Category Archives: California

Judge rebuffs Trump DoJ’s bid to force California to set aside 20,000 ballots

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Justice department had demanded state segregate and not count ballots from people it claimed were non-citizens

A federal judge declined to order California election officials to segregate and not count ballots from people the Trump administration claimed were non-citizens, rebuffing a legally thin request from the justice department that appeared designed to cast doubt over the results of the midterms.

The ruling from US district judge David Carter, nominated to the federal bench by Bill Clinton, comes about two weeks after the justice department delivered a USB drive to election officials in Los Angeles and Sacramento that it said contained the names of 20,000 non-citizens on the state’s voter rolls. There are more than 23 million registered voters in California and non-citizen voting is extremely rare.

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Court blocks bid by Trump DoJ to stop California from counting mail-in ballots

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Newsom accuses Trump of ‘assault on democracy’ as DoJ claims 20,000 registered voters in state are non-citizens

A US federal appeals court rejected the Trump administration’s move to block California from counting the ballots of 20,000 registered voters that the justice department claims are non-citizens.

The court on Monday ruled 2-1 against Donald ⁠Trump’s ​justice department in the dispute, denying the administration’s demand that election officials segregate the thousands of ballots until people on the list could verify their citizenship. The justice department had given the California secretary of state 48-hours to carry out the order, which state election officials refused – leading to the lawsuit.

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Meta strikes deal with Zuckerberg to help him foot billionaire tax bill

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Chief executive agrees to remain in California for eight years even if the state brings in a one-off wealth tax

Meta has struck a deal with Mark Zuckerberg to help him foot a possible California wealth tax targeting billionaires.

The social media company behind Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp revealed on Wednesday night that the arrangement would keep its chief executive living in California, where Meta’s headquarters are located.

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Black bear breaks into California library to raid snacks and eat jar of honey

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Bear wandered into Mono county free libraries branch ahead of opening, snacking before wandering new releases

A California library on Wednesday had a visitor worthy of a story book on the 100th anniversary of Winnie-the-Pooh: a black bear that wandered inside, reportedly raided the snacks and helped itself to a jar of honey.

On Wednesday, a black bear walked into the Mammoth Lakes branch of the Mono county free libraries at about 6.10am, more than four hours ahead of its 10am opening time, the library director, Josef Bopp, told local news outlet KMPH.

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California faces more extreme weather as hot, windy days raise wildfire risk

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Warnings come as Californians have already in autumn felt brutal heatwave and storm surge that battered coast

Communities across California are bracing for more dangerous weather this week, with strong winds and high temperatures that could set the stage for rapid wildfire growth over the next several days.

“A moderate to strong Santa Ana wind will bring widespread strong winds and critical fire weather conditions to much of south-west California through Saturday,” the National Weather Service said in a forecast issued on Thursday.

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US winter is likely to be wetter and warmer, forecasters say, with more snow in the south

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El Niño will likely shift weather patterns to bring more rain, but much snow still isn’t forecast for the northern sates

Winter in the United States looks like it will generally be wetter and warmer, but not necessarily snowier, according to the federal government’s seasonal outlook and other meteorologists’ forecasts. You can thank or blame El Niño.

El Niño is likely to shift weather patterns to bring more moisture, but with it higher temperatures. That should help erase persistent western drought, but it is unlikely to make northern snow-lovers happy, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) said on Thursday.

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Intense waves and floods batter California waterfront homes and boardwalks

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Boardwalk destroyed in Long Beach and homes damaged, while Baja California in Mexico and Las Vegas also affected

Southern California coastal communities are picking up the pieces after a weekend of extreme weather brought flooding that overtook city streets and intense waves battered beachside homes.

The remnants of Tropical Storm Rachel hit Mexico’s Baja California over the weekend as well as southern California and Las Vegas. While meteorologists noted that Rachel weakened into a post-tropical cyclone as it approached California, it still left a trail of destruction.

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Thousands without power in Florida and Alabama as Isaias moves north

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At least four deaths linked to storm amid warnings of flash flooding that could stretch into Appalachians

As what was left of Hurricane Isaias moved north on Sunday, bringing moderate to heavy rainfall across the central Appalachians and the mid-Atlantic region, nearly 396,000 customers across the Florida Panhandle and southern Alabama remained without power.

Heavy rainfall associated with the storm could bring isolated flash flooding and strong wind gusts and remain a threat across the south-eastern US, especially near the southern Appalachians, according to the National Weather Service (NWS). That could bring scattered power outages and downed trees and power lines. Life-threatening surf and rip current conditions were expected to continue along the Gulf and south-eastern Atlantic coasts.

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California woman arrested and accused of spying on Taiwan president’s son for China

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The FBI ⁠arrested Wanying Zhang, also known as Heather, at Los Angeles International Airport before she left for China, the agency said

US authorities arrested a California ⁠woman on ​Sunday, accusing her of spying on the son of Taiwan’s president at the behest of Chinese officials, the FBI said.

The FBI ⁠arrested Wanying Zhang, also known as Heather, at Los Angeles International Airport on Sunday before her planned departure to China, the agency said in a ⁠statement. Authorities charged Zhang, 34, of Irvine, California, with acting as an unregistered foreign agent.

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Police search for additional victims as two bodies discovered in California

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Officials investigating missing persons case find bodies in remote area of Lancaster, north of Los Angeles

Law enforcement officials are looking for additional victims after two bodies were found on Tuesday in a remote area of Lancaster, California, a small city about 70 miles north of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Authorities found the bodies in a shallow grave while they were investigating a missing persons case, according to KTLA. Outside of the sheriff’s department investigating the discovery of the remains as a homicide, little is known about the two people who were found in the shallow grave.

