California just beat Texas by one business measure.

That measure? Most valuable company in America.

In trading Tuesday, the value of Apple -- the California technology company -- surpassed that of the previous #1, Exxon Mobil, the Texas oil giant.

The markets now value Apple at $338 billion, and Exxon Mobil at $337 billion, according to the Associated Press.

This Week in Los Angeles

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This Week in Los Angeles

This could change as soon as, well, Wednesday. So Californians should celebrate while they can.

California seeks to ban free, single-use carryout bags in retail

Full story: Chain Store Age

BURLINGAME, Calif. -- You've got to hand it to Forbes publisher Rich Karlgaard: Last fall, he blogged about the then-upcoming Apple tablet, calling it the "Apple iPad."

Although his prognostication came true, some are snickering that the name reminds them of feminine products and have dubbed the new device "iTampon," a term that has landed into Twitter's trending topics. The name "iPad," however, is just one of several gripes circulating among the tech pundit circuit. Other complaints include lack of camera, lousy virtual keyboard and no killer technology breakthroughs.

First up in Gizmodo's eight-item roundup of bad iPad features was the one-inch-wide bezel. That's the black casing around your iPod or iPhone, and according to the gadget blog's Adam Frucci, "It's huge! I know you don't want to accidentally input a command when your thumb is holding it, but come on."

Blog ReadWriteWeb lamented the lack of a camera, something users expect in a multi-purpose device. The Forbes technology staff thinks a camera would have been swell for videoconferencing.

Another groan? No Flash support, posits VentureBeat's Anthony Ha. "The absence of Flash may not seem like a big deal," he writes, "but if Apple wants this to be a serious computing device ... that's a pretty big drawback."

There's also the wireless keyboard. "This whole time we've been wondering how we'll really get any typing done on Apple's new iPad," notes Engadget's Paul Miller. "At last we have the answer: an optional keyboard dock!"

Even analysts at NPD Group had something to say. "With no changes yet to the purchase model of TV shows or movies through the iTunes store, it doesn't appear that this will fundamentally alter consumers' in-home media consumption," writes Stephen Baker. "Small, slick, typically great-looking, and well priced at $499, it is an interesting but ultimately not breakthrough device."

Tech Tidbits quotes the best of the day's news in a byte-sized format.

To read more of Taylor Buley's stories, click here. Contact the writer at tbuley@forbes.com.

Federal regulators on Friday shut down two big thrifts based in Southern California, saying they fell victim to the acute distress in the housing market in that state.

The failures of Downey Savings and Loan Association, based in Newport Beach, and PFF Bank & Trust of Pomona brought the number of U.S. bank failures this year to 22.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was appointed receiver of the two thrifts. U.S. Bank, based in Minneapolis, acquired all the deposits of both.

Downey, the 23rd-largest U.S. savings and loan, had assets of $12.8 billion and deposits of $9.7 billion as of Sept. 30. PFF, the 38th-largest, had assets of $3.7 billion and $2.4 billion in deposits.

Also Friday, Georgia regulators shut down The Community Bank, a small bank in Loganville, Ga. The FDIC was made receiver of the bank, which had $681 million in assets and $611.4 million in deposits as of Oct. 17. The FDIC said all the bank's deposits and about $84.4 million of its assets will be acquired by Bank of Essex, of Tappahannock, Va. Its four branches will reopen Monday as offices of Bank of Essex.

The Office of Thrift Supervision, the federal regulator for the two California thrifts, said they both suffered mounting losses since last year. Downey's business focused on nontraditional, high-risk home mortgages such as payment-option and adjustable-rate loans.

The Treasury Department agency recently boosted the minimum capital requirements for the parent, Downey Financial Corp., as the company struggled with the slumping mortgage market. Downey was hit hard by rising mortgage defaults, especially in its option adjustable-rate mortgage holdings. Option ARMs allow customers to choose a different payment option each month -- including a payment that is smaller than the interest due on the loan.

Option ARMs have been among the worst-performing loans during the downturn in the real estate market.

PFF, established in 1892, had a large concentration of housing construction loans hit hard by the deteriorating real estate market on the West Coast, the thrift agency said.

"The closing of these two thrifts once again demonstrates the tremendous impact of the housing market distress on the state of California," said John Reich, director of the Office of Thrift Supervision, in a statement. This year, four of the five failures of institutions regulated by the agency -- and all the ones of significant size -- had major concentrations in housing finance business in California, he said.

