STOCKTON (CBS13) — The national unemployment rate dropped to 8.5 percent in December, the lowest rate in nearly three years, with the addition of 200,000 new jobs. But closer to home in Stockton, the lines were running long at a job fair on Friday.

When the doors first opened at the downtown Stockton Memorial Civic Auditorium, hundreds lined up, and when they heard about the national economy improving, many just shook their heads. Some of these people haven’t had work in years.

Electrician Jesus Moreno can’t quite remember how many jobs he’s applied for since he’s been out of work. National numbers notwithstanding, unemployment in Stockton is still sky high at 15 percent.

“I lost count it’s so many,” he said of job applications. “I wanna say maybe 50? I’m not seeing any change at all.”

He’s back on the job hunt hopeful to finally find an opportunity. Friday’s event offered a chance to get face to face with potential employers in the construction industry.

“I’ve been out of work three years,” said a man who identified himself just as Larry. “Ain’t nothin’ I can’t build or tear down. I’m ready to work. I have three kids and need some money.”

The job fair was originally intended for a new health facility to be built in Stockton but was expanded to include opportunities from the city, San Joaquin County Public Works, Caltrans and other contractors.

All told, organizers say hundreds, if not several thousand jobs could be available. Perhaps it’s hope that things could finally be turning around in one of the hardest-hit cities in California.

Still, the line stretched down the block.

Lone Gray Wolf Tracked In California; First Since 1924view gallery

SISKIYOU COUNTY (CBS13) — A gray wolf has wandered onto California soil for the first time since 1924, according to the California Department of Fish and Game.

An 2-½-year-old male designated “OR7″ that was wandering in southern Oregon crossed the state line into northern Siskiyou County on Wednesday afternoon. State biologists are tracking the wolf’s travels with a GPS device mounted on its collar.

Since he was collared in February, the wolf has traveled more than 300 miles away from his pack in northeast Oregon. The wolf has wandered more than twice that amount when factoring in his frequent changes in direction.

DFG continues to collaborate with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to monitor the wolf, which while in California is protected as endangered under the Federal Endangered Species Act.

“Whether one is for it or against it, the entry of this lone wolf into California is a historic event and result of much work by the wildlife agencies in the West,” said DFG Director Charlton H. Bonham. “If the gray wolf does establish a population in California, there will be much more work to do here.”

DFG has been following the recovery and migration of gray wolves in western states with the expectation that at some point they will likely reach California. The last confirmed wild gray wolf in California was killed in Lassen County in 1924.

DFG says gray wolf recovery in other Western states has been controversial because of potential impacts on livestock – mostly cattle and sheep. But it says concerns about human safety are largely based on folklore and unsubstantiated in North America. In recent years only one human death, in Alaska, was caused by wolves.

The three holders of those $1 tickets will split a prize of more than $1 million. The three tickets – sold in Yuba City, Los Angeles, and Tustin (Orange County) – all matched five of six numbers and will split a prize worth $1,014,318, making each ticket worth $338,106.

The Yuba City winning ticket was sold at a 7-Eleven located at 1605 Butte House Road.

The tickets matched the numbers 32, 43, 23, 33 and 39, missing only the Mega number of 8. Since one ticket sold in New York successfully matched all six numbers Tuesday night, winning an estimated $206 million, Friday night’s jackpot will be worth $12 million.

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — A delivery dilemma is affecting some Best Buy customers who bought online. It turns out, many won’t get the gifts they ordered on Black Friday in time for Christmas, if at all.

Customers have been shocked to hear the big box electronics store is playing Scrooge this holiday season.

Brad Wilson from bradsdeals.com says his users are echoing complaints like those on Best Buy’s own website that Best Buy ruined Christmas by waiting until just days before before the holiday to inform customers it would be cancelling many of the Black Friday purchases they were counting on.

“You know, every once in a while that happens for legitimate reasons, but a PlayStation 3 is not hard to find right now so it’s not as if Best Buy is out of PlayStation 3s,” Wilson said.

He says it’s about the bottom line. He thinks the retailer sold too many items at deep discounts and is trying to recoup its losses.

In a statement, Best Buy said: “Due to overwhelming demand of hot product offerings, we have encountered a situation that has affected redemption of some of our customers’ online orders.”

The Minneapolis company declined Thursday to specify how many orders are affected or which products are out of stock.

It was just last year when several online retailers over-sold limited Black Friday deals. They blamed a computer glitch. But those companies eventually made good on their deliveries because, according to experts, legally they had to.

