California

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Republican President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign sued the Democratic governor of Montana on Wednesday in an attempt to halt an expansion of mail-in voting in the run up to November’s election.

The lawsuit comes as Trump frequently alleges - without providing evidence - that voting by mail is riddled with fraud, and as a record number of Americans are expected to mail their ballots because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept 2 (NNN-AGENCIES) — President Donald Trump repeated his demand for a piece of the action from any sale of TikTok’s US operations for forcing such a deal.

TikTok has been at the center of a diplomatic storm between Washington and Beijing, and Trump gave Americans a deadline to stop doing business with TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance — effectively compelling a sale of the app to a US company.

“Well, I told them that they have until September 15th to make a deal; after that, we close it up in this country,” Trump told journalists.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A Black man was shot and killed by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies after he was stopped for a traffic violation while riding a bike, then ran from police, punched one officer and then “made a motion” toward a gun on the ground, authorities said.

The Monday afternoon shooting death of Dijon Kizzee in South Los Angeles prompted a peaceful protest hours later. Black Lives Matter marched Tuesday evening from the scene to a sheriff’s precinct station.

HEALDSBURG, Calif. (AP) — With an early harvest already underway, a wildfire a few miles west of John Bucher’s ranch added new urgency to getting his pinot noir grapes off the vine. If flames didn’t do any damage to the delicate fruit, ash and smoke certainly could.

Bucher hired an extra crew, and they finished the task before dawn Wednesday in the quaint wine country destination of Healdsburg, remarkably early in the year for a grape that is often not harvested until the end of September.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California lawmakers are setting up a task force to study and make recommendations for reparations to African Americans, particularly the descendants of slaves, as the nation struggles again with civil rights and unrest following the latest shooting of a Black man by police.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — California wildfires were slowly being corralled Friday as cooler, humid weather and reinforcements aided firefighters and tens of thousands of people were allowed back home after days of death and destruction.

In the past two days, evacuation orders were lifted for at least 50,000 people in the San Francisco Bay Area and wine country, officials with the state fire agency, Cal Fire, said.

In heavily damaged areas, crews were working to restore electricity and water so more people could return to their homes.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — More than 50,000 people forced to flee their homes were allowed to return by Thursday night as firefighters made progress in their effort to put out massive and deadly wildfires in Northern California.

Officials were working on plans to repopulate other evacuated areas. Cooler weather and higher humidity, along with an influx of equipment and firefighters, continued to help hard-pressed crews fighting some of the largest fires in recent state history, burning in and around the San Francisco Bay Area.

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Arson is suspected as the cause of a July 12 fire that left extensive damage to the USS Bonhomme Richard docked off San Diego, and a U.S. Navy sailor was being questioned as a potential suspect, a senior defense official said Wednesday.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Energy on Wednesday said it will provide $625 million over the next five years for five newly formed quantum information research hubs as it tries to keep ahead of competing nations like China on the emerging technology.

The funding is part of $1.2 billion earmarked in the National Quantum Initiative Act in 2018.

SAN DIEGO (AP) — A Trump administration crackdown on nonessential travel coming from Mexico amid the coronavirus pandemic has created massive bottlenecks at the border, with drivers reporting waits of up to 10 hours to get into the U.S.

An employee at a company that provides support for businesses with Mexican operations saw the huge lines Sunday night from his home in Tijuana, Mexico. A U.S. citizen, he lined up at midnight for his 8 a.m. shift Monday in San Diego and still arrived 90 minutes late.