California is the first U.S. state to formally begin examining how to broadly adapt to cryptocurrency and related technologies, following a path laid out by President Joe Biden in March.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order on Wednesday for California agencies to move in tandem with the federal government to craft regulations for digital currencies. It also calls for the state to explore incorporating broader blockchain technologies into state operations.

Ohio was the first to attempt to accept virtual currency for government services in 2018, though the program was soon discontinued. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis says his state will begin accepting cryptocurrency for government services later this year.

Kin Cheung/AP

As CNBC reported, Newsom's directive should have California's Business and Economic Development Office working with California's Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency and the state's financial protection and innovation office.

Newsom's Senior Adviser and Director of the Office of Business and Economic Development in California Dee Dee Myers said, “Of the 800 blockchain businesses in North America, about a quarter of them are in California, dramatically more than any other state,” they said. “We’ve heard from so many that they want to be here, and we want to help them do that responsibly.”

Lawyers representing families of victims and survivors of the condominium collapse in Surfside, Florida, last June have told a judge that they've reached a nearly $1 billion tentative settlement.

Harley S. Tropin is a lawyer representing the plaintiffs. He announced the settlement during a hearing on Wednesday before Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Michael Hanzman. Still pending final approval, the settlement involves insurance companies, developers of an adjacent building and other defendants.

“I’m shocked by this result — I think it’s fantastic,” Hanzman said. “This is a recovery that is far in excess of what I had anticipated.”

Earlier this year, Hanzman had approved an $83 million settlement to compensate people who suffered economic losses such as condominium units and personal property, the Associated Press reported.

The 12-story building called the Champlain Towers South condominium collapsed suddenly in the early-morning hours on June 24 and almost instantly destroyed dozens of individual condo units, burying victims under tons of rubble. Rescuers worked for weeks digging through mountains of concrete to find survivors, then later to recover the remains of those who died. A total of 98 people were killed.

The grandfather and uncle of a 3-year-old girl killed last fall during an exorcism at a Northern California church have been arrested this week in connection with her death.

The child died last September after family members performed a ceremony because they believed she was "possessed by an evil spirit," court documents show. The Santa Clara County medical examiner's office ruled the death a homicide caused by asphyxiation.

The San Jose Police Department said on Friday that police arrested the child's grandfather and uncle on charges of child abuse leading to the death of the victim. The child's mother was arrested and charged in January. It was not immediately known if the girl's grandfather and uncle have an attorney who can speak on their behalf.

The grandfather told the Mercury News last week that he performed a ceremony on the child to “liberate her of her evil spirits,” the Associated Press reported. He didn’t reveal all of the details of the exorcism but said his granddaughter was asleep when she got to the church, and he said that the ceremony took two hours.

“If you read the Bible, you’ll see that Jesus casts away demons and made sick people healthy again,” he said. “It’s not when I want to do it, it’s when God, in his will, wants to heal the person. The preacher is like an instrument of God; what we do is what God says.”

LOS ANGELES —

A Los Angeles judge has ruled that California’s landmark law requiring women on corporate boards is unconstitutional.

Superior Court Judge Maureen Duffy-Lewis said the law that would have required boards to have up to three female directors by this year violated the right to equal treatment. The ruling was dated Friday.

The conservative legal group Judicial Watch had challenged the law, claiming it was illegal to use taxpayer funds to enforce a law that violates the equal protection clause of the California Constitution by mandating a gender-based quota.

David Levine, a law professor at the University of California Hastings College of the Law, said he was not surprised by the verdict. Under state and federal law “mandating a quota like this was never going to fly,” Levine said.

State Senate leader Toni Atkins, a Democrat from San Diego, said the ruling was disappointing and a reminder “that sometimes our legalities don’t match our realities.”

“More women on corporate boards means better decisions and businesses that outperform the competition,” Atkins said in a statement. “We believe this law remains important, despite the disheartening ruling.”

The decision comes just over a month after another Los Angeles judge found that a California law mandating that corporations diversify their boards with members from certain racial, ethnic or LGBT groups was unconstitutional.

The corporate diversity legislation was a sequel to the law requiring women on corporate boards. The judge in the previous case ruled in favor of Judicial Watch and the same plaintiffs without holding a trial.

The law voided Friday was on shaky ground from the get-go, with a legislative analysis saying it could be difficult to defend. Then-Gov. Jerry Brown signed it despite the potential for it to be overturned because he wanted to send a message during the #MeToo era.

In the three years it has been on the books, it’s been credited with improving the standing of women in corporate boardrooms.

The state defended the law as constitutional saying it was necessary to reverse a culture of discrimination that favored men and was put in place only after other measures failed. The state also said the law didn’t create a quota because boards could add seats for female directors without stripping men of their positions.

Although the law carried potential hefty penalties for failing to file an annual report or comply with the law, a chief in the secretary of state’s office acknowledged during the trial that it was toothless.