“They broke deals with the consumer that they are obligated by law to honor,” former U.S. attorney Anthony Brass said. “They advertised the deal, they told consumers they could count on that deal.”

Brass says under California law they are obligated to honor those deals, especially when it comes to Black Friday.

“What the consumers lost was opportunity,” he said. “They lost the opportunity to seek similar Black Friday deals elsewhere, and when they lost that, they gained the right to seek redress.”

Best Buy points to a disclaimer on its website that allows the company to cancel any order, but legal experts say that does not supersede California law and that consumers have the right to sue for the difference between the sale price and the current price.

According to The Associated Press, Queens prosecutors say Mark Meckler, 49, was taken into custody at about 5:20 a.m. Thursday after he tried to check in for a Delta flight with a box containing a Glock pistol and 19 cartridges of ammunition.

Officials said Meckler declared the weapon, as required. He was also licensed to carry the gun in California, where he lives.

But that license is not valid in New York, which has strict rules on carrying concealed weapons. Meckler spent the day in jail and was arraigned in Queens late Thursday afternoon on a felony weapons possession charge. He was released pending a Jan. 12 court date. He’ll likely face a fine and not any jail time.

CBS13′s Tony Lopez was in Meckler’s home base of Nevada County on Thursday night to gauge residents’ reaction.

Watch the video:

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — After four hours of testimony with virtually no conflict at the state Capitol on Wednesday afternoon, a student confronted UC Davis chancellor Linda Katehi in the hallway.

“I’ve been contacting you every single day, calling your office,” Jerica Heinze said to Chancellor Katehi after Katehi addressed legislators in a hearing at the Capitol.

Heinze says she was suffering from a lung infection when she inhaled pepper spray during the Nov. 18 incident on the campus quad.

“Why is it I have to drive all the way down here and corner you in a hallway?” Heinze asked Katehi.

Heinze came to the Capitol to hear what Katehi had to say in front of the joint Education Committee, and she left dissatisfied.

“It’s always painful to sit and listen to the rhetoric of the chancellor and President Yudof,” she said. “It’s very frustrating.”

UC President Mark Yudof sat before the committee for nearly 30 minutes, making a statement condemning the use of pepper spray but not sticking around to talk to reporters.

“I thought the hearing was fine,” was all he would say on his way out the building.

Katehi told the committee the same thing she told the student body last month, that she takes responsibility but did not give the order to use force.

“I think it was a very productive hearing,” she said.

Assemblyman Marty Block, a San Diego Democrat and chairman of the Assembly Higher Education Committee, asked Katehi what she would have done differently that day.

Katehi responded, “If I knew the police could not remove the tents peacefully, we would not have removed them.”

But despite the testimony of university officials, former police chiefs, attorneys and students, there were no solutions presented to make sure the incident would not be repeated.

“They have to do a thorough investigation as to why it happened, so we’ll wait until that investigation concludes itself,” said Assemblyman Paul Fong.

Also Wednesday, the state attorney general declined a request to investigate the pepper-spraying. The attorney general’s office says it believes the incident can be thoroughly investigated on a local level. The Yolo County sheriff and district attorney had asked for Attorney General Kamala Harris’ help because of the national fallout from the incident.

(The Associated Press contributed to this story.)

Calling the retail giant’s decision “un-American” and “naked religious bigotry,” Sen. Ted Lieu, D-Torrance, told The Associated Press on Sunday that he would also consider legislative action if Lowe’s doesn’t apologize to Muslims and reinstate its ads. The senator sent a letter outlining his complaints to Lowe’s Chief Executive Officer Robert A. Niblock.

The retail giant stopped advertising on TLC’s “All-American Muslim” after a group called the Florida Family Association complained the show was “propaganda that riskily hides the Islamic agenda’s clear and present danger to American liberties and traditional values.”

The program premiered last month and chronicles the lives of five families from Dearborn, Mich., a Detroit suburb with a large Muslim and Arab-American population.

“The show is about what it’s like to be a Muslim in America, and it touches on the discrimination they sometimes face. And that kind of discrimination is exactly what’s happening here with Lowe’s,” Lieu said.

The Florida group sent three emails to its members, asking them to petition Lowe’s to pull its advertising. Its website was updated to say that “supporters’ emails to advertisers make a difference.”

Suehaila Amen, whose family is featured on “All-American Muslim,” said she was disappointed by the Lowe’s decision.

“I’m saddened that any place of business would succumb to bigots and people trying to perpetuate their negative views on an entire community,” Amen, 32, told The Detroit News on Sunday.

