Actor Ernest Borgnine, whose bulldog appearance made him a natural for tough-guy roles in films like “The Wild Bunch” but won an Oscar for playing a sensitive loner in “Marty,” died on Sunday at the age of 95, his longtime publicist said.Borgnine, who also starred as a maverick World War Two patrol-boat skipper in the popular 1960s television comedy “McHale’s Navy,” died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, where he had gone for a medical checkup on Tuesday, spokesman Harry Flynn said. Read More

The California state Senate gave a nod of approval to the state's high-speed rail plan on Friday in a make-or-break vote for funding to start construction on a project whose overall cost has been pegged at $68 billion.The project, expected to take decades to complete, was championed by Democratic Governor Jerry Brown, who says a bullet train network will boost job creation and provide an alternative to car and plane travel in the country's most populous state. Read More

As the Presbyterian Church U.S.A.'s legislative body considers this week whether to allow ministers to perform same-sex marriages, Reverend Jane Spahr will not be present. But in some ways she will be at the center of the proceedings.Spahr, a 69-year-old lesbian evangelist who has defied the church and been rebuked by a church court for performing same-sex weddings in California, has been an outspoken advocate for liberalizing church policy on weddings. Read More

When Tim Lincecum takes the hill today to face rising Washington Nationals right-hander Jordan Zimmerman, one pitcher will have a 5.60 ERA and the other a 2.77 ERA. Four months ago, all would assume it would be Lincecum boasting the better ERA. But that won’t be the case. Lincecum has labored through the worst season of his career, but appears as if he’s possibly turned the corner. Read More

When Shannon Rowbury reached the Summer Games four years ago in Beijing, she turned in the top placing ever by an American woman in the 1,500-meter run by finishing seventh. After her performance at Sunday’s U.S. Olympic Trials in Eugene, Ore., she’ll have a chance to top that. The San Francisco resident and Sacred Heart Cathedral product finished second in the 1,500 in a time of four minutes, 5.11 seconds to qualify for a second straight Olympics. Read More

The U.S. Justice Department said on Friday it would not prosecute Attorney General Eric Holder for refusing to turn over to Congress documents about a gun-running scandal to Mexico.Holder, who heads the Justice Department, was cited on Thursday for contempt of Congress by the Republican-led House of Representatives. The mostly partisan vote of 255-67 marked the first time a sitting attorney general and presidential cabinet member was cited for contempt by the full House. More than 100 Democrats walked out in protest and refused to vote. Read More

The Supreme Court upheld President Barack Obama’s health care law in an election-year triumph for him and fellow Democrats who championed the most sweeping overhaul since the 1960s of the unwieldy U.S. health care system. In a 5-4 ruling based on the power of Congress to impose taxes, the nation’s highest court preserved the law’s “individual mandate” requiring that most Americans obtain health insurance by 2014 or pay a tax. The justices also preserved, with some changes, a provision of the law expanding the Medicaid health insurance program for the poor. Read More