No fines have ever been levied and there was no intention to do so, Betsy Bogart testified. Further, a letter that surfaced during trial from former Secretary of State Alex Padilla warned Brown weeks before he signed the law that it was probably unenforceable.

“Any attempt by the secretary of state to collect or enforce the fine would likely exceed its authority,” Padilla wrote.

The law required publicly held companies headquartered in California to have one member who identifies as a woman on their boards of directors by the end of 2019. By January 2022, boards with five directors were required to have two women and boards with six or more members were required to have three women.

The Women on Boards law, also known by its bill number, SB826, called for penalties ranging from $100,000 fines for failing to report board compositions to the California secretary of state’s office to $300,000 for multiple failures to have the required number of women board members.

Fewer than half the nearly 650 applicable corporations in the state reported last year that they had complied. More than half didn’t file the required disclosure statement, according to the most recent report.

Supporters of the law hailed it for achieving more gains for women. Other states followed California’s lead. Washington state passed a similar measure last year, and lawmakers in Massachusetts, New Jersey and Hawaii proposed similar bills. Illinois requires publicly traded companies to report the makeup of their boards.

Deputy Attorney General Ashante Norton said alternatives to a law mandating seats for women had been tried in California to no avail. In 2013, for example, the legislature passed a resolution to get companies to add women to their boards, but few did.

The Secretary of State’s office said 26% of publicly traded companies headquartered in California reported meeting the quota of women board members last year, according to a March report.

Half of the 716 corporations that had been required to comply with the law didn’t file the disclosure statements.

Twitter will pay a $150 million penalty and put in new safeguards to settle federal regulators' allegations that the social platform failed to protect the privacy of users' data over a six-year span.

The Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission announced the settlement on Wednesday with Twitter. The regulators allege that Twitter violated a 2011 FTC order by deceiving users about how well the company maintained and protected the privacy and security of their nonpublic contact information.

The government alleged that the violations occurred from May 2013 to September 2019.

“Twitter obtained data from users on the pretext of harnessing it for security purposes but then ended up also using the data to target users with ads,” FTC Chair Lina Khan said in a statement. “This practice affected more than 140 million Twitter users, while boosting Twitter’s primary source of revenue.”

California lawmakers could soon ban the declawing of cats solely for the convenience of humans, advancing a bill on Thursday to halt what animal rights activists say is a painful procedure used primarily to prevent torn furniture and scratched skin.

Claws on cats grow from the bone, not skin. Removing them sometimes requires amputating bones, while other procedures sever tendons to prevent a cat from extending its claws.

Related video above: California woman mistakenly takes baby fox home thinking it was a kitten

Animal rights activists have long said declawing is inhumane when done solely for the benefit of humans, arguing the procedure is painful, leaves the animal defenseless and can cause other health problems.

The American Veterinary Medical Association “discourages declawing as an elective procedure," saying it is not medically necessary in most cases. But the association says it is sometimes necessary “when a cat's excessive or inappropriate scratching behavior causes an unacceptable risk of injury or remains destructive."

The bill that passed the state Assembly on Thursday would ban declawing except for a medically necessary purpose of addressing a recurring infection, disease, injury or abnormal condition that affects the cat's health. The bill specifically bans declawing “for a cosmetic or aesthetic purpose or to make the cat more convenient to keep or handle.”

The California Veterinary Medical Association says that ignores situations where cat owners are “taking blood thinners, receiving immunosuppression drugs, or other persons whose health would be endangered by a severe scratch.”

In a letter to lawmakers, the association wrote that the veterinary industry has “appropriately regulated itself regarding this procedure over the years, and continues to do so in a thoughtful and compassionate manner.”

The bill now heads to the state Senate.

New York was the first state to ban the procedure in 2019, followed by Maryland earlier this year. This is at least the fourth time California lawmakers have tried to ban declawing since 2018. All of the previous attempts failed.

Eight California cities — including Los Angeles and San Francisco — ban declawing. In 2008, California lawmakers passed a law that would have stopped local governments from banning declawing. But the bill never became law because then Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed it.

Thursday, a majority of lawmakers in the California Assembly appeared eager to ban the procedure statewide. Democratic Assemblywoman Wendy Carrillo, the author of the bill, quoted primatologist Jane Goodall in saying that “cruelty is the worst of human sins.”

Democratic Assemblymember Alex Lee talked about his cat, Soba, saying it would be “heartbreaking to know cats like her would be declawed.”

“If a cat has essentially their finger bones taken out, their only defense becomes their teeth,” Lee said. “And having had many loving bites from my cat, I would rather be scratched than bitten by my own cat.”

SACRAMENTO, Calif. —

Gov. Gavin Newsom has tested positive for COVID-19, just 10 days after receiving his second booster vaccine.

He tweeted his positive test results on Saturday, saying he tested this morning. Newsom had just met with New Zealand's prime minister on Friday in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern tested positive for the virus earlier in May.

California's governor said he is experiencing mild symptoms and is following health guidelines, including isolating and working remotely.