Lowe’s issued a statement Sunday apologizing for having “managed to make some people very unhappy.” The North Carolina-based company did not say whether it would reinstate advertising on the show.

“Individuals and groups have strong political and societal views on this topic, and this program became a lightning rod for many of those views,” the statement said. “As a result we did pull our advertising on this program. We believe it is best to respectfully defer to communities, individuals and groups to discuss and consider such issues of importance.”

The apology doesn’t go far enough, Lieu said. The senator vowed to look into whether Lowe’s violated any California laws and said he would also consider drafting a senate resolution condemning the company’s actions.

“We want to raise awareness so that consumers will know during this holiday shopping season that Lowe’s is engaging in religious discrimination,” he said.

In addition to an apology and reinstatement of the ads, Lieu said he hoped Lowe’s would make an outreach to the community about bias and bigotry.

A call to Lowe’s headquarters seeking comment about the boycott threat was not immediately returned Sunday.

“Individuals and groups have strong political and societal views on this topic, and this program became a lightning rod for many of those views,” the company’s statement said. “As a result we did pull our advertising on this program. We believe it is best to respectfully defer to communities, individuals and groups to discuss and consider such issues of importance.”

Lieu’s office said a decision was expected Wednesday or Thursday on whether to proceed with the boycott.

Dawud Walid, Michigan director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said his group felt “extreme disappointment” at Lowe’s “capitulation to bigotry.”

Walid said he has heard expressions of anger and calls for a boycott by Muslims but said a key to resolving the Lowe’s advertising controversy will be how non-Muslim religious leaders and others react to Lowe’s decision.

“I will be picking up the phone tomorrow to some of our friends and allies to explain the situation to them,” Walid said Sunday.

(Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.)

DAVIS (CBS13/AP) — The University of California has named a dozen people to a task force that will investigate the pepper-spraying of student protesters at UC Davis.

UC President Mark Yudof on Monday appointed 12 UC Davis students, faculty, alumni and staff to the panel, which will be headed by former California Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso.

“The whole idea was to take a fair, uncompromising look at what happened,” said UC spokesman Steve Montiel.

Task force members were nominated by various campus organizations but some are questioning the value of it.

“It seems like a waste of time,” student Emma Cox said. “I can tell you what happened. A hundred people can tell you what happened.”

The fact-finding portion of the investigation will be conducted by a firm run by former Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton.

The task force will be responsible for assigning blame for the Nov. 18 incident and making recommendations on police protocols for handling campus demonstrations. They hope to have their recommendations by some time in January.

The pepper-spraying prompted large protests and calls for the Davis chancellor’s resignation after online videos of the incident went viral.

Some students CBS13 talked to say it’s time to get the attention back on cuts to education and increases to tuition.

“That’s what needs to be investigated,” Cox said.

WEST SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — The U.S. Postal Service has been in dire straits for some time, and it announced Monday that its next-day delivery could soon become a thing of the past.

Less and less first-class mail going out means less money coming in.

Christina Patton still sends out holiday cards in the mail, but she says she hasn’t mailed a bill in years.

“All my bills I do online. I haven’t mailed a bill in three years, maybe,” she said.

She’s not alone.

“With the decline of first-class mail, which is our bread and butter to operate on, we’ve got to make some drastic moves,” said the Postal Service’s Ralph Petty.

The Postal Service says it wants to “move quickly” to close about half of its 500 mail processing centers nationwide, including one in Stockton and another in Redding.

The sorting machines that currently run 6six hours a day at the West Sacramento distribution center would be cranked up to 20 hours a day to handle the extra load.

With the additional processing time, it means next-day delivery would be virtually eliminated. First-class mail would take between two and three days.

The Postal Service is waiting on Congress to approve other cost-cutting measures, like eliminating Saturday delivery. Closing processing centers doesn’t require that congressional approval and could save billions — a short-term fix to a long-term problem.

“We’ve got to do something to cut out about $20 billion between now and 2015 if we’re going to be viable in the future,” Petty said.

But analysts say, on the flip side, once consumers realize their mail is taking longer than it used to, it could push them further to online, a chance the Postal Service seems willing to take with its finances in serious trouble.

A notice of violation was delivered Tuesday to organizers by Captain Darren Pytel. The notice reminds protesters that camping overnight at Central Park is in violation of the Davis Municipal Code.

The notice says “continued violation of the local ordinance, after advisement to correct the violation, can result in the issuance of citations.”

