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Reports that more and more artists are creating startlingly original origami that transcends the humble craft. Basic rule of leaving the starting sheet of paper intact; Examples of the works of origami artists on display at "Origami Masterworks," a show that has extended three more times after it opened in September 2003 at the Mingel International Museum in San Diego, California.

Focuses on the attempt by a top Republican Party official to edit the the text of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's speech in which he described economic pessimists as girlie men. Disclosure of the electronic mail messages by Aram Bakshian Jr.; Concern expressed by an unnamed senior official that the expression will become the Republicans' sactioned phrase; Reason why the expression was eventually retained.

The article discusses the ban on plastic shopping bags in California since 2007. It notes the proposed bill of the state senator Alex Padilla that would ban plastic bags at supermarkets, liquor stores and other locations where they have long been standbys. It mentions the availability of paper bags which are biodegradable and easier to recycle and reusable plastic bags for 10 cents with the aim of forcing shoppers to remember their canvas bags.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Paper or plastic? Neither. The bagging options for store clerks could be severely limited after Wednesday's vote in the California State Assembly to not only ban plastic bags from pharmacies, groceries, convenience stores and liquor stores, but also to make retailers charge at least a nickel for paper bags -- which must include recyclable content. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article offers information on the city of San Francisco, California banning the use of non-biodegradable plastic bags by supermarkets, drug stores and retail stores. according to Environmental Protection Agency, the production of paper bags creates more air and water pollution as compared to plastic bags. It was also found that fewer plastic bags have been recycled in comparison with paper bags. It is estimated that annual global usage of plastic bags ranges from about 100 billion to 1 trillion.

The article focuses on a new bill in California seeking to ban all plastic bags offered at checkout, including the heavy-duty kind, as a response to the unintended negative consequences of the initial plastic bag ban a decade ago.

LOS ANGELES FROM the moment that Jim Halpert, the clean-cut everyman of the Dunder Mifflin paper company played by John Krasinski, stepped into the regional manager's office here on an isolated Van Nuys soundstage, everything seemed off -- more off than usual. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Los Angeles County supervisors approved a measure on Tuesday that bars stores in the unincorporated parts of the county from handing out single-use plastic bags. An estimated 1.1. million people live in those areas. The ordinance, which does not include Los Angeles and other cities in the county, also requires stores to charge 10 cents for each paper bag given to customers. It goes into effect next year. The California cities of Fairfax, Malibu, Palo Alto and San Francisco have also enacted such bans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The boom times brought many things to Riverside County government -- revenues, jobs and enhanced comfort of a private sort. But like most places in America, times are tough, and four-ply toilet tissue must go. Two years ago, the county's supervisor, Jeff Stone, responding to criticisms that the quality of the one-ply toilet paper used in the county's 340 buildings was substandard, switched, with the board's approval, to the softer two-ply. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

PLANTING AN IDEA In the competition among businesses to ''go green,'' it may no longer be enough to use paper that is simply recycled. At the Green Field Paper Company in San Diego, requests for seed-embedded business cards -- which actually sprout if planted -- have more than doubled over the last year, said Shari Smith, who owns the company along with her husband, Rick. Of the Earth, a handmade-paper company in Seattle owned by Kevin and Lori Graham, says it gets several requests a week for its flower-seeded business cards. (If someone gives you one of these cards, just be sure to save the information on it before you plant.) Coming for the holidays: plantable wrapping paper and gift tags. JULIE BICK [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

One worker was killed and 17 others were injured in an explosion Saturday at an International Paper Company mill in Redwood, about 30 miles west of Jackson. It was the first accident ''of its kind in the mill's 40-year history,'' the company said. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Examines how the financial problems faced by energy utilities in California affected the investors in the commercial papers issued by the utilities in the United States.

Three years ago, San Francisco was the first city in the country to ban the ubiquitous plastic shopping bag, but it was quickly followed by Palo Alto and Oakland. These cities, and the Bay Area generally, were at the forefront of the movement to keep single-use, filmy carry-out bags out of landfills, out of the bay and out of the innards of marine mammals. But now cities are reconsidering, in part because of lawsuits filed by opponents, but also because too many shoppers in San Francisco and Palo Alto simply shifted their carry-out purchases to paper sacks, which have environmental costs of their own. Plastic bags are still a target, but the bulls-eye is now widening to cover paper bags, too. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In San Francisco, a city that has banned plastic shopping bags, there is a new target: paper. Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi introduced legislation intended to encourage customers to use their own bags to reduce the number of bags provided at checkout. The ordinance, if passed, would require retailers to offer a 10-cent rebate to customers who use reusable sacks. If the stores fail to comply, they could face fines of $100 to $500. Mr. Mirkarimi said the legislation would help save a chunk of the 14 million trees chopped down each year to make paper bags. The ordinance would affect some 135 large grocery stores and pharmacies within city limits. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article discusses employer/employee tensions at the Santa Barbara, California, News-Press newspaper. The newspaper's owner, Wendy P. McCraw, has been accused of interfering with editorial independence by her staff, and has seen a large number of resignations and employee protests during 2006. Privately owned publications are examined in light of this case.

