With so many issues and items rumbling around the state Capitol in these final hours of the legislative session, here are a few of the more notable news briefs from Thursday…

* Democratic health care amendments… Some substantive modifications were made yesterday to the main health care legislation now under discussion, AB 8, from Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez and Senate President pro Tem Don Perata. Most interesting in those amendments may be the creation of a new 13 member commission that would provide greater transparency about the cost and quality of health care services. One interesting task the bill lays out for the commission: a mandate to study and reveal the infection rates in California hospitals.

* Hospitals are in… late word this afternoon that the California Hospital Association has signed off on the health care financing proposal suggested in the governor’s health care agenda. This follows recent news that many hospitals would actually end up getting back more money than they’d pay. But…

* Speaking of health care… while negotiations continue, several Capitol watchers are now predicting that the issue will get carried over to a special session. That’s an opinion, of course… but several watchers of these negotiations say there are still a lot of issues unresolved.

* Casino compact stalemate ends?… There’s word that the final amended casino deal with a large gaming tribe will be ratified by the Legislature before the end of session. Shane Goldmacher reports at the Sac Bee’s Capitol Alert site (subscription required) that the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians have agreed to a side deal to their compact, much in the way four other tribes did, that deals with auditing of casino revenues. The new compact would allow the tribe to add some 5,500 new slot machines.

* More on the electoral college initiative… Now that the Attorney General has issued a title and summary for the initiative that would change how California’s electoral votes are handed out, Democrats are demanding that Governor Schwarzenegger weigh in. The governor largely sidestepped a formal position on the initiative in interviews with TV reporters yesterday, but that hasn’t stopped Democratic bloggers from tweaking the guv on the issue, including the creation of a new video.

* California: The Lost Years?… Speaking of the governor, he traveled to south Sacramento this morning for a press conference regarding the possible early release of state prisoners by a panel of federal judges. Not that there’s any real development on this issue, which made the news value of the event somewhat squishy. Still, what stood out was Schwarzenegger’s departure from his normal optimism about, well, everything.

Consider the following comments of the governor, when he was asked about prison overcrowding:

“This prison crisis is no different than the crisis we have that we don’t have enough schools, the crisis we have that we don’t have enough roads, we don’t have enough on-ramps and off-ramps and tunnels and bridges, we haven’t fixed our levees for three decades, we haven’t done anything. For three decades this state hasn’t built and fixed anything.” [listen to extended clip]

And on that positive note… stay tuned for more.