California

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Recuperating U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California asked Wednesday to be temporarily replaced on the Judiciary Committee, shortly after two House Democrats called on her to resign after her extended absence from Washington.

SAN FRANCISCO, April 11 (Xinhua) -- Boeing Company on Tuesday announced major program deliveries across its commercial and defense operations for the first quarter of 2023.

In commercial airplane programs, Boeing delivered 130 aircraft in the quarter.

In its defense, space and security programs, 39 aircraft and 3 satellites were delivered in the first quarter.

LOS ANGELES, April 11 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. government is launching a program of 5 billion-plus U.S. dollars to accelerate the development of new coronavirus vaccines and treatments, to better guard against current and future COVID variants.

The program, called "Project Next Gen," would allow the government to partner with private-sector companies to expedite the development of vaccines and therapies.

LOS ANGELES, April 7 (Xinhua) -- The largest U.S. maritime trade gateway was effectively shut down on Friday due to a shortage of West Coast port workers as negotiations for a new contract continued between the dockworker union and maritime shippers, sparking concerns about global supply chain disruption.

LOS ANGELES, April 5 (Reuters) - U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy met Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen in California on Wednesday, becoming the most senior U.S. figure to meet a Taiwanese leader on U.S. soil since 1979 despite threats of retaliation from China, which claims self-ruled Taiwan as its own.

McCarthy, a Republican who through his House position is number three in the U.S. leadership hierarchy, welcomed Tsai on Wednesday morning at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, near Los Angeles.

Twitter has removed the verification check mark on the main account of The New York Times, one of CEO Elon Musk’s most despised news organizations.

The removal comes as many of Twitter’s high-profile users are bracing for the loss of the blue check marks that helped verify their identity and distinguish them from impostors on the social media platform.

SAULSALITO, Calif. (AP) — Under intense scrutiny from Washington that could lead to a potential ban, the top attorney for TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance defended the social media platform’s plan to safeguard U.S. user data from China.

March 31 (Reuters) - An immense spring storm emerging from the Western U.S. was expected to form a 1,000-mile (1609 km) front of extreme weather from the Great Lakes to Texas on Friday, spawning blizzards, freezing rain, tornadoes and torrential showers, forecasters said.

Widespread, severe thunderstorms were forecast for Friday afternoon into early Saturday across portions of the middle Mississippi Valley and eastward to the lower Ohio and Tennessee valleys, according to the National Weather Service (NWS).

The chance of tornadoes posed the most noteworthy threat.

SAN DIEGO (AP) — A powerful San Diego County supervisor said he will resign amid accusations that he sexually assaulted a government employee, completing a swift and shocking fall for a decorated Marine combat veteran whose star rose with his Democratic Party’s ascendancy in the nation’s eighth-largest city.

Nathan Fletcher, who defected from the Republican Party in 2012, was elected to a second term on the county board of supervisors with 65% of the vote in November, two years after Democrats won a board majority that eluded their grasp for decades.

LOS ANGELES, March 29 (Xinhua) -- NASA released its climate strategy on Wednesday in an effort to expand agency-wide efforts to counter climate challenges.

The strategy assesses NASA's climate portfolio across the agency for the first time, extending beyond science and exploration efforts to include every mission directorate and NASA facility.