LOS ANGELES -- Variety, the show business bible, was born nearly 105 years ago when young Sime Silverman, by his own account, was fired by The Morning Telegraph for a review in which he declared a new theatrical sketch by a performer who happened to be one of the paper's advertisers ''N. G. (No Good).'' Mr. Silverman started a paper of his own. Its first issue promised notices ''that will not be influenced by advertising.'' Thus began a feisty tradition of entertainment trade reporting and criticism that has been so severely tested in recent weeks that some wonder whether the entire era is drawing to a close. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The archives of Octavia E. Butler, a prominent African-American writer of science fiction who died at 58 in 2006, will be made available next year to researchers at the Huntington Library in San Marino, Calif., the library has announced. The 39 cartons and eight file-cabinet drawers include manuscripts, correspondence, school papers, notebooks, photographs and other materials. The library said that Ms. Butler, above, had bequeathed a collection that included typed drafts of ''Kindred,'' the most well known of her dozen novels, along with notes on cards offering her thoughts about her works: ''My writing can be a kind of therapy for me, and I'm sure some of their origins extend well back into my childhood.'' Ms. Butler had received two Hugo Awards from the World Science Fiction Society, two Nebula Awards from the Science Fiction Writers of America and the first so-called MacArthur genius grant given to a science-fiction writer. ''She was a towering intellect who took copious notes about everything, and she kept it all,'' said Sara S. Hodson, curator of literary manuscripts at the Huntington, in a statement. ''The collection is a feast of information.'' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Reports on the probable delay of the transfer of former President Richard Nixon's papers and tapes to his presidential library in Yorba Linda, California. Lack of federal budget; Turnover of the Nixon archives to Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace.

A prominent environmental researcher, activist and blogger from California admitted Monday night that he had deceitfully obtained and distributed confidential internal materials from the Heartland Institute, a libertarian group based in Chicago devoted in part to questioning the reality of global warming. Peter H. Gleick, founder and president of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security, wrote in a statement published on The Huffington Post that he had posed as someone else to get the materials, which include fund-raising and strategy documents intended only for the board and top executives of the group. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

LOS ANGELES -- The Hollywood Reporter has been dying a slow death for a decade, bleeding from layoffs, vanishing advertisers and diminished relevance in a news cycle now dominated by cutthroat entertainment blogs. Its top editors and executives all agreed: to save The Reporter, a mere refocusing of the business model would not do; they needed to eviscerate it. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Lethal levels of a powerful anesthetic caused Michael Jackson's death, according to preliminary coroner findings cited in Texas court documents unsealed Monday. The documents, a pair of search warrants and affidavits filed by the police in July to search the Houston office and storage unit of Dr. Conrad Murray, Mr. Jackson's private doctor, provide the most detailed evidence against Dr. Murray by the Los Angeles Police Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A private equity firm has bought The San Diego Union-Tribune, the two sides said Wednesday, ending eight decades of Copley family dominance of that city's news media. Copley Press and Platinum Equity, based in Beverly Hills, declined to say how much Platinum was paying, but a person briefed on the deal called the price ''very low,'' and said Platinum was the only serious bidder. The sale will close in the second quarter. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Reports on the order of a federal appeals court to let the government sell or return writings and other personal items that belong to terrorist Theodore J. Kaczynski in San Francisco, California.

Reports that Enron was betting on the direction of gas and electricity prices, despite denials from the company's top executives. Profits that were gained during the California energy crisis; Profits that coincide with Enron's manipulation of power and natural gas prices in the West; Acknowledgment of betting from several Enron trading officials; Trading practices that are being reviewed by federal and California state investigators; Struggle of Enron to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy; Argument that Enron thought they could beat the system; Information provided by Enron that was misleading.

Reports the delivery of documents to California's attorney general and California state senator by information technology firm Perot Systems, as part of its investigation regarding the coaching for manipulation of power prices.

Reports the purchase of the literary archives of author Susan Sontag by the University of California Library in Los Angeles, California.

Reports that Hearst Corporation has sold `The San Francisco Examiner' newspaper to Ted Fang, owner of a local newspaper in San Francisco, California. Significance of Fang's purchasing deal with Hearst; Competitors of `The San Francisco Chronicle' newspaper; Information on the private lawsuit filed against `The San Francisco Examiner.' INSET: Sold: The Wellspring of William Randolph Hearst's Empire.

