If Wendy Braitman were writing a screenplay about her life, this scene would play at the top, to set the tone. It is 1993, and she is the 39-year-old only daughter of her parents’ long and loving marriage. Her mother has suffered a stroke, so Braitman has flown from California to New York to be with her. She finds her mom awake, but groggy, and hopped up on meds. After an embrace, her mother asks, “So, how’s your boyfriend?” Read full article > >

View original post here:
The single life: Some people never find the love of their lives. And live to tell about it.

IS IT UNCONSTITUTIONAL to forbid same-sex couples from calling their unions a “marriage” if — as is the case in California — they enjoy the same legal rights and responsibilities as opposite-sex partners in the state? Read full article > >

Original post:
Editorial Board: Proposition 8 ruling was just but wobbly

The Bay Area and Silicon Valley expect the windfall from a stock offering to make their in-demand region even hotter.

View post:
California Housing Market Braces for Facebook Millionaires

The decision by a federal appeals court panel that Proposition 8 violated people’s rights all but ensured that the case would proceed to the United States Supreme Court.

The rest is here:
California Ban on Gay Marriage Is Struck Down

Skin cells have been converted directly into cells which develop into the main components of the brain, by researchers in California.

Go here to read the rest:
Skin transformed into brain cells

At the La Brea Tar Pits, fossils preserved in tar provide a time capsule of the creatures that roamed Southern California 10,000 to 40,000 years ago.

Here is the original post:
Remarkable Creatures: At La Brea Tar Pits, Relics From Long Before Freeways

The Judah L. Magnes Museum has reopened as the Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, and is now part of the library at the University of California, Berkeley.

Follow this link:
Exhibition Review: Magnes Judaica Museum Joins Berkeley Library – Review

PALO ALTO, Calif. — Critics began panning the first leg of California’s futuristic high-speed rail network as a “train to nowhere” soon after officials decided to build it not in the major population centers of Los Angeles or San Francisco, but through the state’s Central Valley farming belt. Read full article > >

More here:
Plans for high-speed rail are slowing down

The man believed to have killed four homeless men in Orange County over the last month is now in custody, according to law enforcement officials.

Read more:
Anaheim, Calif., Police Make Arrest in Killing of Homeless Man

Howard McKeon and Elton Gallegly, both Republicans from Southern California, were on a list of House members who received special loans through a Countrywide Financial program.

Follow this link:
Countrywide ‘V.I.P.’ Loans Linked to McKeon and Gallegly

SAN JOSE — The Washington Capitals arrived here riding their longest winning streak since October but just like they have on every visit to Northern California over the past 18 years, they will leave with a loss. Washington fell, 5-2 , to the San Jose Sharks Saturday night at HP Pavilion, snapping a four-game winning streak and extending the team’s road woes as it dropped its fourth out of five away from Verizon Center. Read full article > >

See original here:
Capitals vs. Sharks: Mike Green hurt as Washington’s winning streak is snapped

Gov. Jerry Brown called on California voters to approve $6.9 billion in temporary new taxes, including a surcharge on big earners.

Read more:
Jerry Brown Asks California Voters to Pay $6.9 Billion in New Taxes

NEW YORK — Starbucks said Tuesday it is raising some prices regionally as it faces rising ingredient costs. The Seattle coffee chain is raising prices about 1 percent in the Northeast and Sunbelt regions. Starbucks wouldn’t disclose all of the states its raising prices, but the regions include New York; Washington, D.C.; and most Southern states. They exclude California and Florida. Read full article > >

See the rest here:
Starbucks planning to raise prices for some beverages in Northeast, Sunbelt

Two California companies are planning to deploy a new form of solar storage technology to power tens of thousands of households throughout a summer evening.

Read this article:
Building Storehouses for the Sun’s Energy, for Use After Dark

Constant interaction with electronics deprives us of the daydreaming time necessary to solve problems.

Read more:
Disruptions: Resolved in 2012: To Enjoy the View Without Help From an iPhone