USA

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California lawmakers on Monday passed a $300 billion operating budget over the objections of Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, highlighting disagreements among Democrats about how to spend a record-breaking surplus that, by itself, is more than most other states spend in a year.

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — The Western U.S. on Monday marked another day of hot, dry and windy weather as crews from California to New Mexico battled wildfires that had forced hundreds of people to leave their homes.

Roughly 2,500 homes have been evacuated because of two wildfires burning on the outskirts of Flagstaff in northern Arizona, officials said at an afternoon briefing.

WASHINGTON (AP) — South Korea’s top diplomat said Monday that North Korea has completed preparations for a new nuclear test and that only a political decision by the country’s top leadership can prevent it from going forward.

After talks with Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Washington, South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin said the North would pay a price if it goes ahead, as feared, with what would be its seventh nuclear test in the coming days.

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Four Republican candidates for New York governor faced off Monday in their first televised debate, trying to bruise each other — and Democrats — with two weeks to go until the state’s primary election.

Some of the sharpest exchanges of the night came between U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin and businessman Harry Wilson, who has said he didn’t vote for Donald Trump in 2020.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The outline of a bipartisan Senate agreement to rein in gun violence has no game-changing steps banning the deadliest firearms. It does propose measured provisions making it harder for some young gun buyers, or people considered threatening, to have weapons.

And there are meaningful efforts to address mental health and school safety concerns. It all reflects election-year pressure to act both parties feel after mass shootings in May killed 10 people in Buffalo, New York, and 21 more in Uvalde, Texas.

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — A torrent of rain combined with a rapidly melting snowpack caused a deluge of flooding that forced the evacuation of some parts of Yellowstone National Park, cutting off electricity and forcing Yellowstone officials to close all entrances indefinitely, just as the summer tourist season was ramping up.

CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — Two Republican U.S. House incumbents in South Carolina who have drawn the ire of former President Donald Trump now find themselves facing tough primary challenges on Tuesday from candidates he has endorsed.

Reps. Nancy Mace and Tom Rice criticized Trump after the Jan. 6 insurrection, with Rice among the 10 House Republicans who crossed party lines to vote to impeach him.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump’s closest campaign advisers, top government officials and even his family were dismantling his false claims of 2020 election fraud ahead of Jan. 6, but the defeated president seemed “detached from reality” and kept clinging to outlandish theories to stay in power, the committee investigating the Capitol attack was told Monday.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is lifting its requirement that international travelers test negative for COVID-19 within a day before boarding a flight to the United States, ending one of the last remaining government mandates designed to contain the spread of the coronavirus.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Friday that the requirement will end early Sunday morning. The health agency said it will continue to monitor state of the pandemic and will reassess the need for a testing requirement if the situation changes.

NEW YORK (AP) — The New York attorney general’s lawsuit against the National Rifle Association is no mere “witch hunt,” a New York judge ruled Friday in dismissing the gun rights advocacy group’s claims that the case is a political vendetta.

Manhattan Judge Joel M. Cohen’s decision means the nearly 2-year-long legal fight can continue.

The ruling comes after mass shootings last month in New York and Texas reanimated debate over U.S. gun policy and refocused attention on the NRA.