In July, another big savings and loan, IndyMac Bank based in Pasadena, Calif., failed and was seized by regulators with about $32 billion in assets.

The FDIC estimated that the resolution of Downey will cost the federal deposit insurance fund about $1.4 billion, while that of PFF will cost an estimated $700 million.

Regular deposit accounts are now insured up to $250,000 as part of the financial rescue law enacted in early October.

The 22 bank failures so far this year compare with three for all of 2007 and are far more than in the previous five years combined. It's expected that many more banks won't survive the next year of economic tumult. The pressures of tumbling home prices, rising mortgage foreclosures and tighter credit have been battering many banks, large and small, nationwide.

This year's failures also include Seattle-based thrift Washington Mutual Inc. in late September, the biggest bank collapse in U.S. history. It had $307 billion in assets.

The FDIC estimates that through 2013 there will be about $40 billion in losses to the deposit insurance fund, including an $8.9 billion loss from the failure of IndyMac Bank. The FDIC is raising insurance premiums paid by banks and thrifts to replenish its fund, which now stands at around $45.2 billion, below the minimum target level set by Congress and the lowest level since 2003.

On Friday, the FDIC formally approved a program to guarantee as much as $1.4 trillion in U.S. banks' debt for more than three years as part of the government's financial rescue plan. Under the program, meant to thaw the freeze in bank-to-bank lending, the FDIC will provide temporary insurance for loans between banks -- except for those for 30 days or less -- guaranteeing the new debt in the event of payment default by the borrowing bank.

The FDIC also will guarantee deposits in non-interest-bearing "transaction" accounts by removing the current $250,000 insurance limit on them through the end of next year. That could add as much as $500 billion to FDIC-backed deposits.

Well over half of the roughly 8,500 federally insured banks and savings and loans are expected to tap the FDIC's temporary guarantees.

Of the 8,500 federally insured banks and thrifts, the FDIC had 117 on its internal list of troubled institutions as of June 30, a five-year high. The agency doesn't disclose the banks' names.

DIAMOND BAR, Calif. – More residents of Southern California were urged to leave their homes Sunday despite calming winds that allowed a major aerial attack on wildfires that have destroyed hundreds of homes and blanketed the region in smoke.

Fires burned in Los Angeles County, to the east in Riverside and Orange counties, and to the northwest in Santa Barbara County. More than 800 houses, mobile homes and apartments were destroyed by fires that have burned areas more than 34 square miles since breaking out Thursday.

No deaths have been reported, but police brought in trained dogs Sunday morning to search the rubble of a mobile home park where nearly 500 homes were destroyed. They didn't find any bodies after searching about a third of the homes.

"This has been a very tough few days for the people of Southern California," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said after touring damage.

The smell of smoke pervaded metropolitan Los Angeles. Downtown skyscrapers were silhouettes in an opaque sky, and concerns about air quality forced organizers to cancel a marathon in suburban Pasadena where 8,000 runners had planned to participate.

MONTECITO, California (CNN) -- One of three major wildfires burning in southern California appears to be "human caused," a spokesman for the state's fire agency said Sunday.

The remains of a home sit not far from where authorities say the Santa Barbara, California, fire started.

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Investigators have eliminated "all accidental causes" of the fire that has destroyed 210 homes and injured two in Santa Barbara County since Thursday, and arson is suspected, spokesman Doug Lannon said.

"We need the public's help in identifying any activity in or around the afternoon of November 13," Lannon said.

The fire has burned 1,940 acres, including a monastery and several mansions in the Montecito community, where celebrities, including Oprah Winfrey, have homes. It was 75 percent contained Sunday, Lannon said. Watch expensive homes go up in flames »

Authorities believe the fire started in the Tea Garden Estate, a privately owned multi-acre property, about one mile north of Santa Barbara's exclusive Westmont College. On Friday, arson investigators cordoned off the estate after several eyewitnesses told authorities they believed the fire originated in that area, according to Lannon.

The other major fires burning Sunday were in the northern Los Angeles area and in Orange County, east of Los Angeles. The three blazes have scorched 20,000 acres and have forced more than 10,000 people to flee their homes, authorities said.

Authorities on Sunday were searching through the wreckage of nearly 500 mobile homes destroyed Saturday in the northern Los Angeles area blaze, known as the Sayre Fire.

As of early Sunday afternoon, a third of the mobile homes had been searched, and "no human remains have been found," according to Los Angeles Deputy Police Chief Michael Moore.

