Embattled Calif. governor seeks to borrow billions

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- A politically embattled Gov. Gray Davis on Wednesday proposed raising an array of taxes and borrowing more than $10 billion to help close a deficit projected at a record $38 billion.

The $95.8 billion spending plan the Democrat sent to the legislature differs greatly from his January proposal, which relied more heavily on spending cuts to bridge the gap.

This time, Davis called for $8.3 billion in new taxes, including a half-cent increase in the state sales tax and higher taxes on cars, cigarettes and the wealthy.

"This is something we must do if we want to right the state's financial ship," he said.

Some Republicans were dubious.

"Punishing taxpayers because liberal Democrats have spent us into bankruptcy does not make sense to us," said state Sen. Jim Brulte.

California already has one of the nation's highest sales taxes at 7.25 percent and each county has the right to raise it even higher. San Francisco is already at 8.5 percent.

Man convicted in 1991 slaying of Jewish scholar

NEW YORK -- After three trials in 12 years, a black man was convicted Wednesday in the stabbing death of a Jewish scholar during a 1991 riot in Brooklyn's Crown Heights neighborhood that widened the city's racial divide and contributed to Rudolph Giuliani's election as mayor.

Lemrick Nelson, 27, was found guilty by a federal jury of violating the civil rights of Yankel Rosenbaum. Ruling on a separate question, the jury did not find that Nelson's actions resulted in Rosenbaum's death.

As a result, he faces up to 10 years in prison, rather than a possible life sentence.

The verdict came a day after the jury told the judge it was hopelessly deadlocked. The jury deliberated over six days.

Nelson slumped in apparent relief on hearing the verdict that spared him a possible lifetime behind bars.

Set of security keys lost at Livermore nuclear lab

LIVERMORE, Calif. -- A set of keys that unlock gates and offices at a nuclear weapons lab disappeared last month, but officials have since changed the most important locks and said national security was not compromised.

The missing keys at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory are the latest embarrassment to the University of California, which manages the Livermore lab, as well as Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, for the Department of Energy.

Livermore guards discovered the keys were missing on April 17. They have yet to be located, lab spokeswoman Susan Houghton said Wednesday.

Houghton said there have been no indications of any attempts to access the lab with the missing keys, one of about 200 such sets. She said that because of security she could not say how many locks the missing keys would unlock, but said about 100 of the most important ones had been changed.

SARS puts some limits on Chinese wedding trip

IOWA CITY, Iowa -- Lin Wang's face is covered by a white rounded mask to protect him from the deadly respiratory disease SARS -- but he's happily thinking about his bride-to-be waiting for him in southwest China.

Wang was testing the mask, which he's prepared to don when he boards a flight May 18 to Shanghai, on his way to Leshan to get married. His friends and family think he's crazy, but he's still going.

"My friends, they say, 'Don't come back now; just wait for a couple of months,"' said Wang, a University of Iowa graduate research assistant from Wenling in southeast China.

"I don't want to wait any longer," said Wang, 25, a biomedical engineer.

Wang's trip will be rare among Iowa City's more than 550 Chinese students and scholars -- many of whom have canceled trips home.

In his apartment, Wang has seven antibacterial lotion bottles and a box full of SARS masks.

--From wire reports