California, Texas | featured news

According to the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce, since the passage of Prop 30 in the November election, California-based company relocation inquiries have doubled, possibly tripled, in Central Texas. West Coast entrepreneurs feeling the personal financial stress of an out-of-control state budget and tax policy have heard Texas’ message, and they’re responding.

Look out, California. Rick Perry is going hunting in your backyard for jobs to bring back to Texas. The Republican governor heads to San Francisco, the Silicon Valley, Los Angeles and Orange County next week on a "business recruitment trip," his office says. The trip is being paid for by Texas One, a public-private partnership that does marketing for the state.

For the second time in five days – and also the second time in Walmart’s five decades – workers at multiple U.S. Walmart stores are on strike. This morning, workers walked off the job at stores in Dallas, Texas; Miami, Florida; Seattle, Washington; Laurel, Maryland; and Northern, Central, and Southern California. No end date has been announced; some plan to remain on strike at least through tomorrow, when they’ll join other Walmart workers for a demonstration outside the company’s annual investor meeting in Bentonville, Arkansas. Today’s is the latest in a wave of Walmart supply chain strikes without precedent in the United States: From shrimp workers in Louisiana, to warehouse workers in California and Illinois, to Walmart store employees in five states.

Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari, 20, was attending a small college near Lubbock, Texas. The FBI says he purchased chemicals and bomb components and kept a detailed journal outlining his targets, including former President George W. Bush's home in Dallas and dams in Colorado and California.

Authorities say recent raids have targeted La Familia Michoacana's fast-growing operations in California, Texas and other states.

In a series of recent raids throughout the United States, federal authorities have arrested nearly 1,200 people who they say are connected to one of Mexico's most aggressively expanding and deadly drug trafficking cartels, known as La Familia Michoacana, law enforcement officials told The Times' Washington bureau.

American health officials on Sunday declared a public health emergency over increasing cases of swine flu, saying that they had confirmed 20 cases of the disease in the United States and expected to see more as investigators fan out to track down the path of the outbreak.

Officials said they had confirmed eight cases in New York, seven in California, two in Kansas, two in Texas and one in Ohio, and that the cases looked to be similar to the deadly strain of swine flu that has killed more than 80 people in Mexico and infected 1,300 more.