Focuses on the opposition raised by Vietnamese-language publishers in Silicon Valley, Santa Clara, California against the publication of `Viet Mercury,' a free Vietnamese-language weekly owned by Knight Ridder. Background on `Viet Mercury'; Comments from De Tran, editor of `Viet Mercury'; Concerns expressed by other publishers.

Reports that Stanford Medical Center is quite literally the birthplace of many architects of the computer revolution. Information on Stanford; Information on leading computer companies; Installations information systems in hospitals; Comments; More information.

Reports that Jerry Ceppos, the editor of `The San Jose Mercury News,' on May 11, 1997, acknowledged that a series of articles in 1996 on the rise of crack cocaine in urban America was marred by shortcomings. The publication of the series, `Dark Alliance,' provoking a furor among Afro-American leaders, and prompting federal investigations involving the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). INSET: Excerpts from letter by San Jose editor..

The article focuses on "San Quentin News," the inmate-produced newspaper for San Quentin State Prison in California. It states that the newspaper was founded in 1940 with 15 staff members and covers prison issues including hunger strike, crowding women's prison and a federal court order concerning mental health care for death row inmates. The paper's editor in chief Arnulfo T. Garcia states that the paper specializes in stories by journalists with understanding of the criminal justice system.

ON May 23, the Los Angeles City Council passed a ban on plastic bags at supermarkets, making the city the latest -- and largest -- to partake in California's concerted effort to rid its businesses of the environmental offenders. Over the next 16 months an estimated 7,500 stores in that county will be required to drop plastic from their checkout counters and offer paper only, for a 10-cent fee. In celebration (and preparation), T went looking for the best totes to take to market. Left, from Hunter, easy-to-clean yellow rubber, ideal for fruits and vegetables ($195, go to hunter-boot.com). Right, from Apolis, a collaboration with FrenchTrotters that folds flat and looks built for baguettes ($68, go to apolisglobal.com). Top left, Hansel from Basel's graphic zigzag and extra-deep bucket ($32, go to hanselfrombasel.com). And from Anya Hindmarch, an open weave carryall, top right, that stretches to make room for more groceries ($495, go to anyahindmarch.com). Spacious, cheerful and made of durable fabrics, all of these totes call plastic out for what it is -- cheap, inefficient and awfully unchic. L.A. residency not required for use. JANE HERMAN [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the law signed by California Governor Jerry Brown that gives law enforcement officials, family members and private citizens the rights to seek a gun restraining order from a court against those who pose a threat to the public. It mentions that the state has been the first state across the U.S. to implement such which is significant in addressing suicides and mass shootings. The first statewide ban in using plastic bags was also signed into law by the governor.

The Government Accountability Office says a computer system needed to finish the 2010 census may not be up to the job. Robert Goldenkoff, the office's strategic issues director, said Friday before a Congressional hearing in Los Angeles that the Paper Based Operations Control System had not demonstrated the ability to meet peak requirements as it sought to count residents who did not return census forms by mail. Robert Groves, the census director, said the problems stemmed from a late change from a handheld device system to the paper-based system. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

DESPITE the expense and the occasional back strain, Mary Burnham, a public relations consultant in San Francisco, felt good about the decision she made a few years ago to buy milk -- organic, of course -- only in heavy, reusable glass bottles. For the sake of the environment, she dutifully lugged them back and forth from the grocery store every week. Cutting out disposable paper cartons, she reasoned, meant saving trees and reducing waste. Or not. A friend, also a committed environmentalist, recently started questioning her good deed. ''His argument was that paper cartons are compostable and lightweight and use less energy and water than the heavy bottles, which must be transported back to a plant to be cleaned and reused,'' she said. ''I have no idea which is better, or how to find out.'' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Reports that "The Los Angeles Times"--after winning five Pulitzer Prizes this year--has been forced by the newspaper's owners, the Tribune Company, to cut newsroom staff. Claim that Tribune executives Jack Fuller and Dennis J. Fitzsimmons told "Times" editor James S. Carroll and managing editor Dean P. Baquet in a recent meeting that the paper must trim staff due to a shortfall in the paper's advertising revenue; Reasons for the fall in ad revenues at the "Times;" Details of the financial performance of the Tribune Company, compared with competitors such as Gannett and E.W. Scripps.

Explains that California and Ohio adopted rules that will require electronic voting machines to produce paper records of votes that voters can verify while New York State is dragging its feet on a similar rule. Many local election officials and voting machine companies are fighting paper records; It is critical that New York Legislature resolve the issue before the June 2004 adjournment; Paper trail will create more work and raise difficult questions if the electronic and paper records do not match.