Newsom's press office said in a statement that he will be in isolation until at least June 2 and until he tests negative.

"Grateful to be vaccinated and for treatments like Paxlovid," Newsom said in a tweet.

He will be getting a prescription for Paxlovid and will start a five-day regimen immediately, according to his press office's statement.

Paxlovid is a treatment for mild-to-moderate symptoms in adults and children ages 12 and older, and is approved by the Food and Drug Administration. California distributes the treatment to some health providers, and has been working to expand access to free Paxlovid treatments through 'test to treat' sites for all those who test positive for COVID-19.

Newsom is vaccinated and has received two booster shots, his most recent shot was on May 18. Health officials say COVID-19 vaccines won't completely block infection, but that the shots are mainly designed to prevent severe illness.

A California woman who punched a flight attendant in the face during a flight and broke her teeth has been sentenced to 15 months in federal prison.

Vyvianna Quinonez on Tuesday was also ordered by the federal judge in San Diego to pay nearly $26,000 in restitution and a $7,500 fine for the assault on a May 2021 Southwest flight between Sacramento and San Diego. Quinonez is prohibited from flying for three years while she is on supervised release and must participate in anger management classes or counseling.

Quinonez last year pleaded guilty to one count of interference with flight crew members and attendants.

After a six-week trial, a civil jury in Virginia was still discussing the defamation claims by Johnny Depp and his ex-wife Amber Heard on Tuesday. A verdict was still pending in the case as the jury finished their day on Tuesday.

The trial has featured lurid testimony with explicit details about the movie stars' short and volatile marriage. But the question the jury needs to answer is whether Heard defamed Depp in an op-ed in which she wrote that she was "a public figure representing domestic abuse."

The jury was also tasked with deciding a counterclaim filed by Heard. She said she was defamed when Depp's former lawyer called her abuse allegations a "hoax."

Craig Hudson/AP

Throughout the trial, various spectacles have played out, outside of the courtroom. Fans have stood outside to catch a glimpse of the stars and wave. On Tuesday, Court TV captured images of a large Pirates of the Caribbean replica ship traveling by.

The lawsuit filed by Depp asks for $50 million in damages related to defamation claims against Heard and that 2018 op-ed she wrote for the Washington Post. Heard said she was a "public figure representing domestic abuse,” but didn't mention Depp by name in the article.

Amid the weeks of trial proceedings, Heard laid out over a dozen alleged examples where she says she experienced abuse, including at least one incident of alleged sexual abuse she claims Depp committed against her. Depp also claimed that Heard physically attacked him in the past.

The seven-member jury was tasked with deciding if two passages from the Washington Post piece, plus the headline, defamed Depp. A verdict form given to the jury will guide them on how to determine that. The jury will have to decide if Heard acted with "actual malice," since she is a public figure. Heard's lawyers told the seven jury members that if she suffered even a single incident of abuse, they must find that Depp's libel claim then fails.

Heard has filed a $100 million counterclaim against Depp after Depp's former lawyer called the allegations she has made a "hoax." The jury will have to decide if Depp's former lawyer's three published statements were about Heard, were false, and if they were seen by people other than Heard. They must also decide if Depp's former attorney also made those statements with "actual malice," as the Associated Press reported.

The story of Eva — a Belgian shepherd who protected her owner from a mountain lion attack last month — drew attention from media outlets across the nation and prompted an outpouring of emotional and financial support from readers.Unfortunately, those who donated to help save the dog were in for a heartbreaking update this morning. Over the last several days, Eva's condition deteriorated, and yesterday she slipped into a coma."We said goodbye," owner Erin Wilson wrote on the GoFundMe page this morning announcing her passing. "We love you Eva."Wilson, 24, an avid outdoorsman, had been on a short walk with Eva in mid-May off Highway 299 in Trinity County, some 300 miles north of San Francisco when the mountain lion attacked Wilson. Responding to Wilson's call for help, Eva had turned the predator's attention on herself, and the cat locked its jaws over the 2-year-old dog's head, refusing to let go."The woman attempted to throw rocks, tug, pull, and even attempted to gouge the eyes out of the lion, to no avail," California Department of Fish and Wildlife Capt. Patrick Foy wrote in an email.Desperate to free her dog, Wilson flagged down passing motorist Sharon Houston, and using pepper spray and a piece of a PVC pipe, the two women managed to fight off the mountain lion. Wilson rushed Eva to the hospital, where the dog received care for her grave injuries, including two skull fractures, a punctured sinus cavity and severe damage to her left eye. Readers moved by Eva's story donated more than $30,000 to help with the dog's treatmentOver the last several weeks, Eva appeared to be recovering. According to a GoFundMe post on May 18, she was walking and climbing into her humans' laps, playing outside and eating soft foods. "There was pep in her step," Wilson wrote.But on June 5, the dog began having seizures and experiencing inflammation in her brain, and yesterday while being treated at UC Davis Veterinary Hospital, she slipped into a coma. If the inflammation had come down, the dog could have been operated on, Wilson wrote. But a CT scan revealed that the situation was grim, and ultimately the dog succumbed to her injuries."Goodbye my beautiful sweet girl," Wilson posted on Eva's Instagram page. "You are my world, my light, my best friend. The world is a much darker place."CDFW searched for the mountain lion for a week, but came up empty, Foy wrote in an email. It has not been seen since the attack.

