For months, Apple's stock price has been tumbling. The world's most valuable public company has hemorrhaged $200 billion since September. Bloggers and "informed sources" warn of sagging demand for its revenue-generating iPhone. And some analysts have become downright gloomy about the company's fate. Now it's Apple's turn to tell us how bad -- or surprise us with how good -- things really are. In one of the most highly anticipated earnings reports in recent memory, Apple on Wednesday will announce results of its fiscal first quarter.

... The state is poised to finish January about $4 billion ahead of what forecasters expected in income taxes, according to the Legislative Analyst's Office – the biggest one-month overage that state fiscal experts can recall in recent memory.

Police have arrested two suspected gang members on parole and detained three other people in connection with the shooting of a police officer Monday night. The officer was treated and released from a hospital after suffering a gunshot wound to the arm, police said. Police did not identify either the suspects in custody or those who had been detained during their search.

Most arrests do not involve people who are on probation or parole, according to a 3 1/2-year study examining millions of criminal records in four cities including San Francisco - an outcome that challenges the assumption that convicted criminals are driving crime rates, backers of the report said.

More medical professionals, including nurses and midwives, would be permitted to perform certain early abortions in California under a bill unveiled Tuesday. In a news conference at the Capitol that served to both introduce the bill and mark the 40-year anniversary of the Supreme Court's landmark Roe v. Wade decision, lawmakers and women's health advocates said the measure is necessary for women in communities without abortion providers.

Assemblyman Marc Levine, in his first piece of legislation, is calling for banning plastic grocery bags throughout California, starting in 2015. Levine, D-San Rafael, introduced Assembly Bill 158 on Tuesday, reviving a similar bill that got stuck in a Senate committee last year after it faced criticism from plastic bag manufacturers and grocers...Under the bill, grocery stores with more than $2 million in annual sales or retailers with more than 10,000-square-feet of floor space would have to stop offering plastic bags.

Future attempts to consider draining the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir such as the one that voters rejected in November could face a new hurdle: approval by water agencies representing millions of residents in Alameda, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties.

Just like old times, San Francisco 49ers fans have hit the jackpot with their team -- but they'll need to strike gold themselves to come along for the ride. As the Niners faithful celebrate the team's first trip to the Super Bowl in nearly two decades, longtime fans fresh off the sticker shock of high ticket prices in the team's new Santa Clara stadium are now facing more huge costs to see their team play for the NFL title.

The hotel-room sexual assault allegations against 49ers star wide receiver Michael Crabtree do not appear to be holding up under investigation. San Francisco police said Friday that they were looking into a complaint that Crabtree had assaulted a woman in a hotel after the Niners defeated the Green Bay Packers in a playoff game Jan. 12.