Editorial. Comments on problems concerning the use of electronic voting machines in the November 2004 elections in the United States. Failure of machine manufacturers to have voting machines properly certified; Problems relating to equipment breakdowns; Recommendation of a voter-verified paper trail, a paper record that the voter can check for accuracy; Need for California secretary of state Kevin Shelley to decide whether the state's electronic voting machines can be used in November 2004; Accusations against manufacturer Diebold.

Reports on a dispute at the University of California at Berkeley, which houses the papers of anarchist Emma Goldman. Background on Goldman's radical causes; Refusal of university officials to allow a fund-raising appeal for the Emma Goldman Papers Project to be mailed; Concerns of officials over Goldman's views on the suppression of free speech and her opposition to war as the U.S. prepares for possible military action against Iraq; Accusations of censorship against the university; Comments of project director Candace S. Falk, university officials and others.

The article focuses on David D. Hiller, publisher of "The Los Angeles Times" newspaper. Since his appointment in 2006, Hiller has been a controversial figure at the newspaper who has replaced two different editors due to disputes about staff cuts Hiller insists are necessary to improve the paper's profit margins. Hiller is ridiculed by many employees for his fondness for playing a major role in the city's social scene.

The article reports on disputes between "Los Angeles Times" publisher Jeffrey M. Johnson and the Tribune Company, which owns the paper, over his refusal to follow demands that he layoff employees. Johnson and editor Dean Baquet remain employed and have the support of a petition signed by 400 members of the newspaper's staff. Complaints against the central office's management have been expressed by business officials at the "Los Angeles Times" and by the Chandler family, top Tribune investors.

Reports that Kepler's Bookstore in Menlo Park, California has closed its doors permanently after 50 years of operations and loyal customers now come in groups to scrawl their farewells on big pieces of paper taped over its shuttered doors and windows.

Focuses on the election fight scheduled on 8th November 1994, between The San Francisco Independent and The San Francisco Examiner, on the issue of receiving contract for publishing public notices. Criteria of granting contracts; Details of competition between the two papers; Smear campaign by executives of both papers against each other; Effort of the Committee to Stop the Giveaway, to boost Independent's prospects at polls; Views of Examiner on the issue.

Reports that the United States Government is negotiating to pay a settlement to the estate of former President Richard M. Nixon for his White House papers and records. Who the estate could relinquish the control of the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, California to; Where all Presidential papers and other materials seized by the Government in 1994 would be sent.

A former chief executive of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles has called for the removal of its current director, Jeffrey Deitch, a month into a roiling controversy over the direction of the museum, The Los Angeles Times reported. Charles E. Young, who ran the museum from 2008 to 2010, made his argument to Eli Broad, the museum's largest donor and most influential board member, in an e-mail which was obtained by the paper. The museum's round of troubles began in June with the resignation of its longtime chief curator, Paul Schimmel, who was known to have a difficult relationship with Mr. Deitch, a former New York gallery owner. Mr. Schimmel's departure was followed by the resignation of four prominent artists from the board: John Baldessari, Catherine Opie, Barbara Kruger and Ed Ruscha. In his e-mail to Mr. Broad, as quoted in The Times, Mr. Young wrote of Mr. Deitch, ''I hope that the four-alarm fire now enveloping MOCA has at least given you pause for thought about his appointment and your continued attempts to try to save him for a job for which many (including myself) believe he is unqualified.'' He added, ''The resignation of dedicated, long-term trustees, and especially four highly respected artists of international acclaim should bother you, David [Johnson], Maria [Bell] and the other continuing members of the Board. The question is 'What is now to be done?''' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

DURING a recent trip to San Diego, it took a while for me to fully appreciate the extent of the city's beer obsession. There was the unexpectedly extensive tap list at the popular new ramen shop Underbelly, and the beer chitchat at the shoe store where I picked up some sandals. Then I tried to rent a surfboard in La Jolla and mentioned the reason for my trip, the sales guy handed me a slip of paper scrawled with the Web address for his beer review blog. Beer, it seems, has become as much a part of the San Diego identity as surf and sun. There are over 50 breweries in the county. There are San Diego brewery maps and coffee table books and a smartphone app called Taphunter that updates users on which beers are on tap at area bars and restaurants. Bus tours survey area breweries. And, at the biggest scale, there is the sprawling annual San Diego Beer Week, which will have its fourth incarnation this year from Nov. 2 to 11. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our dining room windows and front porch face directly into an eyesore apartment across a small courtyard. We look at torn, roll-down curtains with mold and water damage, and a broken window that's been repaired by shoving a sofa cushion into the gap and securing it with duct tape. Would it be rude to write a letter to the tenant offering to pay for repairs and new curtains? Maybe including a check and nice note? Gabriel, San Francisco [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]