A county grand jury handed down indictments charging officials from three South Bay school districts with accepting gifts in return for favorable votes on contracts, San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis announced today.

California Republican legislators returned to the Capitol today surrounded by a Democratic supermajority. Despite that, most Republicans say they don’t feel like they’re on the sidelines in the decision making process.

KPBS staff are mourning the death of California public television icon Huell Howser. The sad news comes less than two months after learning of his retirement.

Huell Howser, a fixture of public television in California, has died at 67. Howser hosted several public television programs, the most popular being California's Gold, which celebrated the state's unique stories and natural beauty.

San Diego will hold a special election at the end of March to replace former City Council President Tony Young. But the election is raising a couple sticky issues.

A California lawmaker has introduced a bill that would regulate ammunition sales. It’s among a number of bills designed to reduce gun violence.

What happened when the first modern humans encountered Neanderthals 60,000 years ago? In 2010, a team led by geneticist Svante Pääbo announced that they had reconstructed much of the Neanderthal genome and the analysis showed that modern humans and Neanderthals had interbred, leaving a small signature of Neanderthal genes in everyone outside Africa today. NOVA explores the implications of this exciting discovery.

Gov. Jerry Brown wants to end a 6-year-old program that has sent thousands of California inmates to private prisons in other states, although he may not get the chance unless he can persuade federal judges to revise an order limiting the number of inmates the state can hold.

Prosecutors and defense lawyers are scheduled to meet with a judge later this week.

San Diego Mayor Bob Filner introduced his top staff to the public today.

So why did President Obama choose Chuck Hagel to be his new defense secretary?

President Obama's choice of John Brennan to lead the CIA appears to be less controversial than his decision to nominate former Sen. Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense.

A report released Monday shows immigration enforcement has ballooned into the biggest source of spending in federal law enforcement.

Filmed around the United States – from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C. – this documentary chronicles the under reported history of a group of immigrants finding refuge, overcoming adversity and ultimately creating new lives in the United States. Even though Iran is in the news virtually every day, many Americans have little knowledge of the story of the hundreds of thousands of Iranians who live in the U.S.

The news that disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong might be willing to confess to the doping charges he spent years denying has reopened interest in his case -- and in the question of whether his lifetime ban from competitive sports could be eased in exchange for Armstrong's cooperation.

Huell Howser, 67, a public broadcasting legend best known for California's Gold, has died, according to his assistant, Ryan Morris.

“Reportero” follows a veteran reporter and his colleagues at Zeta, a Tijuana-based independent newsweekly, as they stubbornly ply their trade in one of the deadliest places in the world for members of the media. In Mexico, more than 40 journalists have been slain or have vanished since December 2006, when President Felipe Calderón came to power and launched a government offensive against the country’s powerful drug cartels and organized crime. As the drug war intensifies and the risks to journalists become greater, will the free press be silenced? By Bernardo Ruiz.

Moments after a deadly attack that turned an Aurora, Colo., movie theater into a scene of panic and tragedy, the police officer who found suspect James Holmes at first took him for a fellow police officer, due to the body armor Holmes was wearing.

Astronomers hunting for Earth-like planets now have many places to look. A new estimate released Monday suggested the Milky Way galaxy is home to at least 17 billion planets similar in size to our planet.

A wide range of new laws go into effect that regulate home buying, contraceptives and even bear hunting.

Many San Diego couples are eagerly waiting for a new immigration policy change to go into effect. The change will make it easier for spouses of U.S. citizens to apply for green cards.

President Barack Obama announced Monday he will nominate former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel as his next defense secretary, calling him "the leader our troops deserve." He also said he had chosen White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan to lead the Central Intelligence Agency.

Kathryn Bigelow's "Zero Dark Thirty" opened over the weekend. It deals with the CIA's years long hunt for Osama Bin Laden after the 9/11 attacks. The film has been racking up kudos from critics and awards organizations but has also drawn criticism for its depiction of torture.

Vividly bringing to life the epic struggles of the men and women who fought to end slavery, "The Abolitionists" tells the intertwined stories of Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Angelina Grimké, Harriet Beecher Stowe and John Brown. Fighting body and soul, they led the most important civil rights crusade in American history. This three-part series, which tells the story largely through period drama narrative, airs 150 years after the Emancipation Proclamation took effect in January 1863.

The guided-missile frigate USS Thach will depart Naval Base San Diego on Tuesday for a six-month deployment to the Central American region, the Navy announced today.

The Kulluk, the Shell oil-drilling rig that washed aground last weekend, is afloat and being towed to shelter on Kodiak Island in the Gulf of Alaska. The craft began its 30-mile trip late Sunday night. Examinations of the vessel have not found any signs of a leak.

After nearly a month of health problems that culminated with a stay in a New York City hospital for treatment of a blood clot in a vein between her brain and her skull, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was back in her office Monday morning.

What do you do when one child can get health care and the other can't? It's a dilemma being felt more acutely as federal health reform opens access to care for millions, but not their undocumented family members.

After more than a year of legal wrangling, the city of Dallas has apparently decided enough is enough.

Under the Post-9/11 GI Bill, the federal government will pick up the full in-state cost for any honorably discharged service member wishing to attend a public college or university. But because the often intricate rules governing residency differ from state to state, and even within university systems, many veterans face a bewildering battle to exercise the benefits they've already fought for.

A resident of tiny Del Mar in San Diego County town is taking aim at gun shows following the Connecticut school massacre.

The first new member elected to the San Diego County Board of Supervisors since 1995 was sworn in today, along with two longtime members who were re-elected to the panel.

Construction on the Carlsbad desalination plant will generate jobs locally, but it also continues to generate lawsuits.

Confucius Institute at San Diego State University has earned international recognition.

Water officials should know soon whether it makes financial sense to tap into an aquifer under the San Elijo Lagoon. Cost is a major consideration.

San Diego's Superior Court swears in three new judges today, including controversial attorney Gary Kreep.

President Obama will announce today that he plans to nominate John Brennan to be the next director of the Central Intelligence Agency, an administration official with knowledge of the decision tells NPR's Tom Bowman.

President Barack Obama will nominate Chuck Hagel as his next defense secretary, a senior administration official said Sunday, choosing a former Senate colleague and a decorated Vietnam veteran and signaling he's ready for a contentious confirmation fight likely dominated by questions about Hagel's stands on Israel and Iran.