California

LAGUNA WOODS, Calif. (AP) — When a gunman began shooting at a Taiwanese American church luncheon, Shoei Su said he froze.

The retired appraiser uses a walker and said he and many of the elderly congregants didn’t immediately know what was happening. He said the shooter said nothing before firing on churchgoers who were snapping photos after finishing lunch following last Sunday morning’s prayer service.

SAN FRANCISCO, May 20 (Xinhua) -- Students at public schools in Berkeley, in the western U.S. state of California, will be required to wear masks in indoor spaces starting Monday through the school year which ends June 3, as COVID-19 cases surge in the community, according to an announcement Friday from Berkeley Unified School District officials.

LOS ANGELES, May 20 (Xinhua) -- From the climbing rope found with the remains of British mountaineer George Mallory, who took part in the first British expeditions to Mount Everest in the early 1920s, to one of the first oxygen sets ever employed in high-altitude climbing, an exhibition being held in Bowers Museum in U.S. Southern California takes visitors on an epic journey to Mount Everest.

LOS ANGELES, May 18 (NNN-AGENCIES) – The U.S. death toll from COVID-19 has hit one million, less than three years into the pandemic, and the number is equivalent to a 9/11 attack every day, for 336 days, said a report by the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).

The confirmed number of dead is roughly equal to how many Americans died in the Civil War and World War II combined. It is as if Boston and Pittsburgh were wiped out, said the report.

LOS ANGELES, May 18 (Xinhua) -- California's gas prices hit a new record high on Tuesday, with a gallon of self-serve regular gasoline costing 6.021 U.S. dollars on average.

It's the first time in history that the average price of regular gas in California surpassed 6 dollars a gallon, according to American Automobile Association (AAA). The state's latest gas price is up sharply from 4.13 dollars a year ago, and 5.84 dollars only a week ago.

SAN JOSE, May 16 (Reuters) - The number of Costa Rican institutions hit in a wave of cyber attacks in the past month has grown to 27, President Rodrigo Chaves said on Monday, in one of the earliest challenges to face the new leader during his first month in office.

He added that nine of the institutions struck, mostly government agencies, are considered "very affected."

LAGUNA WOODS, Calif. (AP) — A gunman motivated by political hatred against Taiwan chained shut the doors of a California church and hid firebombs inside before shooting at a gathering of mostly elderly Taiwanese parishioners, killing a man who tackled him and possibly saved dozens of lives, authorities said Monday.

LAGUNA WOODS, Calif. (AP) — A man opened fire during a lunch reception at a Southern California church on Sunday, killing one person and wounding five senior citizens before being stopped and hog-tied by parishioners in what a sheriff’s official called an act of “exceptional heroism and bravery.”

Four of the five people wounded suffered critical gunshot injuries during the violence at Geneva Presbyterian Church in the city of Laguna Woods, Orange County Sheriff’s Department officials said.

VANDENBERG SPACE FORCE BASE, Calif. (AP) — A SpaceX rocket carried 53 satellites for the Starlink internet constellation into orbit Friday after blasting off from California.

The Falcon 9 booster lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base at 3:07 p.m., and minutes later the first stage landed on a droneship in the Pacific Ocean while the second stage continued toward low Earth orbit.

SpaceX later tweeted that the satellites were successfully deployed.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom will likely announce another record-breaking budget surplus on Friday, giving him and state lawmakers lots of money to spend in a year the governor is expected to cruise to reelection for a second term.

The surplus in California’s general fund could be as high as $68 billion, up from the initial $29.6 billion surplus Newsom announced in January.

“Our revenues are up significantly above January,” said Keely Martin Bosler, director of the California Department of Finance.