Police tell CBS13 that no action is immediately planned and that the hope is that occupiers will move out on their own.

An email sent out to Occupy Davis protesters from one of the group’s organizers says the issue will be taken up at Wednesday night’s general assembly.

Occupy UC Davis protesters gained national attention earlier this month when several students seated arm-in-arm were pepper sprayed by UC Davis police after refusing to leave the quad.

The campus police chief and two officers were placed on paid administrative leave after the incident and protesters have called for the resignation of Chancellor Linda Katehi.

Occupy Davis and Occupy UC Davis protesters are two separate groups.

The 600-yard passage linking warehouses in San Diego and Tijuana included a wooden staircase, lighting and ventilation, said Derek Benner, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s special agent in charge of investigations in San Diego. It was tall and wide enough to move comfortably inside.

“This is an incredibly efficient tunnel designed to move a lot of narcotics,” Benner told The Associated Press.

Authorities recovered nearly 17 tons of marijuana at the warehouse in San Diego’s Otay Mesa area, nearly 12 tons inside a truck in Los Angeles and about 4 tons in Mexico, Benner said. Several arrests were made.

Tuesday’s find was the latest in a spate of secret passages found to smuggle drugs underground from Mexico, a response to heightened enforcement on land. In an emerging seasonal trend, many are turning up shortly before the winter holidays in what authorities believe is an effort to take advantage of the Mexican harvest season.

Two weeks ago, authorities seized 17 tons of marijuana in connection with a tunnel linking warehouses in San Diego and Tijuana.

Raids last November on two tunnels linking warehouses in San Diego and Tijuana netted a combined 52 of marijuana on both sides of the border. Those secret passages were lined with rail tracks, and had lighting and ventilation.

Authorities believe the latest tunnel began operating recently but declined to provide details.

“I would say it’s probably as sophisticated as any we’ve ever seen,” William Sherman, acting special agent in charge of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in San Diego told the AP.

More than 70 tunnels have been found on the border since October 2008, surpassing the number of discoveries in the previous six years. Many are clustered around San Diego, California’s Imperial Valley and Nogales, Ariz.

California is popular because its clay-like soil is easy to dig with shovels. In Nogales, smugglers tap into vast underground drainage canals.

San Diego’s Otay Mesa area has the added draw of plenty of warehouses on both sides of the border to conceal trucks getting loaded with drugs. Its streets hum with semitrailers by day and fall silent on nights and weekends.

(Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.)

DAVIS (CBS13) — The campus at UC Davis was quiet on Thanksgiving Thursday, with only a handful of tents up as students apparently took off for the holiday after a contentious week at the university.

Organizers, however, plan a campus-wide general strike on Monday to coincide with a statewide meeting of UC regents, the University of California system’s governing body. Students are protesting “sharp tuition increases, accompanied by millions in department and resource cuts, layoffs and furloughs,” according to a press release from protest organizers on Thursday.

Tension at UC Davis spiked after campus police pepper sprayed peaceful protesters on the quad Friday. CBS13 filmed the encounter, and the video captured nationwide attention. The incident sparked cries for Chancellor Linda Katehi to resign and also led to the police chief and two officers being placed on paid administrative leave pending an investigation. One officer, Lt. John Pike, is seen in the video walking back and forth using the pepper spray on a line of seated students.

Katehi led a town hall meeting on Tuesday in which she reiterated that she would not step down, insisting she wanted to lead the healing process and promising a thorough review of the police department policies in regards to handling protests. She was shunned on Monday when addressing student protesters during their general assembly.

Katehi handed out turkey sandwiches to protesters on Wednesday but was not on campus Thursday.

Officials in both cities have considered providing protesters with indoor space that would allow the movement to carry out its work in more sanitary, less public facilities.

Occupiers are debating among themselves about whether to hold their ground or try to take advantage of possible moves.

Talks in both cities mark a distinctly different approach than tactics used elsewhere that have seen police sent in to dislodge Occupy camps. Violence and arrests plagued camps in Oakland and New York, while the use of batons and pepper spray against peaceful protesters on University of California campuses has led to national outrage and derision.

San Francisco is negotiating with Occupy SF members about moving their encampment from the heart of the financial district to an empty school in the city’s hip Mission district. That would allow the occupiers to have access to toilets and a room for their daily meetings, while camping out in the parking lot of what was once a small high school.

The move also could help them weed out drug addicts and drunks, and those not wholly committed to their cause.

