she wonders why she bothered. "I was thinking that we needed to do something before the ship totally sank," the 35-year-old postal carrier said last week as she ended her shift at Yuba City's downtown post office. A Republican, Shaffer voted to recall Democrat Davis and replace him with actor Arnold Schwarzenegger. For a time, she was pleased with the new GOP governor, who...

Record number of Californians report being financially worse off. Most do not expect improvement next year. - A record number of Californians (63%) report being financially worse off than they were a year ago. In no previous Field Poll survey in nearly fifty years of polling – covering several previous economic recession periods – has more than 50% described their financial condition so negatively. In addition, most voters foresee no improvement in their personal finances next year. There has also been a deterioration in Californians' appraisal of the state's economy. At present 86% of voters feel California is in bad...

Are you willing to pay 12 to 30 cents more a month on your utility bill for an institute coordinating energy and climate change technology research across the state? Actually, you don't have a choice. The California Public Utilities Commission on Thursday unanimously approved the $600 million California Institute for Climate Solutions, which will be paid for by money from ratepayers' monthly electric bills, to the tune of $60 million a year. The institute aims to speed up research into cutting greenhouse gas emissions, such as auto exhaust, that contribute to pollution. This work is already under way at laboratories...

THE RACE: Bloomberg in the presidential race in California --- THE NUMBERS - Would consider supporting Bloomberg for president in 2008 All voters, 25 percent Democrats, 23 percent Republicans, 20 percent Independents/others, 38 percent --- THE NUMBERS - See a Bloomberg independent candidacy as good for the country All voters, 29 percent Democrats, 25 percent Republicans, 25 percent Independents/others, 47 percent --- OF INTEREST: Presidential speculation has swirled around New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg since he switched from Republican to independent last year. But Californians do not have an automatic positive response to Bloomberg, who made billions with his self-named...

SACRAMENTO -- An overwhelming majority of Californians believe global warming is a serious threat to their health and quality of life, according to a new statewide poll released Friday. The Field Poll also indicates Californians believe the problem is more serious than people elsewhere in the United States. More than seven in 10 Californians believe fears of air pollution and flooding are extremely or very important, compared with a national poll last year that put that figure at 52 percent. Statewide, 43 percent say global warming requires immediate action and 32 percent believe at least something should be done. Large...

SAN DIEGO - A week after a half million people fled Southern California's wildfires, shelters began closing and residents were figuring out what to do next — even as firefighters kept a wary eye on the possibility of strong winds developing later in the week. There was a chance of moderate Santa Anas — the fierce, dry winds that fanned the flames last week — returning in the next seven days, forecasters said. "It's a little premature to be celebrating, that's for sure," California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spokesman Fred Daskoski said. "We're looking for full control within...

Legislators in Sacramento are pushing four new laws that would mandate California restaurant chains and grocery stores to reveal nutrition information immediately and ban all trans fats by 2009. Legislators believe they are fighting the obesity epidemic, but they are also expanding a government that is already overweight. The current obsession with obesity is driven by studies, such as the recent report by the nonprofit California Center for Public Health Advocacy, which found that California has an average of 4.18 times as many fast-food restaurants and convenience stores as supermarkets and produce vendors. San Bernardino County was found to have...

When it comes to paying the skyrocketing bills for health insurance, Californians are feeling more pain than the average American. The average cost of premiums jumped 8.7 percent in 2006 -- outstripping the 7.7 percent increase in premiums nationwide, according to an annual survey released Wednesday by the California HealthCare Foundation in Oakland. That's more than double the 4.2 percent rate of inflation in California. And chalk this up as a bitter side-effect: Single California workers no longer pay less than the rest of nation for the favorite type of health insurance in the state. That news has widespread impact....

SAN FRANCISCO A majority of California voters may cast absentee ballots in the Nov. 7 election, a milestone that's forcing politicians to rethink campaign strategies and prompting registrars to streamline ballot-counting procedures. The growth of absentee voting in the most populous state echoes a nationwide trend that's most pronounced in the West. Oregon has used mail-in ballots almost exclusively for a decade. More than half of all votes are absentee in Washington, Nevada, New Mexico and Texas. Marin County, just north of San Francisco, has sent ballots to 54 percent of its nearly 147,000 registered voters. And registrar Elaine Ginnold...

Rather than embrace the opportunity to decide California's future on Election Day, voters appear poised to make the record books by staying home. --snip-- When the Public Policy Institute of California Statewide Survey was released a few weeks ago, political observers seized on the news of a 13 percentage-point lead for Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger over the Democratic challenger, State Treasurer Phil Angelides, and that the four multibillion-dollar state bonds for infrastructure projects enjoyed only narrow majority support. But this focus missed a more important story -- a surprisingly high level of voter indifference in the upcoming election. Based on...

Mayor: 'Either the Judeo-Christian philosophy will survive or the Islamic philosophy will survive'SACRAMENTO, CA -- (OfficialWire) -- 09/11/06 -- The Sacramento Valley chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-SV) today called on Californians to repudiate remarks insulting to Muslims made by a mayor in the northern part of that state. CAIR-SV said that Redding, Calif., Mayor Ken Murray claimed Shia Muslims "believe it's acceptable to lie, cheat, steal and kill as long as it ultimately glorifies Allah." "Folks, they're not like us," said Murray. When asked about his offensive remarks, Murray drew a distinction between "mainstream" and Shia Muslims,...

SACRAMENTO Legislation to provide prescription drug discounts for about 5 million uninsured or underinsured Californians was approved by the Senate on Tuesday despite warnings that it wouldn't work or could harm the state's poorest residents. The bill, the result of negotiations between the Schwarzenegger administration and Democrats, would require the state Department of Health Services to attempt to negotiate discounts with drug manufacturers. Drug companies that refused to cut deals with the state could find it tougher to get their prescriptions used by Medi-Cal, the state's huge health care program for the poor. The legislation comes after voters rejected two...