California

LOS ANGELES (AP) — One is spending millions of dollars flooding the airwaves from Los Angeles to Sacramento, highlighting his tenure as mayor of the nation’s largest city and commitment to key Democratic causes. The other has hired 80 staff members to knock on doors, organize volunteers and promote his message of political revolution in at least seven languages.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal bankruptcy judge on Tuesday approved two Pacific Gas & Electric settlements totaling $24.5 billion to help pay the losses suffered by homeowners, businesses and insurers in the aftermath of catastrophic Northern California wildfires that sent the nation’s largest utility into a financial morass.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom has rejected a $13.5 billion settlement that Pacific Gas & Electric struck just last week with thousands of people who lost homes, businesses and family members in a series of devastating fires that drove the nation’s largest utility into bankruptcy.

The decision announced Friday in a five-page letter to PG&E CEO William D. Johnson marks a major setback in the utility’s race to meet a June 30 deadline to emerge from bankruptcy protection.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A group of California congressional members have proposed tighter safety standards for small boats after a diving charter vessel burned and sank in September, killing 34 people.

Only five people — the captain and four crew members — managed to escape after the 75-foot (23-meter) Conception caught fire on Sept. 2 off the Santa Barbara coast, northwest of Los Angeles. The boat burned to the waterline. One crew member was among the dead.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Pacific Gas and Electric says it has reached a $13.5 billion settlement that will resolve all major claims related to devastating wildfires blamed on its outdated equipment and negligence.

The settlement, which the utility says was reached Friday, still requires court approval. PG&E says it is a key step in leading it out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Washington, Dec 4 (PTI) Indian-American Peter Mathews, also a political analyst on CNN television, will be running for Congress.

Mathews, who was born in India and immigrated to the US along with his parents at the age of 10, announced to enter the race for US House of Representatives from 47th Congressional District of California.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - High-tech entrepreneur Elon Musk testified at his defamation trial on Tuesday that his “pedo guy” Twitter message at the center of the case was not meant to be taken literally and was sent in response to an “unprovoked” insult he received from the man now suing him.

Musk, 48, the billionaire chief executive of electric carmaker Tesla Inc and founder of the rocket company SpaceX, also apologized to the plaintiff from the witness stand in the packed Los Angeles courtroom.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The co-founders of Google are stepping down as executives of its parent company, Alphabet, ending a remarkable two decades during which Larry Page and Sergey Brin shaped a startup born in a Silicon Valley garage into one of the largest, most powerful — and, increasingly, most feared — companies in the world.

Sundar Pichai, who has been leading Google as CEO for more than four years, will take on additional duties as Alphabet’s CEO, the position held by Page. The company isn’t filling Brin’s position as president.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Sen. Kamala Harris told supporters on Tuesday that she was ending her bid for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, an abrupt close to a candidacy that held historic potential.

“I’ve taken stock and looked at this from every angle, and over the last few days have come to one of the hardest decisions of my life,” the California Democrat said. “My campaign for president simply doesn’t have the financial resources we need to continue.”

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Racial disparities have narrowed across the U.S. criminal justice system over 16 years, though blacks are still significantly more likely to be behind bars than whites, new federal figures show.

Racial gaps broadly declined in local jails, state prisons, and among people on probation and parole, according to the study released Tuesday by the nonpartisan Council on Criminal Justice.