California

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A powerful winter storm lashing California threatened floods, blizzards and avalanches Saturday while adding frigid temperatures to the misery mix.

Overnight lows could drop below freezing in some areas while downtown San Francisco could see record-breaking cold temperatures Saturday morning, according to the National Weather Service. Projected temperatures of 38 degrees Fahrenheit (3 degrees Celsius) would see the city at its coldest since 2009, the weather service said.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — When Miya Iwataki and other Japanese Americans fought in the 1980s for the U.S. government to apologize to the families it imprisoned during World War II, Black politicians and civil rights leaders were integral to the movement.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A coast-to-coast storm that paralyzed roads and blacked out nearly 1 million homes and businesses was set to pound California on Friday, sparking warnings about floods and blizzards.

The National Weather Service warned of a “cold and dangerous winter storm” through Saturday. As much as 5 feet (1.5 meters) of snow could fall in some mountains near Los Angeles, which could create whiteout conditions as winds gust to 75 mph (120 kph) and an increased risk of avalanches, forecasters said.

VANDENBERG SPACE FORCE BASE, Calif. (AP) — An unarmed intercontinental ballistic missile has been launched from California to test the defense system, the U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command said.

The Minuteman III missile lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base at 11:01 p.m. Thursday and its reentry vehicle traveled about 4,200 miles (6,800 kilometers) over the Pacific Ocean to the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, an Air Force statement said.

(AP) --- Elon Musk’s brain-implant company Neuralink is being probed over its shipping methods after an animal rights group contacted the U.S. Department of Transportation, U.S. officials said.

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine said that public records show untrained Neuralink employees transported “contaminated” devices that were removed from the brains of “infected” monkeys without safely packaging them. The incidents are said to have taken place in 2019 at the University of California, Davis, where experiments on rhesus macaques were performed.

Many Twitter users found themselves unable to tweet, follow accounts or access their direct messages on Wednesday as the Elon Musk-owned platform experienced a slew of widespread technical problems.

“Twitter may not be working as expected for some of you. Sorry for the trouble. We’re aware and working to get this fixed,” the company tweeted from its “support” account.

Further details were unavailable Wednesday and an email seeking comment from the company’s press account went unanswered. Twitter has dissolved its media relations team.

LOS ANGELES, Feb 8 (NNN-XINHUA) – More than 36 million trees died in the western U.S. state of California last year, due to the cumulative impacts of extended drought, overstocked forest conditions, insect outbreaks and disease, said a report by the U.S. Forest Service, yesterday.

Feb 4 (Reuters) - A federal law prohibiting marijuana users from possessing firearms is unconstitutional, a federal judge in Oklahoma has concluded, citing last year's U.S. Supreme Court ruling that significantly expanded gun rights.

U.S. District Judge Patrick Wyrick, an appointee of former Republican President Donald Trump in Oklahoma City, on Friday dismissed an indictment against a man charged in August with violating that ban, saying it infringed his right to bear arms under the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment.

GRAYSON, Calif., Feb 4 (Reuters) - When devastating floods swept California last month, the community of Grayson - a town of 1,300 people tucked between almond orchards and dairy farms where the San Joaquin and Tuolumne rivers converge - survived without major damage.

In the minds of some townspeople and experts, that was thanks partly to the 2,100 acres (850 hectares) of former farmland just across the San Joaquin that have been largely restored to a natural floodplain.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The shooting that left four dead at a California mushroom farm on Monday was at least the second time an employee tried to kill a coworker on the property, records show.

Martin Medina, a manager at California Terra Garden, was charged with attempted murder after he threatened to kill another manager and then fired a shot into the man’s trailer. The bullet went through the trailer and into a neighboring one that was home to Yetao Bing, one of the workers killed on Monday, a prosecutor told The Associated Press. No one was injured.