A SeaWorld San Diego expert said on Monday that a pair of sea lions that sent dozens of San Diego beachgoers running in fear last week were likely chasing each other, sparring over their rights to mate with females.

Eric Otjen of SeaWorld says the behavior caught on a TikTok video that went viral is normal this time of year as breeding season gets underway. He says the beachgoers, however, were still wise to flee. The mammals weigh between 200 and 300 pounds and could easily barrel over people if they got in their way.

@favortown These sea lions made my day yesterday #california ♬ Apple bitten jeans beach boys 1964 - done4dayz

“He’s got swimmers all around him on his way back out, but they don’t bother him. What this is all about is his right to mate,” Otjen said, adding: “This behavior is not uncommon at all. The reason why the video has gotten like 10 millions views is because everybody is running like Godzilla is chasing them.”

California will start requiring gun makers and sellers to follow a whole new set of guidelines, a new precedent aimed at keeping guns out of the wrong hands. 

Starting July 2023, gun makers and sellers in California will have to implement what the state calls "reasonable precautions against theft or selling guns to someone who could use it illegally or harm someone else." 

That requirement is subjective, and gun rights groups argue it's too vague. 

But amid a rash of mass shootings and popular demand for tighter gun laws, it's a state measure that goes beyond current background check standards.

It adds to restrictions in a state where lawmakers are trying to limit concealed carry permitting after a Supreme Court ruling upended current laws. 

"We don't want a proliferation of weapons in sensitive areas, and we don't want the wrong people to have guns. That makes sense. They all work together. And California's safer because of it," state senator Anthony Portantino said.  

After a bipartisan law passed by Congress to strengthen so-called red-flag laws, President Biden is readily admitting its shortcomings. 

"We will not save every life from the epidemic of gun violence, but if this law had been in place years ago, even this last year, lives would have been saved," President Biden said. 

He's calling on states to go further than the federal government. 

That's exactly what California is doing, following in the footsteps of states like New York, New Jersey and Delaware, which have all enacted similar laws. 

"What legislatures are looking at is limitations around who, limitations around where and limitations around just what kinds of weapons are we talking about?" Portantino said.  

The California law also gives gun violence victims and their families more leverage to sue gun makers.

That skirts a 2005 federal law that protected gun manufacturers from lawsuits. 

The law allows an exemption when a manufacturer has violated state law. 

It allows California to add restrictions to the country's most restrictive state on guns.

"Now is the time to galvanize this movement. Because that's our duty to the people of this nation," President Biden said. 

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TOPANGA, Calif. — Authorities in California say actor Jason Momoa was uninjured after he was involved in a head-on collision with a motorcycle on Sunday in Topanga.

According to California Highway Patrol, around 10:55 a.m., a motorcyclist driving westbound on Old Topanga Road crossed over the double yellow lines and ran into Momoa's vehicle, USA Today reported.

KTLA reported the motorcyclist, 21-year-old Vitaliy Avagimyan was ejected from his bike.

TMZ reported the "Aquaman" man star flagged down a motorist to call 911.

Troopers said Avagimyan was transported to a nearby hospital with minor, non-life-threatening injuries, the news outlets reported.

According to CHP, Momoa was not injured, the news outlets reported.

The cause of the crash remains under investigation.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House on Friday approved wide-ranging legislation aimed at helping communities in the West cope with increasingly severe wildfires and drought — fueled by climate change — that have caused billions of dollars of damage to homes and businesses in recent years.

The measure combines 49 separate bills and would increase firefighter pay and benefits; boost resiliency and mitigation projects for communities affected by climate change; protect watersheds; and make it easier for wildfire victims to get federal assistance.

"Across America the impacts of climate change continue to worsen, and in this new normal, historic droughts and record-setting wildfires have become all too common,'' said Rep. Joe Neguse, D-Colo., the bill's chief co-sponsor. Colorado has suffered increasingly devastating wildfires in recent years, including the Marshall fire last year that caused more than $513 million in damage and destroyed nearly 1,100 homes and structures in Boulder County.

"What once were wildfire seasons are now wildfire years. For families across the country who have lost their homes due to these devastating wildfires and for the neighborhoods impacted by drought, we know that we need to apply a whole-of-government approach to support community recovery and bolster environmental resiliency," Neguse said. "This is a bill that we believe meets the moment for the West."

The bill was approved, 218-199, as firefighters in California battled a blaze that forced evacuation of thousands of people near Yosemite National Park and crews in North Texas sought to contain another fire.

