There will be fewer banana peels to slip on if engineers at a university succeed in figuring out a cost effective way to turn them into cooking fuel.

In other words, people wanting to bake or fry their bananas might soon be able to do that by cooking over a banana briquette fire.

An out-of-control car carrier smashed several vehicles along Angeles Crest Highway before crashing into a bookstore Wednesday killing two people and injuring 14 others.

The two fatalities were inside a red car that was ran over by the semi-truck, which apparently lost its brakes. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department did not name the dead victims but said they were from Palmdale area.

A San Francisco assemblyman introduced legislation to make California the first state in the nation to tax and regulate recreational marijuana in the same way as alcohol.

Assemblyman Tom Ammiano says it is time to reap state revenue from what is arguably the biggest cash crop in California to help stem the burgeoning budget crisis.

Billing itself as a place with good songs, cold beer, good friends and tall tales, this historic town has put itself up for sale.

Located in hill country, settled in 1877 and named after Albert Luckenbach who moved there in 1892 and opened a post office and general store under his first name, the town is up for sale.

Champagne sales are nothing to toast to this year. Makers of the bubbly are reeling from the sour economy and feelings its effects. Makers of both inexpensive sparking wines and expensive bottles are feeling the pinch following 2007's strong 4 percent gains, the biggest since the buying frenzy in 1999 to ring in the new millennium.

Nearly 21 million bottles were shipped to the United States from the region of France known as Champagne in 2007. Through August, sales were down 17 percent over the corresponding period last year, according to Sam Heitner, director of the Office of Champagne U.S.A., a trade organization, and that doesn't include the last three months of the year, when much of the Champagne is sold.