California

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 13 (Xinhua) -- Smoke still billowed upward in many parts of Maui, the second largest in the chain of islands which make up the state of Hawaii, and Friday's night sky glowed in places where flames leap up from the landscape like the tongues of fire over a funeral pyre.

Five days after the devastating hurricane-driven wildfires dubbed Lahaina, Pulehu and Upcountry Maui Fires, 93 people have been confirmed dead as of Saturday, according to the Maui County.

DEADLIEST WILDFIRES IN MODERN U.S.

SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — A Southern California judge accused of killing his wife texted his court clerk and bailiff afterward to say he had shot her, prosecutors said Friday as they charged him with murder and sought new bail conditions.

A court filing from prosecutors says Orange County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Ferguson texted: “I just lost it. I just shot my wife. I won’t be in tomorrow. I will be in custody. I’m so sorry.”

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 9 (Xinhua) -- Two trade groups in the United States have expressed their support for TikTok and its creators in their legal battle to prevent the state of Montana from banning the popular social media platform.

NetChoice, a national trade association that includes major tech platforms, and Chamber of Progress, a tech-industry coalition, filed a friend-of-the-court brief, or Brief of Amici Curiae, in support of TikTok late Monday, said a release by NetChoice on Tuesday.

SAN DIEGO (AP) — The mother of a U.S. Navy sailor charged with providing sensitive military information to China encouraged him to cooperate with a Chinese intelligence officer, telling her son it might help him get a job with the Chinese government someday, the prosecution said Tuesday.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Fred Sheppard made the accusation at a hearing in federal court in San Diego in urging the judge not to release Jinchao Wei, who was arrested last week on a rarely used espionage charge.

LOS ANGELES, Aug 8 (NNN-AGENCIES) — City of Los Angeles workers are joining the hotel employees, Hollywood actors and TV and movie writers who have walked off their jobs this summer.

Thousands of them plan to strike Tuesday, potentially grinding municipal operations to a halt for 24 hours and adding to the flurry of organized labor activity across the city and country.

CABAZON, Calif. (AP) — Two firefighting helicopters collided while responding to a blaze in Southern California, sending one to the ground in a crash that killed all three people on board.

“Unfortunately, the second helicopter crashed and tragically all three members perished, which included one Cal Fire Division chief, one Cal Fire captain and one contract client pilot,” Cal Fire Southern Region Chief David Fulcher told a news conference early Monday.

Fulcher did not identify the victims.

MOJAVE NATIONAL PRESERVE, Calif. (AP) — Firefighters aided by rain fought to contain a massive blaze that swept through the California desert into Nevada and could threaten the region’s famous spiky Joshua trees.

The York Fire that erupted last Friday was California’s largest wildfire this year. As of Tuesday night it had burned through more than 125 square miles (323.7 square kilometers) of land but showed little growth during the day and was 23% contained, fire officials said.

July 30 (Reuters) - A giant, glowing X marks the San Francisco spot where Elon Musk says he plans to keep his company, the messaging platform X, formerly known as Twitter. But city officials and some residents are unhappy with the display.

On Friday, the company erected an "X" logo on the roof of its Market Street headquarters, to the chagrin of neighbors who complained about intrusive lights, and San Francisco's Department of Building Inspection which said it is investigating the structure.

SAN FRANCISCO, July 26 (Xinhua) -- The Boeing Company on Wednesday reported revenue of 19.75 billion U.S. dollars for the second quarter of 2023, an 18 percent increase compared to the same period of 2022.

The company reported its GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) loss per share at 0.25 dollars and core loss per share (non-GAAP) at 0.82 dollars, mainly driven by lower defense margins.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Elon Musk may want to send “tweet” back to the birds, but the ubiquitous term for posting on the site he now calls X is here to stay — at least for now.

For one, the word is still plastered all over the site formerly known as Twitter. Write a post, you still need to press a blue button that says “tweet” to publish it. To repost it, you still tap “retweet.”

But it’s more than that.