One Republican, Pennsylvania Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, voted in favor of the bill, while Oregon Rep. Kurt Schrader was the only Democrat to oppose it.

The bill now goes to the Senate, where Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., has sponsored a similar measure.

Both the House and Senate bills would permanently boost pay and benefits for federal wildland firefighters. President Joe Biden signed a measure last month giving them a hefty raise for the next two years, a move that affects more than 16,000 firefighters and comes as much of the West braces for another difficult wildfire season.

Pay raises for the federal firefighters had been included in last year's $1 trillion infrastructure bill, but the money was held up as federal agencies studied recruitment and retention data to decide where to deliver them. The raise approved by Biden was retroactive to Oct. 1, 2021, and expires Sept. 30, 2023.

The House bill would make the pay raises permanent and sets minimum pay for federal wildland firefighters at $20 per hour, or nearly $42,000 a year. It also raises eligibility for hazardous-duty pay and boosts mental health and other services for firefighters. The bill is named after smokejumper Tim Hart, who died fighting a wildfire in New Mexico last year.

"The West is hot — hotter than ever — it is dry and when it is windy, the West is on fire,'' said Rep. Kim Schrier, D-Wash. "And we are seeing this every year because of climate change. That's why this bill is so important.''

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called the bill "a major victory for Californians — and for the country.'' The Oak Fire, the largest wildfire so far this year, "is ravaging our state,'' she said. "At the same time, countless of our communities regularly suffer lack of rainfall that can kill crops and further fuel fires."

The House bill would deliver "urgently needed resources" to combat fires and droughts, "which will only increase in frequency and intensity due to the climate crisis,'' Pelosi said. The bill includes $500 million to preserve water levels in key reservoirs in the drought-stricken Colorado River and invest in water recycling and desalination.

Republicans denounced the measure as "political messaging," noting that firefighters' hourly pay has already been increased above $20 in most cases. The House bill does not appropriate additional money for the Forest Service or other agencies, and without such an increase, the Forest Service says it would have to lay off about 470 wildland firefighters.

Rep. Bruce Westerman of Arkansas, the top Republican on the House Natural Resources Committee, called it "egregious" that Democrats would seek to enact provisions that could lead to firefighter layoffs in the midst of a devastating wildfire season.

"Democrats are finally waking up to the wildfire and drought crises, exacerbated by years of forest mismanagement and a lack of long-term water storage. Unfortunately, Democrats' proposals are anything but solutions,'' Westerman said. He accused Democrats of failing to follow science showing the need to manage forests before fires begin, and said Democrats "fail to construct the kind of long-term infrastructure needed to make communities resilient to drought'' while prioritizing "liberal talking points" about climate change.

Neguse called that accusation outrageous and noted that many of the bills included in the wildfire/drought legislation are Republican proposals.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said the bill was important to the whole country — not just the West, where wildfires and drought are a daily reality.

"We are one nation indivisible and if one part of us is burning, we are all burning," Hoyer said.

Besides boosting firefighter pay, the bill enhances forest management projects intended to reduce hazardous fuels such as small trees and underbrush that can make wildfires far more dangerous. It also establishes grant programs to help communities affected by air pollution from wildfires and improve watersheds damaged by wildfire.

Republicans called the thinning projects — which also include prescribed burns and removal of vegetation — meaningless without waivers of lengthy environmental reviews that can delay forest treatment by years.

The White House said in a statement that it supports efforts to address climate change, wildfires and drought, but wants to "work with the Congress to ensure the many provisions in the (bill) avoid duplication with existing authorities and administration efforts."

A little bit of good news and a lot of luck coming out of a destructive wildfire burning near the California-Oregon border as a photojournalist saved a puppy wandering around the ruins of the McKinney Fire.

Jonathan Rivas said he arrived at the community of Klamath River early Saturday morning, just hours after the wildfire broke out where he said there was a lot of damage, with trees and homes burned.

Rivas said he was finishing filming one neighborhood when he heard yelping.

"I heard a yelp in the distance, but I didn't really know what it was, I thought it was an injured deer or one of the wildlife that's there," the AIO Filmz photojournalist said. "All of a sudden, this little puppy comes and runs up to me. I was super shocked to see that come from the rubble there."

The puppy was clearly excited to see Rivas in the video.

Watch the full rescue below

The puppy allowed Rivas to pick him up and put him in the back of his car.

"He was very excited, he was wagging his tail, I am talking to him like I'm talking to my dog, I picked him up, put him in the trunk of my car," Rivas said.

He gave him some water before dropping him off at a shelter.

Rivas posted the video on social media, where he found the puppy's family. The puppy has been reunited with its family.

"Reuniting it with their family and after hearing their story, it makes me feel good, I am just happy, I was at the right place at the right time," Rivas said.

