Legislation approved by the Assembly would make California the first state to allow noncitizens to serve on juries. Naturally, the courts would have to make certain adjustments.

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The power of jury duty

Photo gallery: Ted Rall cartoons

Kenny Smith schools Chris Broussard on inclusiveness

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Is the feminist movement to blame for our expanding waistline?

In her book “Homeward Bound,” excerpted on Salon, author Emily Matchar points to food writers and experts who’ve pinned the problem on feminism. In driving women out of the kitchen and into the office in the 1970s, they contend, women no longer had as much time to cook, so the convenience of pre-made junk, packaged goods and fast food restaurants won out. Fast forward to present day: Obesity has reached epidemic levels and its related diseases, such as diabetes and heart diseases, are killing people.

So it’s all Betty Friedan’s fault?

Of course not! Matchar agrees that such claims make a ridiculous leap. Obviously, there are a number of factors at play, including President Nixon’s long-lasting contribution. Not to mention, men are just as able to cook for a family as women are, and it’s preposterous anyone would suggest otherwise.

But in recent years, we’ve seen a movement of...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), a "tea party" favorite, may be new to elected office, but that might not stop him from running for president before his first term in the Senate is over.

And the only people who could legitimately question whether he's sufficiently seasoned would be those who didn't vote for Barack Obama in 2008.

National Review's Robert Costa reported Wednesday that Cruz was "considering" a presidential run in 2016, according to unnamed "friends and confidants." A common wisecrack about senators is that they all want to run for president, so in that sense Cruz's alleged ambitions are practically part of his job description. Still, it does seem just a little hasty for Cruz to be contemplating a run for the nation's highest office less than five months into his first term in any office.

That's where Obama's example comes in. He joined the Senate in 2005 and started running for president not long thereafter. Granted, it wasn't Obama's first elected office; he'd been a state...

Here they go again.

The man L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca pushed out is pushing back. In my colleague Robert Faturechi’s exclusive interview, Paul Tanaka, the former undersheriff who has himself been accused of fostering jailhouse abuse, now says his ex-boss runs a department that is a "house of cards that’s on the verge of crumbling."

Baca, according to Tanaka, urged underlings to hire friends and relatives, and put public safety on the line to settle political scores, including a demand to pull his deputies out of a joint operation with the FBI because the federal agency was investigating county jails.

(A Baca spokesman had this to say: "The sheriff finds it very sad that his former undersheriff has raised these false charges motivated apparently by his personal disappointment and ambition. None of these allegations were made while he served as undersheriff. He raises them only now as he...

Some “non-theist” individuals and groups are aggrieved that not even one seat was reserved for a nonbeliever at the service for victims of the Boston Marathon bombings, despite a request for some recognition from the Secular Coalition for America.

Joined by some Christian and Jewish clergy, they have been circulating a petition calling on Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and Melissa Rogers, the director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, to “meet with the Humanist and non-theistic community to discuss how to ensure that future gatherings like the Interfaith Healing Service after the Boston Marathon bombing include all Americans.”

My first reaction was to concede that the “non-theists” had a point but that their objection was an abstract and self-serving one. They had a point because the service, which was held in Boston’s Roman Catholic cathedral and featured religious leaders from a variety of traditions,...

Thank you, Kenny Smith, for being the voice of reason in the Jason Collins-Chris Broussard imbroglio.

For those keeping score at home, NBA pro Collins this week became the first active player in one of the major U.S. professional team sports to come out as gay. The reaction from many, in the sports world and in the world of politics, was supportive and positive.

But not from everyone. Basketball analyst and former New York Times writer Broussard, speaking on ESPN's "Outside the Lines" show, said: "I'm a Christian. I don't agree with homosexuality. I think it's a sin, as I think all sex outside of marriage between a man and a woman is. If you're openly living in unrepentant sin ... that's walking in open rebellion to God and to Jesus Christ."

As we are fond of pronouncing -- although mostly when someone says something we agree with -- it’s a free country. And certainly I don’t question Broussard’s commitment to Christianity. But I find it particularly sad that a black...