Protesters in Los Angeles said officials rescinded a similar deal, in which the city would have leased a 10,000-square-foot space that once housed a bookstore in Los Angeles Mall to the protesters for $1 a year.

But after the proposal was made public at an Occupy LA general assembly, it generated outrage from some who saw it as a giveaway of public resources by a city struggling with financial problems, and the offer was withdrawn.

Deputy Mayor Matt Szabo told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the encampment around City Hall would be shut down at some point next week.

“The encampment as it exists is unsustainable,” Szabo said.

Whether the city continues to negotiate with Occupy LA for a new location remains to be seen.

Occupy LA camper Alifah Ali said she would pack up her tent at City Hall when the order to leave came down in Los Angeles and welcome the possibility of new digs.

“Maybe we need to move,” Ali said. “Maybe this will give us room to organize, make our voice clear.”

Los Angeles officials initially endorsed the movement and allowed tents to sprout on City Halls lawns. More than 480 tents have since been erected. But problems arose with sanitation, drug use and homeless people moving into the camp.

In San Francisco, several hundred protesters have been hunkered down for some six weeks in about 100 tents at Justin Herman Plaza, at the eastern end of Market Street and across from the tourist-catching Ferry Building on the bay. The city has declared the plaza a public health nuisance, though city officials also credit the campers for their efforts to rid the camp of garbage and keep the grassy area clean.

Mayor Ed Lee has met with the occupiers at several heated closed-door meetings at City Hall. He’s repeatedly told them he supports their cause and the right to protest the nation’s confounding inequality between the rich and the poor.

But they cannot, he has said, continue to camp out overnight in a public plaza.

(Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.)

SAN FRANCISCO (AP/CBS13) — CBS13′s video and cellphone footage of riot police repeatedly pepper-spraying a row of seated, non-violent Occupy Wall Street protesters at UC Davis have sparked outrage, an investigation and calls for the college chancellor’s resignation.

The footage also set off a debate about how far law enforcement can and should go to disperse peaceful demonstrators.

Many students, lawmakers and even the university’s chancellor have called the officers’ actions a horrific example of unnecessary force. But some experts on police tactics say, depending on the circumstances, pepper spray can be more effective to de-escalate a tense situation than dragging off protesters or swinging at them with truncheons.

“Between verbalized commands and knock-down, drag-out fights, there’s quite a bit of wiggle room,” said David Klinger, a former Los Angeles Police Department officer and instructor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis who reviewed the pepper spray footage.

Former Sacramento County Sheriff John McGinness told CBS13 that if the protesters were warned in advance — and the department’s policy specifies they should have been — police had every right to use the pepper spray.

“If that was communicated to them and they had full warning, they in effect saw the high-voltage warning and decided to reach out and touch it,” McGinness said.

He also said you have to weigh the motive of the protesters.

“You have to consider the probability that this was the end game of the protesters,” he said. “In other words, that they wanted to be arrested.”

The footage of an officer casually spraying an orange cloud at protesters’ heads while spectators screamed in horror joined other much-discussed pepper-spray incidents, such as the 84-year-old activist hit in the face in Seattle and a Portland, Ore., woman who recently was sprayed in the mouth.

Images of the officer seen dousing the students became the subject of a blog, which featured him spraying famous figures, from Gandhi to John F. Kennedy.

The university announced Monday that it has placed the police chief and two officers on administrative leave to restore trust and calm.

Still, nearly 2,000 students and residents gathered at the main quad to hear speeches and chant slogans against police and university officials. Students who were pepper-sprayed opened the rally, saying they felt unsafe on campus with the chancellor in power.

“We were just kids sitting down in a circle singing,” said student David Buscho, 22, of San Rafael. “It felt like hot glass … I was paralyzed with fear.”

Pepper spray is an inflammatory agent that derives its active ingredient from chili peppers. When the spray is deployed, it causes nearly instant inflammation, resulting in dilation of the capillaries in the eyes, paralysis of the larynx and a burning sensation on the skin.

Buscho said students were yelling at police Friday that they were peacefully protesting. One of the helmeted officers began pointing a spray can at close range on the seated group, he said.

“I had my arms around my girlfriend. I just kissed her on the forehead and then he sprayed us,” he said. “Immediately, we were blinded … He just sprayed us again and again and we were completely powerless to do anything.”

The protest was held in support of the Occupy Wall Street movement and in solidarity with protesters at the UC Berkeley who were struck by police with batons on Nov. 9.

The spraying has reverberated far beyond the university, spawning a debate about the officers’ use of force.