DEATH VALLEY NATIONAL PARK, Calif. (AP) — Flash flooding at Death Valley National Park triggered by heavy rainfall on Friday buried cars, forced officials to close all roads in and out the park and stranded about 1,000 people, officials said

The park near the California-Nevada state line received at least 1.7 inches (4.3 centimeters) of rain at the Furnace Creek area, which park officials in a statement said represented "nearly an entire year's worth of rain in one morning." The park's average annual rainfall is 1.9 inches (4.8 centimeters).

About 60 vehicles were buried in debris and about 500 visitors and 500 park workers were stranded, park officials said. There were no immediate reports of injuries and the California Department of Transportation estimated it would take four to six hours to open a road that would allow park visitors to leave.

It was the second major flooding event at the park this week. Some roads were closed Monday after they were inundated with mud and debris from flash floods that also hit western Nevada and northern Arizona hard.

The rain started around 2 a.m., said John Sirlin, a photographer for an Arizona-based adventure company who witnessed the flooding as he perched on a hillside boulder where he was trying to take pictures of lightning as the storm approached.

"It was more extreme than anything I've seen there," said Sirlin, who lives in Chandler, Arizona, and has been visiting the park since 2016. He is the lead guide for Incredible Weather Adventures and said he started chasing storms in Minnesota and the high plains in the 1990s.

"I've never seen it to the point where entire trees and boulders were washing down. The noise from some of the rocks coming down the mountain was just incredible," he said in a phone interview Friday afternoon.

"A lot of washes were flowing several feet deep. There are rocks probably 3 or 4 feet covering the road," he said.

Sirlin said it took him about 6 hours to drive about 35 miles (56 kilometers) out of the park from near the Inn at Death Valley.

"There were at least two dozen cars that got smashed and stuck in there," he said, adding that he didn't see anyone injured "or any high water rescues."

During Friday's rainstorms, the "flood waters pushed dumpster containers into parked cars, which caused cars to collide into one another. Additionally, many facilities are flooded including hotel rooms and business offices," the park statement said.

A water system that provides it for park residents and offices also failed after a line broke that was being repaired, the statement said.

A flash flood warning for the park and surrounding area expired at 12:45 p.m., Friday but a flood advisory remained in effect into the evening, the National Weather Service said.

WATSONVILLE, Calif. —

Two small planes collided in Northern California while trying to land at a local airport Thursday and at least two of the three occupants were killed, officials said.

The planes crashed at Watsonville Municipal Airport shortly before 3 p.m., according to a tweet from the city of Watsonville. The city-owned airport does not have a control tower to direct aircraft landing and taking off.

Video above: Witness describes watching planes crash into each other

There were two people aboard a twin-engine Cessna 340 and only the pilot aboard a single-engine Cessna 152 during the crash, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Officials say multiple fatalities were reported but it was not immediately clear whether anyone survived.

The pilots were on their final approaches to the airport before the collision, the FAA said in a statement. The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board, which did not immediately have additional details, are investigating the crash.

No one on the ground was injured. The airport has four runways and is home to more than 300 aircraft, according to its website. It handles more than 55,000 operations a year and is used often for recreational planes and agriculture businesses.

Watsonville, near the Monterey Bay, is about 100 miles south of San Francisco.

Photos and videos posted on social media showed the wreckage of one small plane in a grassy field by the airport. One picture showed a plume of smoke visible from a street near the airport.

Video below: Raw footage from the scene of the crash

A photo from the city of Watsonville showed damage to a small building at the airport, with firefighters on the scene.

The manager of the Watsonville Municipal Airport was unavailable for a phone interview in the hours after the crash. The airport accounts for about 40% of all general aviation activities in the Monterey Bay area, according to the City of Watsonville’s website.

The Watsonville Police Department referred calls to the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office, where a dispatcher had no information.

Two other pilots also were hurt in aircraft crashes elsewhere in California on Thursday.

A 65-year-old San Diego man received injuries that were major but not life-threatening when his single-engine plane crashed on a street near a busy freeway overpass in El Cajon, authorities said.

The plane reportedly struck an SUV but nobody on the ground was hurt in the city nearly 20 miles northeast of downtown San Diego.

Later, the pilot of an ultralight aircraft was critically injured when it crashed upside down on a building at the Camarillo Airport in Ventura County, about 60 miles from downtown Los Angeles.

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Democrat Mary Peltola won the special election for Alaska's only U.S. House seat on Wednesday, besting a field that included Republican Sarah Palin, who was seeking a political comeback in the state where she was once governor.

Peltola, who is Yup'ik and turned 49 on Wednesday, will become the first Alaska Native to serve in the House and the first woman to hold the seat. She will serve the remaining months of the late Republican U.S. Rep. Don Young's term. Young held the seat for 49 years before his death in March.

"I'm honored and humbled by the support I have received from across Alaska," Peltola said in a statement. "I look forward to continuing Don Young's legacy of bipartisanship, serving all Alaskans and building support for Alaska's interests in DC."