Police had not received any reports of missing persons from the park. Moore said 134 residents had been accounted for, and that the others should check in with city authorities.

Los Angeles County Coroner Ed Winter said authorities believe "most of the people from this mobile home park were evacuated," and that the search was precautionary.

The Sayre Fire erupted late Friday in the steep terrain of the Angeles National Forest on the outskirts of the Sylmar neighborhood, about 20 miles north of downtown Los Angeles. See images from the Los Angeles County fire »

The Sayre Fire has burned about 9,500 acres in the San Fernando Valley and was about 30 percent contained, California fire officials said Sunday.

Nine other homes and 10 businesses had been destroyed in Los Angeles by Saturday evening, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said.

Firefighters were struggling to contain the third blaze, in Orange County, said Lynette Round, a spokeswoman for Orange County Fire Authority. iReport.com: 'Insurmountable' wall of flames looms

Firefighters were hoping that strong winds in southern California would die down Sunday, helping them to quell the blazes.

"If the winds die down it will give the firefighters an upper hand on fighting this," Round told CNN on Sunday morning. "It is a wind-driven fire and with those gusty winds up to 25 miles an hour, it's giving the firefighters a really difficult time. It's hopscotched throughout the county."

Round said 168 homes were destroyed or damaged in the Orange County area. The so-called Triangle Freeway Complex Fire had also damaged a building at a high school, Round said.

That blaze, which has burnt 10,475 acres, is not contained at all, and is spreading throughout Orange County, posing threats to Yorba Linda, Corona, Brea, Chino Hills and Anaheim Hills neighborhoods, according to California fire officials. Watch residents as fire approaches their homes »

Winds -- which have joined with low humidity and unseasonably high temperatures to help strengthen the fires -- were gusting up to 80 mph Saturday. The high temperature in Los Angeles reached 92 degrees, according to the National Weather Service.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared states of emergency for the affected counties after the fire damaged or destroyed hundreds of homes and closed major freeways.

The move frees up any state resources needed for fire-fighting, and makes the counties eligible for federal assistance grants.

In Los Angeles, Villaraigosa declared a city emergency early Saturday morning and called for the public's cooperation in conserving energy as potential blackouts loomed. iReport.com: Share wildfire photos, video

Augustine Reyes and his family left their home in Sylmar about 2 a.m. Saturday when they could no longer stand the oppressive heat and smoke encroaching from the hills behind their home.

When Reyes returned to survey the scene Saturday afternoon, all that remained were heaps of charred rubble.

Reyes dabbed his eyes with a bandana as he worried over how to describe the loss to his 7-year-old son.

"He's autistic and doesn't do well with change, so this is going to be very hard to explain to him," Reyes said. Watch residents reflect after their homes are burned to the ground »

By Saturday afternoon, people were taking refuge in evacuation shelters set up in three high schools in the area, officials said.

Horses and other large animals were taken to a makeshift shelter in Hansen Dam Park. A mobile kennel was set up at Sylmar High School, and small pets can be taken to the Mission animal shelter.

(CNN) -- Voters will head to the polls Tuesday not only to choose a president, but to decide on a series of proposals that could create major policy changes in their communities for years to come.

Voters in California, Arizona and Florida will weigh in on a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.

"Ballot measures are tremendously important. They're not recommendations; they're actual laws and constitutional amendments that voters pass directly," said Jennie Bowser, senior elections analyst for the National Conference of State Legislatures. "Once the voters say yes, it goes on the books."

Social issues including abortion rights, affirmative action and same-sex marriage dominate this year's list of some 150 ballot measures in 33 states.

Colorado could come close to banning abortion if voters approve a proposal to define person to "include any human being from the moment of fertilization." The term would apply to sections of the Colorado Constitution that protect "natural and essential rights of persons."

In South Dakota, voters will decide whether to allow abortions only in cases of rape and incest. California's Proposition 4 requires physicians to provide parental notification to guardians of minors at least 48 hours before performing an abortion.iReport.com: Watch Prop 8 debate in Utah

Affirmative action measures in Colorado and Nebraska would prohibit state governments from discriminating against or granting preferential treatment to people based on race, ethnicity, color, sex or national origin.

If California's Proposition 8 on same-sex marriage passes, it would overrule a state Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex unions in May. An Arkansas proposal would prohibit unmarried sexual partners from adopting children or serving as foster parents.