Decisions on using pepper spray range by department and depends largely on the community and the police chief, Klinger said.

Klinger said the officers could have turned to other methods, such as a so-called pain compliance hold, but that would bring its own set of complications. A protester could receive a broken arm, he said, or an officer could pull a muscle.

Charles J. Key, a former lieutenant with the Baltimore Police Department who wrote the department’s use-of-force manual, said that officers were clearly within their rights to use it.

After reviewing the footage, Key said he observed at least two cases of protesters actively resisting police. In one, a woman pulls her arm back from an officer. In the second, a protester curls into a ball. Each of those actions could have warranted more force, including baton strikes and pressure-point techniques, he said.

“What I’m looking at is fairly standard police procedure,” Key said.

The federal courts have ruled on such cases. At the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers courts in nine western states, the cases have centered on whether or not the protesters were involved in what is called “active resistance.”

The court used the term in considering a case about another highly circulated video of a group of passive demonstrators being swabbed with pepper spray in 1997. The protesters had linked arms on the floor of a California congressman’s office to protest the logging of old-growth redwood trees on California’s North Coast.

Because demonstrators were using a metal sleeve to prevent the county sheriff’s office from separating them, attorneys argued the protestors’ “active resistance” left officers no other way to disperse them than dabbing their eyelids with Q-tips soaked in pepper spray, said Jim Wheaton, an attorney who assisted in the prosecution of the civil case.

The 9th Circuit ruled that the protesters weren’t in “active resistance,” and because they were sitting peacefully, the use of pepper spray was excessive.

“Pepper spray is designed to protect people from a violent attack, to stop somebody from doing something,” said Wheaton, senior counsel for the Oakland-based First Amendment Project.

UC Davis police used “it as a torture device to force someone to do something, and that’s exactly what the 9th Circuit said was unreasonable and excessive.”

SPARTANBURG, S.C. (AP) — Unsparing in their criticism of President Barack Obama, Republican presidential hopefuls disagreed in campaign debate Saturday night about the correct course in Afghanistan, the use of waterboarding and the wisdom of a pre-emptive military strike to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

“If we re-elect Barack Obama, Iran will have a nuclear weapon. And if you elect Mitt Romney, Iran will not have a nuclear weapon,” predicted the former Massachusetts governor.

On waterboarding, Herman Cain and Rep. Michelle Bachmann both said they would reinstate the technique designed to simulate drowning. Cain went one step further, adding that he would leave it up to military leaders — rather than their civilian superiors — to decide what forms of interrogation amount to torture, which he said he opposes.

On Afghanistan, former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman and Rep. Ron Paul of Texas both said it was time for U.S. troops to come home after a war of 10 years duration.

While the Republicans were talking about foreign policy, Obama was on the world stage, as America’s diplomat in chief.

After meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Hawaii, he said the two men intend to “shape a common response” to new allegations that Iran has been covertly trying to build a nuclear bomb.

If the presidential trip gave the Republicans pause, they didn’t show it in a 90-minute debate.

“There are a number of ways to be smart about Iran, and a few ways to be stupid. The administration skipped all the ways to be smart,” said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

The debate occurred less than two months before the formal selection of national convention delegates begins on Jan. 3 in the Iowa caucuses, with the race remarkably unsettled.

Romney has been at or near the top of the public opinion polls for months, while a succession of rivals vying to emerge as his principal challenger has risen and fallen in turn.

The latest soundings show Cain the current leader in that sweepstakes, although Gingrich has risen significantly in national polls in recent weeks as Perry has fallen back. And while the subject matter of defense and foreign policy didn’t readily lend itself to a discussion of the principal campaign controversies, the race has had plenty of them in the past two weeks.

Cain has stoutly denied any and all charges of sexual harassment — four women have leveled accusations — while Perry embarked on an apology tour after failing in a debate Wednesday night to remember the name of the third of three Cabinet-level departments he wants to abolish.

The debate at Wofford College was crisp, and any attempts to score points off a rival lacked the personal antagonism of earlier encounters.

The tone was set at the outset, when the Republicans were asked if they would support a pre-emptive strike to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

Gingrich quickly agreed with Romney, saying that if all other steps failed, “you have to take whatever steps are necessary” to prevent the Islamic regime from gaining a nuclear weapon.

Former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania agreed. Noting that a mysterious computer virus had caused disruption inside Iran’s nuclear labs, and that Iranian scientists have been killed in recent months, he said, “I hope that the U.S. has been involved” in those and other covert actions.

