WASHINGTON/LOS ANGELES, June 11 (Reuters) – U.S. Commerce
Secretary John Bryson is being investigated for his role in two
car crashes – including a hit-and-run accident – near his Los
Angeles-area home over the weekend that department officials
linked to a seizure that left him unconscious behind the wheel.

Bryson, who as commerce secretary oversees several agencies
and focuses on business issues, was hospitalized in California
but has returned to Washington, Commerce Department spokeswoman
Jennifer Friedman said in a statement on Monday. The
investigation into the crashes is ongoing, she added.

LOS ANGELES, June 8 (Reuters) – Campaigns for and against a
proposed dollar-per-pack cigarette tax hike in California held
their breath on Friday, each hoping to eke out a slim victory by
the time voters’ final ballots are tallied in a race still too
close to call.

Voters were widely reported to have narrowly rejected the
ballot question, known as Proposition 29, on Tuesday, a result
observers largely attributed to a $47 million advertising blitz
mounted against the measure by big tobacco companies.

By Steve Gorman

(Reuters) – Veteran Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich, a liberal stalwart who lost his primary race after redistricting forced him to run against another Democratic incumbent, said on Wednesday he had ruled out a congressional bid in Washington state.

Kucinich, 65, had said after he was defeated in March by Marcy Kaptur, the longest-serving woman in the U.S. House of Representatives, that he was considering the possibility of relocating to Washington state to run for Congress anew.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Bassist Donald “Duck” Dunn, a member of Booker T. & the MGs whose thick bottom grooves anchored many of the classic soul hits from the 1960s, has died on tour in Japan, his friend and bandmate Steve Cropper said on Sunday. Dunn was 70.

Dunn, an integral part of the Memphis soul sound as bassist for the MGs, the house band for Stax and Volt records, died Sunday morning after finishing two shows at the Blue Note Night Club in Tokyo, Cropper said in a posting on his Facebook page.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A California university student left handcuffed in a federal holding cell for nearly five days without food or water has filed a claim for up to $20 million in compensation, saying he suffered kidney failure and nearly died as a result.

The five-page notice, a precursor to a lawsuit against the government under the Federal Tort Claims Act, was sent Wednesday to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration by a lawyer for the student, Daniel Chong, who has said he was forced to drink his own urine to stay alive.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A crackdown on California’s medical marijuana supply chain by federal authorities targeting the state’s illegal drug trade arrived this week in the affluent, coastal county of Santa Barbara.

The latest actions include three asset forfeiture lawsuits filed against properties housing marijuana operations and warning letters sent to people associated with 10 cannabis dispensaries deemed “illegal marijuana stores,” federal officials said.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Perennial New Year’s Eve master of ceremonies and “American Bandstand” host Dick Clark, whose long-running television dance show helped rock ‘n’ roll win acceptance in mainstream America, died on Wednesday at age 82, a spokesman said.

Clark, one of America’s best-known TV personalities and the longtime host of ABC’s annual “New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” broadcast from Times Square in Manhattan, suffered a heart attack and died at Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, California, publicist Paul Shefrin said.

LOS ANGELES, April 17 (Reuters) – Two months after its San
Diego debut, canine cable channel DogTV is keeping tails wagging
at a local animal shelter, is available on the Internet and is
headed for national distribution, an executive for the
enterprise said on Tuesday.

The advertising-free programming is aimed at stay-at-home
pooches whose work-a-day masters fret about the separation
anxiety their pets suffer, and the trouble they get into, when
left unattended for long stretches of time.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Mass murderer Charles Manson, one of America’s most notorious convicts, was denied parole on Wednesday in his 12th and possibly final bid for release from a California prison, state corrections officials said.

Manson, 77, who has declined to attend his parole hearings in recent years, was not present for Wednesday’s review of his case by the state Board of Parole Hearings at Corcoran State Prison, where he is serving a life term.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Aging mass murderer Charles Manson, one of America’s most notorious convicts, was scheduled for his latest parole review on Wednesday in California, where he has been serving a life prison term since the 1970s.

Manson, 77, has been denied release on parole 11 times before, most recently in 2007, when the state Board of Parole Hearings ruled that he “continues to pose an unreasonable danger to others and may still bring harm to anyone he would come in contact with.”