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California's state government has managed to add thousands of jobs during the past year, defying a mammoth budget deficit and a brutal recession. The job growth for state workers contrasts with the loss of 759,000 jobs in California's private industry in the past 12 months. "I don't know how this can happen," said David Kline, a spokesman for the California Taxpayers Association. "A lot of people are having trouble keeping their jobs, paying their bills and feeding their families. Most taxpayers would be incredulous if they see these numbers." During the 12 months that ended in June, state government added...

POLITICO Breaking News: ----------------------------------------------------- Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) has told the Hartford Courant that he has early-stage prostate cancer. For more information...http://www.politico.com

Just had a small earthquake (magnitude somewhere around 3) off the coast of San Diego. It was one sharp upward jolt then over. This is an image taken from a USGS data feed displayed in Google Earth. The red dot to the West of San Diego is the epicenter of the quake. The other little colored dots are small older quakes that have happened in the last day or so.

The federal government is threatening to take possession of several of California's most prominent state parks — including Angel Island in San Francisco Bay, the top of Mount Diablo and four miles of beaches at Fort Ord Dunes near Monterey — if Sacramento lawmakers close them to balance the budget. National Park Service ... has told Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that California will be blocked from receiving future money from the Land and Water Conservation Fund ... [snip] In May, the governor proposed closing 220 state parks to save an estimated $143 million. The state is facing is $24 billion deficit....

A decade ago, the U.S. Army realized that the easiest way to get the many rarely requested, but vital, replacement parts to the troops, was to manufacture the parts in the combat zone. In short order, this led to the construction of a portable parts fabrication system, called Mobile Parts Hospital (MPH), that fit into a standard 8x8x20 foot shipping container. The key to making this work was the availability of computer controlled machine tools, which can take a block of the proper metal, and machine the desired part. The computer controlled machine tools have been around for decades, but...

It was Wednesday evening and Gerald Walpin was pleading for his job. Just a few hours before, at around 5:20 pm, Walpin -- , Inspector General of the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) -- was driving on a highway when he had received a phone call from Norm Eisen, special counsel to the president for ethics and government reform, informing him that President Obama no longer had confidence in him and wanted him to resign. Walpin had an hour to make up his mind as to whether he was going to resign or have the president seek his...

If California regulators get their way, auto makers may soon be forced to rewrite a cliché from the Ford Model T era and start telling customers they can have any color they want as long as it isn’t black. Some darker hues will be available in place of black, but right now they are indentified internally at paint suppliers with names such as “mud-puddle brown” and are truly ugly substitutes for today’s rich ebony hues. So buy a black car now, because soon they won’t be available or will look so putrid you won’t want one. And that’s too bad,...

The League of Women Voters, which was part of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's coalition to pass redistricting reform last year, parted company with the governor today, declaring opposition to four of the six budget-related ballot measures he wants approved at the May 19 special election. [snip] "... these hurriedly drafted propositions, produced at the end of a flawed process that kept both the public and most legislators in the dark, will only make our fiscal situation worse." Proposition 1A, the linchpin of the package and Schwarzenegger's pet proposal to place a rolling limit on state spending,drew particular scorn from the organization,...

Here are campaign spending totals for the 12 propositions on California's Nov. 4 ballot and the top donors to each campaign: - Proposition 1a, a $9.9 billion bond measure to help pay for a high-speed rail system. Yes on Proposition 1a: $2.5 million; top donor, California Alliance for Jobs, $616,500. No opposition campaign. - Proposition 2, an initiative the set standards for farm animal enclosures. Yes on Proposition 2: $10.6 million; top donor, The Humane Society, $4.1 million. No on Proposition 2: $8.9 million; top donor, Cal-Maine Foods, $591,210. - Proposition 3, a $980 million bond measure to pay for...

California today was branded the worst credit risk of all 50 states, after Standard & Poor’s cut its rating on the state’s debt because of the budget impasse. S&P lowered its rating on the state’s $46 billion in general obligation bonds to "A" from "A-plus," citing "the state's inability to reach an agreement on a mid-year budget revision and its rapidly eroding cash position." Until now, California and Louisiana had been tied for last place, at "A-plus," on S&P’s state ratings list. Most states are rated either "AA" or "AAA." "At its current level, the rating generally recognizes our view...

U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) told Microsoft Corp. this week that U.S. citizens should get priority over H-1B visa holders as the software vendor moves forward on its plan to cut 5,000 jobs. "These work visa programs were never intended to allow a company to retain foreign guest workers rather than similarly qualified American workers, when that company cuts jobs during an economic downturn," Grassley wrote in a letter sent Thursday to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. The letter asked Microsoft to detail the types of jobs that will be eliminated and how those cuts will affect the company's H-1B workers....

