Search results for

No other state in the lower 48 depends on the oil business more than Louisiana. Since the 1930s, Louisiana has been heavily taxing oil companies to pay for public services. But the trade-off has been costly, even before the great oil spill of 2010.

Many San Diegans got mail from Walmart this week urging them to oppose a San Diego City Councilman's attempt to create tougher rules for large retailers.

President Obama's choice of Gen. David Petraeus as the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan clearly signals that U.S. policy there won't change anytime soon. Petraeus was a key architect of the counterinsurgency strategy that Gen. Stanley McChrystal has been implementing since last fall.

San Diego County Supervisors approved an ordinance to regulate medical marijuana dispensaries that makes it difficult to site a dispensary in the unincorporated area.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, is not the first general to get in hot water for disparaging a president and his policies. There's a long line of others who did that and lost their jobs.

We'll find out what our Film Club critics think of the latest "Toy Story" installment and discuss the Sundance award-winning "Winter's Bone." Also on deck, the Tilda Swinton vehicle "I Am Love," and the movie version of a pulp classic, "The Killer Inside Me."

A local community newspaper, the OB Rag, has stirred up a hornet's nest in Ocean Beach. The OB Rag's blog posts encouraging a local store to stop selling stickers that say "Welcome to Ocean Beach/Please Don't Feed Our Bums," has divided the community over how to deal with its local homeless population. We speak to the blogger who originally wrote about the controversial stickers, and the executive director of the Regional Task Force on Homelessness.

Troy Anthony Davis was convicted in 1991 of killing a Savannah, Ga., police officer. But his lawyers say seven of the nine witnesses who ID'd him as the killer have recanted or changed their testimony. On Wednesday, Davis will get to present this evidence in court, after the Supreme Court ordered a federal judge to hear his new claims.

Health insurers would be required to help Californians kick the smoking habit if one state lawmaker gets his way. Democratic Senator Leland Yee is pushing a measure to make coverage of patches, gums, counseling and other anti-smoking treatments mandatory.

China's government is coming under increasing pressure to reduce its use of the death penalty. Beijing classifies the number of people it puts to death as a state secret, but it's believed to be nearly as much as all other countries combined. Legal experts are watching the case of a man in southern China who was sentenced to death three times to see how effective recent legal reforms are.