Peltola's victory, coming in Alaska's first statewide ranked choice voting election, is a boon for Democrats, particularly coming off better-than-expected performances in special elections around the country this year following the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade. She will be the first Democrat to hold the seat since the late U.S. Rep. Nick Begich, who was seeking reelection in 1972 when his plane disappeared. Begich was later declared dead and Young in 1973 was elected to the seat.

Peltola ran as a coalition builder while her two Republican opponents — Palin and Begich's grandson, also named Nick Begich — at times went after each other. Palin also railed against the ranked voting system, which was instituted by Alaska voters.

All three are candidates in the November general election, seeking a two-year House term, which would start in January.

The results came 15 days after the Aug. 16 election, in line with the deadline for state elections officials to receive absentee ballots mailed from outside the U.S. Ranked choice tabulations took place Wednesday after no candidate won more than 50% of the first choice votes. Peltola was in the lead heading into the tabulations.

Wednesday's results were a disappointment for Palin, who was looking to make a political comeback 14 years after she was vaulted onto the national stage when John McCain selected her to be his running mate in the 2008 presidential election. In her run for the House seat, she had widespread name recognition and won the endorsement of former President Donald Trump.

After Peltola's victory was announced, Palin slammed the ranked voting process as "crazy, convoluted, confusing."

"Though we're disappointed in this outcome, Alaskans know I'm the last one who'll ever retreat," Palin said in a statement.

During the campaign, critics questioned Palin's commitment to Alaska, citing her decision to resign as governor in July 2009, partway through her term. Palin went on to become a conservative commentator on TV and appeared in reality television programs, among other pursuits.

Palin has insisted her commitment to Alaska never wavered and said ahead of the special election that she had "signed up for the long haul."

Peltola, a former state lawmaker who most recently worked for a commission whose goal is to rebuild salmon resources on the Kuskokwim River, cast herself as a "regular" Alaskan. "I'm not a millionaire. I'm not an international celebrity," she said.

Peltola has said she was hopeful that the new system would allow more moderate candidates to be elected.

During the campaign, she emphasized her support of abortion rights and said she wanted to elevate issues of ocean productivity and food security. Peltola said she got a boost after the June special primary when she won endorsements from Democrats and independents who had been in the race. She said she believed her positive messaging also resonated with voters.

"It's been very attractive to a lot of people to have a message of working together and positivity and holding each other up and unity and as Americans none of us are each other's enemy," she said. "That is just a message that people really need to hear right now."

Alaska voters in 2020 approved an elections process that replaced party primaries with open primaries. Under the new system, ranked voting is used in general elections.

Under ranked voting, ballots are counted in rounds. A candidate can win outright with more than 50% of the vote in the first round. If no one hits that threshold, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated. Voters who chose that candidate as their top pick have their votes count for their next choice. Rounds continue until two candidates remain, and whoever has the most votes wins.

In Alaska, voters last backed a Democrat for president in 1964. But the state also has a history of rewarding candidates with an independent streak. The state has more registered unaffiliated voters than registered Republicans or Democrats combined.

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Follow AP coverage of 2022 Midterm Elections: https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections

DUBLIN, Calif. — Law enforcement officials in California has arrested one of their own for allegedly killing a married couple inside a Dublin home early Wednesday morning.

The Alameda County Sheriff's Office said they received a call around 12:45 a.m. about a reported shooting inside a residence.

When law enforcement agencies got to the home, they found a 58-year-old man and a 42-year-old woman dead, the department said in a press release.

They have not released the name of the victims.

According to The Mercury News, six people were inside the house at the time of the murders, including a child and a relative from out of town who called 911.

The sheriff's office said witnesses identified the suspect as Alameda County Sheriff's Deputy Devin Williams.

According to ABC NEWS, Williams was off-duty when he allegedly committed the murders.

The Los Angeles Times reported that the 24-year-old suspect called police nearly 12 hours after the shooting, saying he wanted to surrender.

According to the Alameda County Sheriff's Office, Williams was taken into custody in Coalinga just before noon.

Law enforcement officials are unsure of Williams' motive for the murders but said he had no history of mental illness.

"In the last several months of his life, some significant events happened that led up to this moment. A lot of those events went undiscovered and disclosed. And we're going to be looking into that." Alameda County Lt. Ray Kelly told ABC affiliate KGO-TV.

