WASHINGTON — Democrat Adam Schiff stood on the Senate floor almost five years ago as a House impeachment manager and made a passionate case that Donald Trump should be removed from office for abusing the power of the presidency. "If right doesn't matter, we're lost," he told the senators, his...
Did UC Merced Students Tip the US House Election for Democrat Adam Gray?
Did students at UC Merced help flip a San Joaquin Valley Congressional district? The Merced FOCUS reviewed election numbers from Congressional District 13, and the results show the precinct that contains UC Merced pulled in 337 more votes for Gray than Duarte. That is a larger margin than the 187 votes which...
Bookstore Staffers Receive Holiday Bonuses From Author James Patterson
NEW YORK — Staffers at Thank You Books in Birmingham, Alabama, San Francisco's City Lights Books and The Nook in Cedar Falls, Iowa, are among 600 booksellers receiving $500 holiday bonuses from James Patterson, the bestselling novelist who has been awarding independent store employees since 2015. "Booksellers save lives. Period,"...
Trump Calls Trudeau the ‘Governor’ of ‘The Great State of Canada’
OTTAWA, Ontario — President-elect Donald Trump mocked Canada’s prime minister in a post late Monday that described him as “Governor Justin Trudeau of the Great State of Canada.” The social media post also cited a surprise dinner between the two leaders at Mar-a-Lago over the Thanksgiving weekend and called it...
Taiwan Says China Has Deployed Largest Fleet of Ships in Decades
Taiwan said Tuesday that China was conducting its largest maritime operations in nearly three decades, sending nearly 90 naval and coast guard vessels into waters stretching from the southern Japanese islands to the South China Sea. Taiwanese defense officials said the scope of the deployment suggested that China was not...
Californians Send Loud Message: The State Is a Mess
Pundits and academics who have parsed the data of Donald Trump's presidential victory five weeks ago differ on the fine points but generally agree that it reflected voters' widespread unhappiness with the status quo, particularly their personal finances and inflation. Living costs jumped about 20% under the Biden administration. While...
City of Fresno’s White-Collar Employees Say They’re Ready to Strike
After more than a year of trying to negotiate a new contract, the city of Fresno's Professional Employees Association warned City Hall its members are preparing to strike. The union of city engineers, architects, paralegals, and department supervisors says the city has stopped negotiating. They want a 3% raise, changes...
Man Is Charged With Burning American Flag During Washington Protest Over Netanyahu Visit
WASHINGTON — Federal authorities have charged a man with burning an American flag in the nation’s capital during protests against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress in July. Michael Snow Jr., 24, of Durham, North Carolina, is charged with destruction of federal property over the burning of the...
OpenAI Releases AI Video Generator Sora but Limits How It Depicts People
SAN FRANCISCO — OpenAI has publicly released its new artificial intelligence video generator Sora but the company won't let most users depict people as it monitors for patterns of misuse. Users of a premium version of OpenAI's flagship product ChatGPT can now use Sora to instantly create AI-generated videos based...
Justice Department Ignored Some Policies When Seizing Reporters’ Phone Records, Watchdog Finds
WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors sidestepped some Justice Department rules when they seized the phone records of reporters as part of media leak investigations during the Trump administration, according to a new watchdog report being released as the aggressive practice of hunting for journalists' sources could again be resurrected. The report...