A shallow magnitude 5.5 earthquake was reported Monday afternoon six miles from Weitchpec, Calif., according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The temblor occurred at 1:07 p.m. Pacific time at a depth of 19.9 miles.

Hesitant to be seen as holding up a payroll tax break for American workers, House GOP leaders will put forward a new proposal to extend the tax cut, giving up for now on the GOP-led requirement that it must be paid for,  as talks on a compromise with Democrats have stalled.

President Obama for the first time has opened a sizable lead over his most likely Republican opponents, thanks to growing support among independent voters, according to a new Pew Research Center poll .

President Obama gave Congress a budget this morning that calls for $3.8 trillion in spending next year -- $901 billion more than the government will take in.

Los Angeles County coroner's officials said Monday they have not established a link between prescription drugs and the death of Whitney Houston, adding such a determination could only come after toxicology tests are completed.

The president's plan, due out Monday, aims to cast him as a guardian of the middle class. Republicans say it's too light on deficit reduction.President Obama's 2013 budget, scheduled for release Monday, offers a preview of the November election as both parties angle to refine the vision they hope to sell to voters.

Wesley Shermantine spilled his secrets for cash. Now, as authorities look for victims near Stockton, some families get closure while the community wonders: 'How many more bodies will they find?'The abandoned well sits off a country road in a region of open pastures and hills stamped with oak tree silhouettes.

Executives use sick-day stash accumulated over up to 35 years to boost their public pension benefits and to receive lump-sum payments worth thousands.Top officials at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum have shown a knack for banking healthy chunks of unused sick leave on the public payroll — in one case, about 35 years' worth.

The legislation features about $4 billion in severe budget trims, including 15,000 job reductions this year alone. Furious crowds chant outside Parliament, and several Athens buildings are set on fire.As thousands of protesters took to the streets and violence ripped through central Athens, Greece's Parliament approved yet another round of punishing spending cuts to secure international...

The 54th Grammy Awards will be remembered as a story of two women with towering, timeless voices -- Adele and Whitney Houston -- one representing youthful triumph and boundless possibility, the other a reminder of fresh tragedy and a life unraveled.

Amid violence and paranoia, powerful scenes play out on both sides of the conflict in an increasingly polarized Damascus.As the evening call to prayer sounded through the alleyways of old Damascus, the aging storyteller known as Abu Shadi clambered into an elevated chair at the Nawfara cafe, slipped on a pair of rimless reading glasses and turned to the page where he'd left off.

It will be weeks before investigators determine an official cause of death. The 48-year-old singer was found unresponsive in her suite at the Beverly Hilton Hotel shortly before she was to attend a pre-Grammy Awards gala.When paramedics arrived at Whitney Houston's hotel suite in Beverly Hills, they found her unresponsive in the bathtub, and officials said that drowning is one of...

Soul traditionalist Adele triumphed over pop stars, a veteran rock act and an up-and-coming songwriter/producer to win the most prestigious Grammy prize, album of the year, for her "21." It was her sixth award out of six nominations, a clean sweep. The heavy front-runner, Adele shocked no one in taking the top honor at the 54th Grammy Awards.

On an evening overshadowed by Houston's shocking death, the pop stratosphere's latest bright light, Adele, was lauded with Grammy Awards.On an evening overshadowed by the shocking death of a singer who was once one of pop music’s most radiant young stars, the pop stratosphere’s latest bright light, 23-year-old British R&B-soul singer Adele, was lauded with Grammy Awards for...

Investigators probing the death of Whitney Houston are trying to determine whether she drowned while in a bathtub at the Beverly Hilton on Saturday shortly before she was set to attend a pre-Grammy Awards gala, according to a source who has been briefed about the case.

GOP presidential hopeful Rick Santorum described last week’s court ruling striking down California’s ban on same-sex marriage as “almost absurd” and an example of “judicial tyranny.”

The school was doing better on test scores, student activities and parental involvement. Charges against two teachers suddenly threaten those gains.Until the photos surfaced, it didn't appear that anything was seriously amiss at Miramonte Elementary School.

Vice President Xi Jinping arrives in the U.S. this week for a visit. On track to take China's top post this year, he was sent as a teen to a dirt-poor village.In 1969, a pale, gangly 15-year-old walked down a dirt road flanked by desiccated yellow cliffs from which generations of Chinese farmers had eked out a subsistence living.

A bounty hunter's offer could finally bring closure to Central Valley families, as authorities seek remains of women who disappeared in the 1980s and '90s.One by one, the young women vanished from the dusty farm towns of the Central Valley.

The singer is found unresponsive at the Beverly Hilton hours before Clive Davis' annual pre-Grammy Awards party. Once a ruler of the pop charts, Houston had seen addiction take a toll on her success.Whitney Houston, a willowy church singer with a towering voice who became a titan of the pop charts in the 1980s and 1990s but then saw much of her success crumble away amid the fumes...

Few standards apply to quality of marijuana, because the federal government considers all use illegal.The tech broke the bud of marijuana into small flakes, measuring 200 milligrams into a vial. He had picked up the strain, Ghost, earlier that day from a dispensary in the Valley and guessed by its pungency and visible resin glands that it was potent.

He narrowly defeats Ron Paul, boosting his campaign after losses to Rick Santorum in three Republican nominating contests earlier in the week.In a reprieve after his embarrassing losses last week in three states, Mitt Romney eked out a win Saturday in the symbolic straw poll tied to Maine's multiday caucuses, narrowly defeating Ron Paul, the only other candidate to actively campaign there.

The voice floats confidently but quietly in the first few lines of Whitney Houston's version of "I Will Always Love You," the song for which the superstar vocalist, who died Saturday of unknown causes at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, will always be remembered.

Houston died Saturday afternoon, a representative for the singer told the Associated Press. Houston's death comes on the eve of the Grammys and on the night of Clive Davis' annual pre-Grammy gala, at which she performed last year and was expected to attend this year.

Singer Whitney Houston, who reigned as one of the world's top pop stars in the 1980s and '90s but suffered from recurring bouts with drugs and alcohol, was found dead in a Beverly Hills hotel room Saturday.