AP

Who gets to be first in line for a COVID-19 vaccine? U.S. health authorities hope by late next month to have some draft guidance on how to ration initial doses, but it’s a vexing decision.

Despite fears that the coronavirus pandemic will worsen, Victor Gibson said he’s not planning to take advantage of Michigan’s expanded vote-by-mail system when he casts his ballot in November.

Protests took a violent turn in several U.S. cities over the weekend, with demonstrators squaring off against federal agents outside a courthouse in Portland, Oregon, forcing police in Seattle to retreat into a station house and setting fire to vehicles in California and Virginia.

If President Donald Trump succeeds in getting immigrants in the country illegally excluded from being counted in the redrawing of U.S. House districts, California, Florida and Texas would end up with one less congressional seat each than if every resident were counted, according to an analysis by a think tank.

China ordered the United States on Friday to close its consulate in the western city of Chengdu, ratcheting up a diplomatic conflict at a time when relations have sunk to their lowest level in decades.

A wildfire in rural central California grew larger but firefighters also increased containment, authorities said Sunday.

Low humidity and hot temperatures have raised fire danger in large portions of the state.

Most of California’s 6.7 million schoolkids will be learning from home when the new school year begins in a few weeks as the state struggles with soaring rates of coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and deaths.

Nicole remembers feeling grateful that Officer Morgan McGrew agreed to meet her so early in the morning. The 7:30 a.m. appointment would let her handle the errand — verifying her car’s vehicle identification number — and still make it to work on time.

But when she met McGrew in the parking lot of the West Valley California Highway Patrol Office in Los Angeles, there seemed to be a problem. 

For months, families have pined to see their loved ones who live in California’s skilled nursing facilities, which have been shut down to outside visitors to keep the coronavirus from spreading.

California health authorities recently issued guidance for visits to resume, but few are happening as infection rates surge in many communities. 

California officials will soon release another 3,100 inmates from state prisons in response to the coronavirus pandemic and in all now plans to release a total of more than 10,000 inmates, or nearly 10 percent of prisoners, as Gov. Gavin Newsom responds to intensifying pressure from advocates, lawmakers and federal judges.

Firefighters scrambled to douse grass and structure fires sparked by illegal Fourth of July fireworks in California’s Central Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area.

The city of San Francisco saw at least 100 fires between 3 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. Saturday, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. 

Choosing not to wear a mask in parts of California could cost you.

Fines for not making the effort to help curb spread of the coronavirus could set you back $300 in West Hollywood and $100 each in the cities of Santa Monica and Monterey as officials statewide scramble to control a surge of cases heading into the July 4 holiday weekend.

Forty years after a sadistic suburban rapist terrorized California in what investigators later realized were a series of linked assaults and slayings, a 74-year-old former police officer is expected to plead guilty Monday to being the elusive Golden State Killer.

With the coronavirus surging, at least four California counties on Friday paused or prepared to backtrack on their reopening plans in a bid to halt the spread of the virus. Gov. Gavin Newsom urged an agricultural county that borders Mexico to reimpose a stay-at-home mandate.

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday urged an agricultural Southern California county to reimpose stay-home orders amid a surge in positive coronavirus tests there as officials in several counties also expressed concern over rising positive test rates and hospitalizations.

Governors in places seeing huge spikes in coronavirus infections often cite statewide data to assure the public they have plenty of hospital capacity to survive the onslaught, even as the states routinely miss the critical benchmarks to guide their pandemic response.

For nearly three years, Melina Abdullah has led dozens of demonstrators once a week outside the Hall of Justice to call for the ouster of Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey for failing to prosecute killings by police officers.

Thousands more joined Abdullah after George Floyd’s death.

The racial reckoning sweeping the country after the killing of George Floyd in police custody has generated momentum at state capitols for widespread reforms addressing a range of inequities.

Students at California State University, the nation’s largest four-year public university system, will need to take courses in ethnic studies under legislation advanced Thursday, a move by lawmakers to impose new graduation requirements that the colleges want to set themselves.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill Thursday to require county officials to mail a ballot to every registered voter for the November election, cementing into law the Democratic governor’s earlier order to mail out ballots statewide in response to the coronavirus outbreak.

Jeremy Rooks works the evening shift at a Georgia fast-food restaurant these days to avoid being on the street past dusk. He needs somewhere to go at night: He and his wife are homeless after the extended-stay motel where they had lived since Thanksgiving evicted them in April when they couldn’t pay their rent.

Three of America's most well-known national parks -- Yellowstone, Grand Teton, and Smoky Mountains -- closed their gates Tuesday as people shut in because of the coronavirus, and lost more options for recreation. 

Jail records show that a top San Francisco city official in charge of cleaning up the city's notoriously filthy streets has been arrested.

Illegal border crossings have plummeted after the Trump administration made more asylum-seekers wait in Mexico for hearings in U.S. immigration court.

Homeless women ordered by a judge last week to leave a vacant house they occupied illegally in Oakland for two months have been evicted by sheriff's deputies.

Calmer weather allowed crews to increase containment of wildfires after a three-week siege of gusts fanned blazes across California and led utilities to cut power to prevent winds from blowing branches into electric lines and igniting an inferno.

Facebook's latest foes: nearly every U.S. state.