Paul wanted no part of a military strike. “It’s not worthwhile to go to war,” he said. He added said that if America’s security is threatened the president must ask Congress for a formal declaration of war before taking military action.

Perry responded without answering the question. “This country can sanction the Iranian central bank right now and shut down that country’s economy, and that’s what the president needs to do,” he said.

The war in Afghanistan produced the same response as the question relating to Iran’s nuclear ambitions — unanimous criticism of the president, but differences among the Republicans seeking to take his place.

Huntsman, who served as Obama’s first ambassador to China, said it was time to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan, a land where their boots first touched the soil a decade ago. “I say it’s time to come home. I say this nation has achieved its key objectives,” he said.

Romney and Perry said they would side with military commanders on the ground about when to withdraw troops. They criticized Obama for “telegraphing” the nation’s intentions.

Yet Romney backed a timetable of a complete withdrawal by the end of 2014, the same as Obama has cited.

(Copyright 2011 The Associated Press)

The Oakland Police Officer’s Association, which represents police rank-and-file, issued an open letter to protesters Friday saying the camp is pulling officers away from crime-plagued neighborhoods.

The letter says Thursday’s shooting shows the plaza is no longer safe. Protesters say the shooting was not connected to the camp. Police say it may have resulted from a fight between two groups of men.

“With last night’s homicide, in broad daylight, in the middle of rush hour, Frank Ogawa Plaza is no longer safe,” the letter said. “Please leave peacefully, with your heads held high, so we can get police officers back to work fighting crime in Oakland neighborhoods.”

Protesters are girding for another police raid as several City Council members have called on protesters to leave.

After police cleared the camp last month, Mayor Jean Quan reversed course and allowed protesters to return and restore the camp.

Protesters at an Occupy Oakland meeting Monday voted to deposit a $20,000 donation into a Wells Fargo account. The move comes just days after one of Wells Fargo’s branches was vandalized during a massive downtown demonstration.

An Occupy statement says the money only will be with Wells Fargo temporarily while they work to establish an account with a credit union or community bank. Protesters say it was the easiest way to access the money to bail out people from jail.

Wells Fargo spokesman Ruben Pulido says the move demonstrates that Occupy Oakland recognizes the value and service the bank provides its customers.

(Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.)

(AP) — An emergency alert system is being tested across the country.

The test is scheduled for 11 a.m. Wednesday and will be broadcast on all radio and television channels. It will last for about 30 seconds.

Listeners will hear a message indicating that it’s a test.

The test is being organized by several federal agencies. Officials say they’re doing the test in the afternoon to avoid rush-hour disruptions. They say the date was picked because it’s near the end of hurricane season but before the arrival of winter.

(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

OAKLAND (CBS13) — Thousands have gathered to support the Occupy Oakland movement that seems to be exploding right in front of our eyes as the occupiers tried to shut down the city.

A swarming crowd energized and angry marched from bank to bank in downtown Oakland. The goal — to shut the banks down.

View photo gallery

And it worked to some extent. Protesters stood in front of doors, put tape over the ATM machines and blocked business as usual…

“I think it’s excellent that people are getting excited,” protester Steve Gilbert said.
The chaos was somewhat organized and there was free food for the crowd, and even a first aid station.

Back at Frank Ogawa Plaza — home base for the Oakland Occupy movement — the tent city had become an all-out street festival with music, food and all sorts of protest signs. A new group of protesters, including hundreds of teachers, skipped work Wednesday to join the movement.

And businesses in the area followed suit. Law offices were closed, restaurants were closed. The one thing missing from Wednesday’s protest was any visible police presence. Prostesters were allowed to have their voices heard..

“You know the way things are today, it’s impossible and we need change,” protester Leo Rodriguez said.

VACAVILLE (CBS13) — The Occupy movement isn’t just restricted to streets or city parks.

It’s message is carved into the hillside over Interstate 80 in Vacaville. When the sun is up, it’s clear as day.

It’s occupying a space that 161,000 drivers pass each day. The word “OCCUPY” with a peace sign for the O spelled out on a 30-yard section of a Vacaville hill by I-80 and Merchant Street.

The message, part of the national movement against growing financial disparity, comes in a county that ranks second in the nation in foreclosed homes.

“And so that message has gone through loud and clear for a lot of people in Vacaville because there’s a lot of foreclosures right here,” Vacaville resident John Stanley told CBS13.

But another resident wasn’t so sure.

