California

May 21 (Reuters) - An earthquake measuring 5.5 magnitude struck off the northern California shore on Sunday, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), causing no reported damage or injuries.

The USGS said the quake occurred at a depth of 10km (6 miles) and took place 108 km (67 miles) west of Petrolia, a community of about 1,000 people in rural Humboldt County.

A handful of other towns in the sparsely populated region of northern California also reported feeling light shaking, according to the USGS.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — At least 19 inmates were left with minor injuries after a car ran a red light and crashed into a bus Friday morning in downtown Sacramento, authorities said.

The car crashed a few blocks away from Sacramento County Main Jail, the Sacramento Fire Department said in a tweet showing damage to a white bus.

Fire officials said there were 23 inmates on board and three were taken to the hospital, KCRA-TV reported. None of the injuries were considered life-threatening, officials said.

May 17 (Reuters) - The swift growth of artificial intelligence technology could put the future of humanity at risk, according to most Americans surveyed in a Reuters/Ipsos poll published on Wednesday.

More than two-thirds of Americans are concerned about the negative effects of AI and 61% believe it could threaten civilization.

LOS ANGELES, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Black population in the United States experienced more than 1.63 million excess deaths and more than 80 million excess years of life lost, when compared with the White population over the last two decades, according to a new study published on Tuesday.

After a period of progress in reducing disparities, improvements stalled, and differences between the Black population and the White population worsened in 2020, according to the study published in the medical journal JAMA.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — San Francisco resident Pia Harris hopes for reparations in her lifetime. But the nonprofit program director is not confident that California lawmakers will turn the recommendations of a first-in-the-nation task force into concrete legislation given pushback from opponents who say slavery was a thing of the past.

LOS ANGELES, May 15 (Xinhua) -- The United States has launched a first-in-human clinical trial of an experimental oral drug for removing radioactive contaminants from inside the body, the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) said on Monday.

The trial is testing the safety, tolerability and processing in the body of escalating doses of the investigational drug product HOPO 14-1 in healthy adults.

The clinical trial is taking place at a site in Plymouth, Michigan. The study team will enroll 42 healthy participants ages 18 to 65 years in seven groups of six.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California’s budget deficit has soared to nearly $32 billion, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Friday as he announced a plan that would cover the shortfall this year while potentially leaving the state with multibillion-dollar deficits in the future.

08 May 2023; AA: Twitter is in the process of removing old accounts that have sat idle for multiple years, owner Elon Musk said Monday.

"We’re purging accounts that have had no activity at all for several years, so you will probably see follower count drop," he tweeted.

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — California’s reparations task force is set to wrap up its first-in-the-nation work Saturday, voting on recommendations for a formal apology for the state’s role in perpetuating a legacy of slavery and discrimination that has thwarted Black residents from living freely for decades.

The nine-member committee, which first convened nearly two years ago, is expected to give final approval at a meeting in Oakland to a hefty list of ambitious proposals that will then be in the hands of state lawmakers.

LOS ANGELES, May 2 (NNN-XINHUA) – Three people were killed, after a small plane crashed yesterday afternoon, in the area of Big Bear City in southern California, authorities said.

Firefighters were called to an aircraft down in a vacant lot, at around 2:02 p.m. local time (22:02 GMT), according to the Big Bear Fire Department.

Crews arrived on the scene in about three minutes, said the department in a Facebook post.