You've heard of Tim Pawlenty, Bobby Jindal, and Chris Christie, but you may not even recognize the name Gary Johnson. Like the first three, he was a Republican governor (of New Mexico for eight years in the 1990s) and is a potential contender for the GOP's presidential nomination in 2012.  He's considered by many to be a genuine Tea Party candidate.

In what was seen by many as a rebuke of the Bush Administration's ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, California voters passed Proposition 71 in 2004 - a move that authorized the state to issue $3 bllion in state bonds to fund embryonic stem cell research.

In San Diego, US and Mexican officials have discovered a sophisticated, cross-border tunnel which the drug cartel has been using to transport cannabis from Mexico over the US border into California. This is the second discovery of a cross-border "drug tunnel" in one month.

The ever-saltier Salton Sea could be saved by a simple one word solution -- algae.  At least that's what a trio of scientists from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego believe.