“I don’t know if that’s the way to do it,” she said. “But if it’s getting politicians’ attention, so they’re talking about it, maybe doing something to solving it, that’s a good thing.”

People who manage the land, which is for sale, told CBS13 they don’t know who carved “OCCUPY” into the hill and that it’s a case of vandalism.

“It could be considered distracting to the drivers on the freeway,” Vacaville resident Dave Hamrick said.

But Caltrans said it won’t remove the wording because although it’s visible from the freeway, it’s outside their jurisdiction.

Last year, the agency received a lot of criticism for destroying another political message, a mural of the American flag overlooking Interstate 680. Caltrans said that message was inside its jurisdiction.

Occupy Vacaville. A movement that is not only fighting an uphill battle against the establishment, it’s now staked its claim on the hillside.

And there’s no sign that this message will be removed.

The lawsuit filed in San Francisco federal court seeks to represent what the lawyers said could be as many as 95,000 women who have worked in the state’s 220 stores sometime between 1998 and when the case goes to trial. It accuses California managers of paying and promoting women at lesser rates than male counterparts.

The lawsuit is a scaled-down version of an initial complaint filed in 2001 that sought to represent 1.6 million women nationwide. But the U.S. Supreme Court in June tossed out that class action lawsuit. The high court ruled the workers’ allegations were too varied to show the company engaged in a specific nationwide pattern and practice of gender bias.

“The Supreme Court did not rule that Wal-Mart was off the hook,” said lawyer Brad Seligman, one of the attorneys who filed the original case. “It was a procedural ruling.”

Seligman said the Supreme Court ruling didn’t address the central issue of whether gender bias was occurring and instead focused on how the 1.6 million workers represented in the original lawsuit had too many different details for inclusion in a single lawsuit. Seligman said that means lawyers will have “to break the case into smaller pieces” by filing region-specific lawsuits.

Seligman’s colleague, Joe Sellers, said the lawyers will file an “armada” of smaller cases across the country over the next six months seeking back pay and punitive damages, which they expect could rival the billions of dollars Wal-Mart was exposed to in the original lawsuit.

All the cases, including the one filed Thursday, need a federal judge’s approval to proceed as a class action lawsuit.

Wal-Mart said Thursday it would oppose the new lawsuits on the same grounds that led to the 5-4 Supreme Court ruling in its favor.

“These claims are unsuitable for class (action) treatment because the situations for each individual are so different,” said Wal-Mart spokesman Greg Rossiter. “The fact is that the statewide class the plaintiffs would now propose is no more appropriate than the nationwide class that the Supreme Court has already rejected.”

Rossiter said the majority of the company’s 1.4 million U.S. workers are women and that nearly 200,000 female employees have been with the company for more than 10 years.

“Wal-Mart is a great place for women to work,” Rossiter said.

Since the gender-bias lawsuit was given class action status in 2004 on behalf of 1.6 million women, the Bentonville, Ark.-based company has added more policies for advancing women in the workplace. It has set up a women’s council that represents each of the overseas markets and focused training and other efforts on advancing women into management roles.

Wal-Mart said the percentage of entry and mid-level women managers has increased over the past five years from 38.8 percent to 41.2 percent.

Nonetheless, the lawyers and the workers filing the lawsuit Thursday said Wal-Mart still isn’t doing enough to promote equality nor has it been held accountable for alleged bias in the past.

“The evidence is still apparent,” said Betty Dukes, a Wal-Mart greeter in Pittsburg and the worker whose name graced the original complaint and remains atop the new lawsuit. “We are determined to see them in court.”

(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

A hospital spokesman says the 24-year-old veteran and Wisconsin native, Scott Olsen, was upgraded to fair condition and moved into an intensive care unit on Thursday.

His uncle, George Nygaard, tells The Associated Press from Wisconsin that Olsen’s parents were heading to California on Thursday morning.

Olsen apparently suffered a fractured skull Tuesday in a march with other protesters toward Oakland City Hall. The demonstrators were trying to re-establish a presence in the area of a disbanded protesters’ camp when they were met by officers.

It’s not known exactly what type of object struck Olsen or who might have thrown it, though the group Iraq Veterans Against the War said officers were responsible for his injury.

Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan says officials will investigate whether officers used excessive force.

Since he was injured, Olsen’s name has become a rallying cry for protesters around the nation. On Wednesday night, demonstrators in New York City, where the movement began last month, marched in support of their counterparts in Oakland.

One movement website, OccupyWallSt.org, declared: “We are all Scott Olsen.”

(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)