California

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.

HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. (AP) — For more than two decades, California’s Orange County has debated whether to build a seaside plant to convert the Pacific Ocean’s salt water into drinking water in hopes of buffering against droughts like the one now gripping the nation’s most populous state.

Now, the $1.4 billion proposal by Poseidon Water faces a critical review Thursday by the California Coastal Commission, which is tasked with protecting California’s scenic shores.

LOS ANGELES, May 7 (Xinhua) -- The United States is set to mark a grim milestone of 1 million coronavirus-related deaths but the COVID-19 pandemic is not done yet, said a report of American media outlet ABC6.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expects to see COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths increase as cases are once again on the rise, said the report.

"We all may be done with COVID, but COVID is not done with us," Dr. Darren Mareiniss of Einstein Medical Center was quoted as saying.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A man who pleaded guilty to a series of Southern California attacks that killed five men and injured seven others was sentenced Friday to life in prison without possibility of parole.

Ramon Escobar, 50, received multiple life sentences after entering guilty pleas to murder with special circumstances and attempted murder. In a Zoom call hearing, he also pleaded guilty to the 2018 killings of his aunt and uncle in Houston, Texas. He received additional life sentences for those slayings but will serve them consecutively in California.

DUBLIN, Calif. (AP) — For months, inmates and staff say, their calls for help were ignored. And in this aging prison of deep despair — a place where sexual abuse has been rampant, authorities acted with utter indifference and the workforce was deeply demoralized — the cries for help had been many and varied.

LOS ANGELES, May 4 (NNN-AGENCIES) – Almost 13 million children in the United States have tested positive for COVID-19, since the onset of the pandemic, according to the latest report by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), and the Children’s Hospital Association.

Over 149,000 of these cases were added in the past four weeks. Over five million reported cases were added in 2022, according to the report published late Monday.

Children represented 19 percent of all COVID-19 cases in the country, the report showed.

LOS ANGELES, April 25 (Xinhua) -- The first U.S. private astronaut mission to the International Space Station (ISS) returned to Earth on Monday.

The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft splashed down off the coast of Jacksonville, in the southeastern U.S. state of Florida, at 1:06 p.m. Monday Eastern Time, SpaceX confirmed.

The crew undocked from the ISS at 9:10 p.m. Sunday Eastern Time, completing the first all-private astronaut mission to the orbiting laboratory.

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (AP) — The next speaker of the U.S. House could very well hail from California — not Nancy Pelosi’s slice of the Golden State, but the other California, Donald Trump’s California.

Rep. Kevin McCarthy is a son of the Central Valley, a farming and oil-pumping heartland that eagerly embraced the former president. A swath of rural conservatism amid California’s progressive politics, it’s where residents often feel ostracized, resented and left behind by their liberal neighbors in San Francisco to the north and Los Angeles to the south.

SAN FRANCISCO, April 21 (Xinhua) -- A shelter-in-place order at UC Berkeley, in the western U.S. state of California, lasting more than four hours as police investigated a "credible campus-wide threat," was lifted Thursday afternoon.

"ALL CLEAR - the situation has been resolved. Thank you for your patience," UC Berkeley police said on Twitter, adding that based on investigation, it was "appropriate to end the shelter in place."

Police said the buildings would remain locked and in-person classes would still be canceled for the rest of the day.