California

QUINCY, Calif. (AP) — Thousands of homes in Northern California remain threatened by the nation’s largest wildfire as unstable weather creates a high danger of new blazes erupting across the West.

Weekend thunderstorms across the northern Sierra didn’t produce much rain, instead whipping up winds and unleashing lightning strikes that that bedeviled the more than 6,000 firefighters trying to contain the month-old Dixie Fire amid temperatures forecast to top 100 degrees (38 Celsius).

QUINCY, Calif. (AP) — The danger of new fires erupting across the West because of unstable weather conditions added to the burden already faced by overstretched crews battling blazes across the region.

Thunderstorms pushed flames in Northern California on Saturday closer to two towns not far from where the Dixie Fire last week destroyed much of the small town of Greenville, a gold rush-era community.

WESTWOOD, Calif. (AP) — A month-old wildfire burning through forestlands in Northern California lurched toward a small lumber town as blazes across the U.S. Western states strained resources and threatened thousands of homes with destruction.

Crews were cutting back brush and using bulldozers to build lines to keep the Dixie Fire from reaching Westwood east of Lake Almanor, not far from where the lightning-caused blaze destroyed much of the town of Greenville last week.

GREENVILLE, Calif. (AP) — California’s largest single wildfire in recorded history kept pushing through forestlands on Tuesday as fire crews tried to protect rural communities from flames that have destroyed hundreds of homes.

Clear skies over parts of the month-old Dixie Fire have allowed aircraft to rejoin nearly 6,000 firefighters in the attack this week.

“Whether or not we can fly depends very much on where the smoke is. There’s still some areas where it’s just too smoky,” fire spokesman Edwin Zuniga said.

GREENVILLE, Calif. (AP) — After four years of homelessness, Kesia Studebaker thought she finally landed on her feet when she found a job cooking in a diner and moved into a house in the small community of Greenville.

She had been renting for three months and hoped the stability would help her win back custody of her 14-year-old daughter. But in just one night, a raging wildfire tore through the mountain town and “took it all away,” she said.

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Since President Joe Biden asked the Pentagon last week to look at adding the COVID-19 vaccine to the military’s mandatory shots, former Army lawyer Greg T. Rinckey has fielded a deluge of calls.

His firm, Tully Rinckey, has heard from hundreds of soldiers, Marines and sailors wanting to know their rights and whether they could take any legal action if ordered to get inoculated for the coronavirus.

GREENVILLE, Calif. (AP) — Eva Gorman says the little California mountain town of Greenville was a place of community and strong character, the kind of place where neighbors volunteered to move furniture, colorful baskets of flowers brightened Main Street, and writers, musicians, mechanics and chicken farmers mingled.

Now, it’s ashes.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Four Republicans hoping to claim Gov. Gavin Newsom’s job in a September recall election skirmished in their first debate Wednesday, labeling the incumbent Democrat a failure whose pandemic policies sent the state into a tailspin while housing costs soared on his watch.

Each of the candidates — John Cox, Kevin Faulconer, Kevin Kiley and Doug Ose — made early moves to distinguish themselves from their rivals while heaping criticism on Newsom.

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 3 (Xinhua) -- Starting from Tuesday, U.S. San Francisco Bay Area residents are once again required to wear masks for all in public indoor settings, regardless of vaccination status, to help stem transmission of the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus.

Health officers for seven of the nine counties in the region -- Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Sonoma, and the city of Berkeley announced the restriction on Monday.

SAN DIEGO (AP) — The number of children traveling alone who were picked up at the Mexican border by U.S. immigration authorities likely hit an all-time high in July, and the number of people who came in families likely reached its second-highest total on record, a U.S. official said Monday, citing preliminary government figures.

The sharp increases from June were striking because crossings usually slow during stifling — and sometimes fatal — summer heat.