President Joe Biden ordered emergency measures Monday to increase U.S. manufacturing of solar panels and declared a two-year tariff exemption on panels from Southeast Asia as he attempted to jumpstart an industry key to his climate change-fighting goals. His invoking of the Defense Production Act and other executive actions comes amid...
Lemoore Navy Pilot Killed in Desert Crash Is Identified
The Navy has made public the identity of a pilot killed in the crash of a fighter jet in the Southern California desert last week. Lt. Richard Bullock was killed Friday afternoon when his F/A-18E Super Hornet went down in the vicinity of the small Mojave Desert community of...
Will California Buy Out Farmers to Save Water? Lawmakers Mull the Possibility
SACRAMENTO— After decades of fighting farmers in court over how much water they can take out of California's rivers and streams, some state lawmakers want to try something different: use taxpayer money to buy out farmers. A proposal in the state Senate would spend up to $1.5 billion to...
100 Speeches in 100 days of War: Zelenskyy Rallies Ukraine
As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy tells it, when Russia invaded 100 days ago, no one expected his country to survive. World leaders advised him to flee. “But they didn’t know us,” he said in a late-night video address in April when the war hit its 50th day. “And they didn’t...
Poll Details Rift Between Lay Catholics and Bishops in U.S.
The hardline stances of many conservative Catholic bishops in the U.S. are not shared by a majority of lay Catholics. Most of them say abortion should be legal, favor greater inclusion of LGBT people, and oppose the denial of Communion for politicians who support abortion rights, according to a...
EXPLAINER: At 100 Days, Russia-Ukraine War by the Numbers
One hundred days into Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the war has brought the world a near-daily drumbeat of gut wrenching scenes: Civilian corpses in the streets of Bucha; a blown-up theater in Mariupol; the chaos at a Kramatorsk train station in the wake of a Russian missile strike. Those images tell just...
First Driverless Ride Hailing Service in California Set to Begin Despite Safety Concerns
California regulators on Thursday gave a robotic taxi service the green light to begin charging passengers for driverless rides in San Francisco, a first in a state where dozens of companies have been trying to train vehicles to steer themselves on increasingly congested roads. The California Public Utilities Commission...
Progressive DA Faces Ouster in Heated San Francisco Recall Election
San Francisco’s progressive district attorney, elected on a platform of reducing incarceration, faces a recall election driven by a pandemic in which brutal attacks against Asian seniors and viral footage of smash-and-grab robberies tested residents’ famously liberal political bent. Recall proponents say Chesa Boudin is inexperienced and ideologically inflexible,...
Pledge of More Oil Heightens Odds of Saudi Trip for Biden
The Biden administration praised Saudi Arabia Thursday for its roles securing an OPEC+ pledge to pump more oil and a cease-fire extension in Yemen — warm words that appeared to boost the prospect of President Joe Biden traveling to Saudi Arabia and meeting with the kingdom's once-shunned crown prince....
Top California Appeals Judge Out After History of Lengthy Case Delays
The presiding justice of the California appeals court in Sacramento has retired as part of a punishment announced Wednesday for delays in deciding 200 cases over a decade that cost litigants money and some criminal defendants their freedom. Justice Vance Raye agreed to step down from the Third District...