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Among other things, Schwarzenegger signs into law legislation giving discounts on prescription medicines SACRAMENTO - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger trumpeted a season of legislative triumphs with a flurry of bill signings Friday, including bills that will affect everyone from low-income prescription drug consumers to hybrid drivers to television watchers to vendors who sell Vietnamese rice cakes. He signed 179 bills and vetoed 115, leaving around 175 to be signed today, the constitutional deadline to consider legislation. In total, Schwarzenegger has signed 800 bills and vetoed 189. Whether it was environmental protections, raising the minimum wage or providing discounted prescription drugs, many...

SACRAMENTO, California (Reuters) - California will become the first U.S. state to try to measure how its residents are absorbing chemicals from common products under a "bio-monitoring" bill signed on Friday by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. State health officers will use blood, urine, tissue, hair and breast milk samples collected voluntarily from a cross-section of California, taking into account ethnic, age, income and geographic differences, to gauge levels of exposure. "There are literally thousands of chemicals being used in our everyday products in the United States in cleaning supplies, pesticides, cosmetics and more. It's important to know more about how those...

Telephone companies can dive into California's $5.3 billion-a-year cable TV industry under a law signed Friday by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. He said the measure, backed by millions of dollars in corporate contributions, will offer consumers better service and lower prices. Rushing to beat a midnight Saturday bill-signing deadline, the Republican governor joined with Democratic legislative leaders Friday to also back programs lowering the cost of prescription drugs for poor Californians and to test thousands of volunteers for possible toxic contamination. All three bills could serve as models for other states and the nation, supporters said. AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications...

Is there a connection between toxic chemicals and high rates of breast cancer in the Bay Area? Do pesticides build up in the bodies of Salinas farmworkers? Do people living near oil refineries in Martinez or along freeways in San Jose absorb harmful levels of air pollution? California may be on its way to finding out. A bill that would set up the nation's first statewide program to measure exposure to toxic chemicals by testing thousands of volunteers has overcome industry opposition and reached the desk of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The bill, SB 1379, by state Sen. Don Perata, D-Oakland,...