If you've been elected to something somewhere in California, you're probably writing a wish list for President-elect Barack Obama. With the inauguration about nine weeks away, Long Beach Mayor Bob Foster is seeking $111 million to replace 28 miles of storm drains. State Sen. Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) is talking up $321 million for sewage-treatment plants and clean-water facilities. Los Angeles City Councilman Bill Rosendahl wants a light-rail line to Los Angeles International Airport. And money for homeless veterans. And did he mention universal healthcare? "The sooner he focuses on healthcare, the better," said Rosendahl, who represents coastal neighborhoods such as...

Led by California with a $28 billion hole in its budget over the next 20 months, 41 states are now in financial trouble, and many of their leaders are looking to Congress to bail them out. State officials are hoping to join the ranks of the financial industry and auto manufacturers who have found a sympathetic ear on Capitol Hill. And they've found some key supporters: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco and other top Democrats are promoting aid to states as part of a broad stimulus package that could inject more than $300 billion into the ailing economy....

Filming of a new John Travolta movie on a deprived Paris housing estate has been cancelled - after rioting youths torched ten of the production’s cars and threatened crew. 'From Paris With Love' was meant to have highlighted social problems in the grim suburbs which surround the French capital. Jobs as extras and support staff were even offered to largely immigrant residents who are plagued by unemployment and discrimination. But within days of arrived in Les Bosquets, a high rise estate in Montfermeil, in the notorious Seine-Saint-Denis north of the capital, violence broke out. ‘All ten of the vehicles set...

With credit markets in New York in crisis last week, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger sent an extraordinary letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson asking for $7 billion. Although the governor has since withdrawn that request, it testifies to the dire state of his budget. Yet days before penning his note, the governor told an audience at the Commonwealth Club of California not to worry about the state's budget crunch and to approve $9.95 billion in new debt on the November ballot to build a bullet train to connect Los Angeles to San Francisco: "Just because we have a problem with...

Just listened to a news conference held by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. He says he's tired of the legislature treating taxpayers "like an ATM machine" and will therefore veto the budget just sent to him. He said that the budget pushes the problem into next year and that, if enacted, next year would require huge cuts in the school budget or huge tax increases. Schwarzenegger said that he expects the legislature to override his veto. If it does, he said, he will veto all the hundreds of other bills the legislature has sent him or will send him. After a...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A surprising jump in the U.S. unemployment rate last month may partly reflect temporary emergency aid that encouraged more people to count themselves as unemployed, but this ought to fade when the program ends. The jobless rate surged to 6.1 percent in August from 5.7 percent the month before, the Labor Department said on Friday, underlining the weak state of the economy and suggesting a recession may be unavoidable. But a chunk of this deterioration stemmed from a 250,000 increase in the civilian labor force that some economists said looked suspicious. Employment fell by 342,000 people and...

MEXICO CITY — The sickening discovery this week of 11 headless bodies heaped like broken dolls near the colonial city of Merida underscored a bitter lesson for Mexico: The battle to control the multibillion-dollar drug trade knows no boundaries. The bodies are piling up nationwide, even in normally tranquil and touristy spots such as Merida, not far from the Maya ruins of Chichen Itza. During a seven-day period ended Friday, more than 130 people died violently throughout the country. Headless bodies turned up in four states, including Baja California. The Yucatan peninsula, strategically close to smuggling routes through Central America,...

Earlier this month, a California activist began gathering signatures to put a state wealth tax on the ballot. The measure would impose a new 35% income surtax (in addition to federal taxes and the existing 10.3% top state rate), and penalize people who leave the state by seizing 55% of assets exceeding $20 million. The money raised would be used to eliminate the state's budget deficit and for purchasing controlling shares in large corporations. The 17.5% surtax is unusual because it would be on a taxpayer's total (not marginal) income whenever it exceeds $250,000, with another additional 17.5 percent tax...

With California's budget impasse now in its 54th day, financial services giant American Express Co. has warned the state that its workers may have to leave home without their state AmEx travel card if the dispute drags on too long. "American Express will not suspend state billing accounts at the normal past due interval; however, we reserve the right to suspend service should the impasse become protracted," Doug Browne, an American Express government services manager, told government travel coordinators in a June 12 memo. Browne declined to discuss his memo, which was obtained by The Bee. AmEx spokeswoman Janet Lee...