MIAMI — An 18-year-old Florida cheerleader is facing felony charges that she had sexual contact with her underage, 14-year-old girlfriend, leading gay rights advocates to say the teen is being unfairly targeted for a common high school romance because she’s gay. The criminal case against Kaitlyn Hunt is unusual because it involves two females, not [...]

WASHINGTON — Far-reaching legislation that grants a chance at citizenship to millions of immigrants living illegally in the United States cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee on a solid bipartisan vote Tuesday night after supporters somberly sidestepped a controversy over the rights of gay spouses. The 13-5 vote cleared the way for an epic showdown on [...]

WASHINGTON — The U.S. has identified five men who might be responsible for the attack on the diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, last year, and has enough evidence to justify seizing them by military force as suspected terrorists, officials say. But there isn’t enough proof to try them in a U.S. civilian court as the [...]

UNION CITY — An elementary school teacher in Northern California has been formally charged with dozens of counts of inappropriately touching several of his students. Michael William Howey, 47, of Alameda, did not enter a plea during his arraignment Monday in an Alameda County courtroom on 17 counts of lewd and lascivious acts with a [...]

SAN FRANCISCO — Family and friends are searching for a man who went missing after completing the Bay to Breakers race in San Francisco. Dozens of people combed the area around Ocean Beach on Tuesday in search of 27-year-old Beau Rasmussen, of Oakland. Rasmussen is believed to have gone for a swim off the beach [...]

SAN FRANCISCO — A man was rescued by a sailing crew after jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge on Monday in one of the rare cases of someone actually surviving the 220-foot plunge. Scott Walecka told the Santa Cruz Sentinel he was taking his 38-foot vessel to San Francisco around 2 p.m. when his daughter [...]

SACRAMENTO — California Secretary of State Debra Bowen has agreed to expand the way her office presents campaign finance data online after initially rejecting the request from a coalition of good-government groups, research organizations and newspapers, her spokeswoman said Tuesday. The Secretary of State’s Office will make California’s entire campaign finance and lobbying database, known [...]

SAN FRANCISCO — A political Web site that says it was the target of FBI surveillance has filed a lawsuit in San Francisco seeking documents connected with the alleged probe. Antiwar.com filed the federal lawsuit in San Francisco on Tuesday, saying the FBI has refused to turn over documents requested under the Freedom of Information [...]