Republicans have yet to formally decide their gubernatorial nominee, but California Democrats are already launching their campaign against the candidate they expect to win: frontrunner Meg Whitman.

After spending more than $80 million and building a major lead in public opinion polls, Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman may finally have met her match Tuesday in the parking lot of the Asian Garden Mall. The billionaire candidate was delivering her stump speech to about 150 people at an open-air rally when about 50 protesters from the California Nurses Association and its schoolteacher allies interrupted by chanting and blowing whistles just a few dozen yards away.

Thousands of nurses in Minnesota and California on Friday announced plans to walk off the job for a single day next month if they don't reach contract agreements with hospitals. The nurses — 12,000 in the Minneapolis area and nearly 13,000 at hospitals across California — both set June 10 as a strike date. The walkout stands to be the largest in U.S. history.

More than 12,000 California registered nurses remain scheduled to strike for 24 hours next Thursday, most of them at University of California hospitals, the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United announced today.

In a stunning whistleblower lawsuit, the world's largest pharmaceutical company is being sued over the dangerous practice of illegally promoting a kidney transplant drug for unapproved uses -- and targeting African-Americans, even though they are at high risk of complications.

Nurses turned out by the hundreds this morning to vote on a possible one-day strike at 14 Twin Cities hospitals, and many said the only suspense is about when the walkout will take place.

For thousands of Illinois residents who pay high health insurance premiums because of medical problems, the new federal health care legislation won't offer relief. The 16,000 residents who already pay into Illinois' high-risk health insurance pool will keep paying high rates, while others who enroll this summer under a new, similar program will get coverage at much lower, more reasonable prices.

Health insurance companies are lobbying federal and state officials in an effort to ward off strict regulation of premiums and profits under the new health care law. The effort is, in some ways, a continuation of the battle over health care that consumed Congress last year.