PA white former transit officer was convicted of involuntary manslaughter Thursday in the videotaped shooting death of an unarmed black man on an Oakland train platform, a verdict that touched off protests in Oakland that led to at least 50 arrests.

Leslie Van Houten, the one-time Charles Manson follower long seen as the most likely of his ex-acolytes to win freedom someday, faces her 19th parole hearing with a new lawyer and new case law which may give her the best chance yet for release.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday ordered about 200,000 state workers to be paid the federal minimum wage this month because the state Legislature has not passed a budget, but the state controller is refusing to comply.

Gary Coleman, the child star of the smash 1970s TV sitcom "Diff'rent Strokes" whose later career was marred by medical and legal problems, has died after suffering an intercranial hemorrhage. He was 42.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says he will find another way to help close the state's $20 billion budget deficit after the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico caused him to withdraw his support for a plan to expand oil drilling off the California coast.

California's actor-turned-governor was born in Austria and the U.S. Constitution prevents foreign-born citizens from holding the nation's top job.

The Hollywood sign, a beacon to stars and star-struck alike, has been saved from urban sprawl under a land conservation pact announced Monday after a donation by Playboy founder Hugh Hefner capped a multimillion-dollar fundraising drive.

The court will review a federal court's decision to throw out California's ban. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Sacramento said the law violated minors' rights under the First and Fourteenth amendments to the Constitution.

California Attorney General Jerry Brown determined Thursday that ACORN broke no criminal laws, after reviewing videotapes that sparked a recent political firestorm.

When California voters head to the polls in November, they will decide whether the state will make history again - this time by legalizing the recreational use of marijuana for adults.

When California voters head to the polls in November, they will decide whether the state will make history again - this time by legalizing the recreational use of marijuana for adults.

The Army provided no new money for the Humvee in the service's recent budget proposal. Lt. Col. Jimmie Cummings, an Army spokesman, says the 2,620 vehicles ordered from Mishawaka, Ind.-based AM General will be the last as the Army moves on to newer designs.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has ordered two state agencies to investigate a rash of birth defects that have confounded this impoverished farmworker community for more than a year.