So here’s the real question about the Tuesday ceremony in Amsterdam in which Queen Beatrix abdicated and passed the robe (they don’t wear crowns) to her son, Willem-Alexander, who just turned 46: Did Britain's Prince Charles, who was in attendance, look on and think, "How much longer before I get my turn to be king?" 

Certainly, he could be forgiven for envying the Dutch monarchs’ tradition of retiring off the throne, as they have tended to do in the short 200 years that the monarchy has existed as a reigning presence in the Netherlands.

The most stunning thing about Willem-Alexander’s accession is that he’s a guy. His predecessors have been his mother, his grandmother and his great-grandmother. Beatrix, who held the title for 33 years, relinquished it at the age of 75 — downright youngish for European royals — and made her son the youngest reigning sovereign on the Continent.

She signed an act of abdication, followed by smiles and kisses all...

It’s possible that fire rings on the beach are a major contributor to air pollution. But there's reason to doubt it, especially since air regulators don't appear to have been worried about the venerable tradition of the Southern California beach bonfire until the city of Newport Beach got into the act.

There aren’t as many fire rings as there used to be; many cities got rid of them years ago because of liability issues. They’re certainly not used every day, or pretty much at all during certain seasons.

But now that Newport Beach has asked the Coastal Commission for permission to remove fire rings in that city — the complaint is about how the smoke might pollute the air near local residents, but many suspect that residents don’t want so many “inlanders” attracted to their town — air regulators in Southern California are considering banning them generally, even in those cities that want them, The Times' Gale Holland reports. Tens of...

California Secretary of State Debra Bowen is resisting a push by activists and journalists for better disclosure of campaign finance data, arguing in essence that it would cost too much to comply. It's a surprising stance from Bowen, whose office has fought to make more information about donors available to California voters. It also strains credulity.

At issue is a request by MapLight California, California Common Cause and 10 others, including this newspaper, for a downloadable version of the campaign finance data that the secretary of state collects. The raw data are available today on CD-ROM for a small fee, and a slightly redacted version can be viewed for free on the department's website. The discs aren't available in a timely fashion outside of Sacramento, however, and the site's formatting is cumbersome and limiting.

The tussle is important because the data represent voters' main line of defense against the corrosive influence of special interests.

The high cost of running for...

Question: Should the greatest rock ’n’ roll band in history be history? Or, to put it more bluntly, are the Rolling Stones too old to be rocking and rolling?

By now you’ve read about, heard about or seen photos and video (or heck, maybe you were even there) of the Stones’ performance Saturday night at the Echoplex in Echo Park. A lot of Hollywood types and celebs were there: Johnny Depp, Bruce Willis, Gwen Stefani, Owen Wilson -- you get the idea. Regular folks too, ones lucky enough to snag tickets in a quickie lottery. For a first-hand impression, check out the rather breathless take by Times pop music critic Randall Roberts, with observations such as:

When Jagger splashed some of his drinking water into the crowd, I got drenched -- and then like any true fan, wiped the water all over my head, licked my lips to get some into my mouth. (This morning I feel like I’ve got some of Jagger’s DNA in my system.)

PHOTOS: The Rolling Stones at the Echoplex

T...

NBA center Jason Collins made headline news Monday for revealing in Sports Illustrated that he’s gay

But who cares?

I don’t want to sound flip. I absolutely admire his courage. I just find it lamentable that in this day and age, Collins, who played for the Washington Wizards last season, is still the only active male athlete in a major professional sport who’s come out. Worse, Collins worries about the reaction. When asked about how he thinks other players will respond to his sexual orientation, he says: “The simple answer is, I have no idea.... I hope for the best but plan for the worst.”

One hopes that Collins’ announcement will encourage other gay male professional athletes to come out too. And that, eventually, the issue of sexual orientation will become a nonissue.

But as former professional football player Wade Davis has warned us, we need to proceed with caution and patience. “I understand the hope that some brave athlete in one of the...