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Gavin Newsom signs laws to protect California workers from AI threat

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Democratic governor sharply critical of Donald Trump for not passing comprehensive federal AI regulations

Governor Gavin Newsom signed laws Wednesday aimed at protecting California workers from the threats of artificial intelligence , including potential job losses and workplace surveillance.

The laws ban employers from using the technology to predict a worker’s emotional state by using their biometric data, require employers to send written notices to workers if AI is responsible for mass layoffs and ban employers from relying on AI to decide to fire someone.

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California rushes to prepare for massive ‘Kelvin’ wave and predicted sea level rise

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Wave nearing southern California expected to reach San Francisco Bay Area by October as it crawls toward Alaska

Communities across California are rushing to prepare for the imminent arrival of the so-called “Kelvin wave”, a massive underwater band of warm water threatening to inundate swaths of the vast North American shoreline.

The wave is nearing southern California and expected to reach the San Francisco Bay Area by early October, as it crawls toward Alaska. Waters could rise by a foot along the California coast, according to scientists, who have warned that this could dramatically double the 8-12in rise in sea levels already caused by climate change over the last century.

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‘Cute but unbearable’ freeloading bear discovered in another LA crawlspace

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‘Yellow 2120’ has been driven out of other Altadena neighborhood crawlspaces but he just keeps coming back

He’s back: the 550lb bear made famous after he took up residence under an Altadena home in November 2025 is wandering the Los Angeles neighborhood again after he moved in and out of the crawlspace of another home.

“Yellow 2120”, as the black bear has been tagged, was spotted in the crawlspace of a home on Minoru Drive on Monday.

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In-laws arrested on suspicion of murder after New York Times engineer shot dead in California

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Police arrest couple in their 70s after Jonathan McKinsey, 40, found dead in park in Bay Area city of Dublin

A married couple in their 70s have been arrested for allegedly shooting and killing their son-in-law, a New York Times engineer, in broad daylight at a suburban Bay Area park.

A police officer found Jonathan McKinsey, 40, lying on the ground with multiple gunshot wounds in a park in Dublin, California, a small city about 35 miles (56.3km) east of San Francisco. Around the time the officer discovered him, 911 calls began pouring in from witnesses reporting the shooting.

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In historic first, tropical turtles spotted nesting on California beaches

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What caused the turtles to begin nesting farther north than usual is the ‘million dollar question’

A sea turtle crawled out of the surf in southern California last weekend around sunset and started laying eggs in the sand.

People on Huntington Beach who saw the female olive ridley sea turtle were shocked and excited. And they weren’t the only ones freaking out, said Justin Viezbicke, the California stranding coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (Noaa).

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US supreme court declines to intervene in custody fight over baby born via surrogate

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Surrogate who rejected abortion request had asked justices to halt court order recognizing LA couple as legal parents

The supreme court has refused to get involved with a custody dispute between an Alaska surrogate and a California couple whose child was born with a rare and serious heart defect.

On Tuesday, Justice Elena Kagan denied an emergency request from McKenna West, an Alaska nurse and surrogate who had asked the US’s highest court to halt a California court order recognizing the couple, Omar Ahmed and Nausheen Gilkar, as the boy’s legal parents.

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California and New York sue over Trump push to halt wind energy projects

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US officials have begun to buy back wind leases as president seek to block renewables in favor of fossil fuels

Democratic attorneys general from California and New York have sued the Trump administration over its plans to buy back offshore wind leases as Donald Trump seeks to discourage the expansion of wind energy in favor of fossil fuels.

California attorney general Rob Bonta said he was suing over removal of a project off his state’s coast planned by Chicago-based Invenergy. The Trump administration said in June it was buying back the company’s US offshore wind leases for four wind projects on the east and west coasts.

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Death of 27-year-old Presley Gerber being investigated as suspected overdose

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Son of supermodel Cindy Crawford and entrepreneur Rande Gerber died at a rehabilitation facility

The death on Sunday of Presley Gerber, the 27-year-old son of supermodel Cindy Crawford and entrepreneur Rande Gerber, is being investigated as a suspected overdose, according to police.

Gerber died at a rehabilitation facility, Los Angeles county medical examiner records show. An autopsy was performed, but more testing was required before investigators could give a cause of death for Gerber, which the medical examiner did not immediately do.

The Associated Press contributed

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British Columbia sues OpenAI and Sam Altman over Tumbler Ridge mass school shooting

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Canadian province alleges deadly attack could have been prevented if company had warned police of shooter’s ChatGPT use

British Columbia has sued OpenAI in California, saying a mass shooting at a school in the province could have been prevented if the company had warned local ⁠law enforcement that the shooter ⁠had used ChatGPT to ​plan the massacre.

The lawsuit filed in San Francisco federal court on Monday names OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, as defendants. It is seeking damages to fund recovery efforts in the province after the February attack, as well as an order directing changes to the way the company handles ChatGPT conversations that could lead to violence.

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Charges dropped against Stanford students over pro-Palestine protest

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Students faced prison terms and thousands of dollars in restitution over campus protest against Israel’s war on Gaza

Five Stanford University students who faced prison sentences and thousands of dollars in restitution in connection to a campus protest against Israel’s war on Gaza had all charges dropped on Monday.

The students also had their restitution severely reduced, ending a two-year legal saga that also saw the lead prosecutor in the case removed by the court.

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