Henry Silva, a prolific character actor best known for playing villains and tough guys in “The Manchurian Candidate,” “Ocean's Eleven” and other films, has died at age 95.Silva's son Scott Silva told Variety that his father died Wednesday of natural causes at the Motion Picture and Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California.Silva was a New York City native who dropped out of school as a teenager, in the 1940s. He was accepted the following decade into the Actors Studio, where fellow students included Shelley Winters and Ben Gazzara. He went on to have a long and busy career in film and television, with hundreds of credits before retiring from acting in 2001.He had a breakthrough role on stage and screen in the 1950s as a drug dealer in "A Hatful of Rain” and supporting parts in two of Frank Sinatra's best known movies, both from the early 1960s: “Ocean's Eleven,” the Las Vegas heist film that was a showcase for Sinatra, Dean Martin and other “Rat Pack” members; and “The Manchurian Candidate,” the Cold War thriller about brainwashing and the attempted assassination of a presidential nominee that starred Sinatra, Laurence Harvey and Janet Leigh. (In his last film appearance, Silva was cast in the “Ocean's Eleven” remake from 2000 that starred George Clooney and Brad Pitt).“Our hearts are broken at the loss of our dear friend Henry Silva, one of the nicest, kindest and most talented men I’ve had the pleasure of calling my friend," Dean Martin's daughter, Deana Martin, tweeted. “He was the last surviving star of the original Oceans 11 Movie.”Silva was also seen on such television series as “Wagon Train” and “The F.B.I.,” and in such films as Warren Beatty's “Dick Tracy,” Jerry Lewis' “Cinderfella” and “Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai,” in which he played a mobster in the 1999 release directed by one of his admirers, Jim Jarmusch.

Crime scene tape did not stop a food delivery robot in Los Angeles from getting where it needed to be on Monday.

The Los Angeles Police Department had set up the tape at a suspected shooting at a high school, which later turned out to be a hoax, USA Today and "Today" reported.

According to the news outlets, the robot rolled down a sidewalk when it stopped at an intersection before the crime scene.

When it got to the police tape, it seemed to contemplate what to do until what appeared to be a TV cameraman lifted up the tape, and the robot continued on its way, the media outlets reported.

Officers looked a bit confused as it passed by them, the news outlets reported.

According to the news outlets, officers were called to Hollywood High School around 9:45 a.m. for reported shots fired call, USA Today reported.

The newspaper reported that Los Angeles School District's Superintendent Alberto M. Carvalho later tweeted that officers had determined the call was a hoax.

Authorities say a Brinks armored truck driver shot and killed a suspected robber during an attempted heist on Friday in Oakland, California.

According to Police, one person is dead, and two others were injured in the shootout, including an innocent bystander.

One of the injured also includes a Brinks guard.

The incident happened around 2 p.m. local time on Friday in broad daylight.

KGO reported that Oakland city councilman Noel Gallo said the Brinks employee shot the alleged robber in self-defense.

The two others were taken to area hospitals, but it was not clear if they had been released or what their conditions were.

According to Gallo, other suspects involved fled the scene and were not immediately apprehended by police.

STOCKTON, Calif. (AP) — Ballistics tests have linked the fatal shootings of six men and the wounding of one woman in California — all potentially at the hands of a serial killer — in crimes going back more than a year, police said.

Authorities last week announced that five men in Stockton had been slain in recent months, ambushed and shot to death alone in the dark. Late Monday, police said two additional cases last year — a man's death in Oakland and the non-fatal shooting of a woman in Stockton — had been tied to those killings.

“It definitely meets the definition of a serial killer,” said Stockton Police Officer Joseph Silva. “What makes this different is the shooter is just looking for an opportunity, and unfortunately our victims were alone in a dark area.”

Police would not say whether all seven shootings had been linked to the same gun.

In the fatal Stockton cases, none of the men was robbed or beaten before the killings — which all took place within a radius of a few square miles between July 8 and Sept. 27 — and none appeared to have known each other, Silva said. The shootings also do not seem to be related to gangs or drugs.

The other Stockton crime — in which a 46-year-old woman was shot but survived her injuries — occurred April 16, 2021, around 3:20 a.m., police said. The woman was also alone at the time.

The shooting death of a 40-year-old man in Oakland has also been connected to the violence in Stockton, police said. The man was shot to death around 4:15 a.m. on April 10, 2021. It was not immediately clear whether the man was also unaccompanied when he was killed.

The city of Stockton, Stockton Crime Stoppers and a local construction company owner offered a total of $95,000 for information leading to an arrest in the slayings.

Police released a grainy still image of a “person of interest," dressed all in black and wearing a black cap, who appeared in videos from several of the homicide crime scenes in Stockton.

The San Joaquin County’s Office of the Medical Examiner identified the Stockton victims on Monday as Paul Yaw, 35, who was killed on July 8; Salvador Debudey Jr., 43, who died on Aug. 11; Jonathan Hernandez Rodriguez, 21, who died on Aug. 30; Juan Cruz, 52, who was killed on Sept. 21 and Lawrence Lopez Sr., 54.

Lopez was shot shortly before 2 a.m. on Sept. 27 in a residential area just north of downtown.

He “was just a person who was out here at the wrong place, at the wrong time, at the wrong circumstance,” his brother, Jerry Lopez, told KXTV-TV. “It’s hard to process that this has happened.”

There may even be multiple people involved in the violence.

“To be honest, we just don’t know,” Silva said. “This person or people who are out doing this, they are definitely very bold and brazen.”

Police said four of the Stockton homicide victims were walking alone and a fifth was in a parked car when they were killed in the evening or early morning in the city of 320,000 residents, located about 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of the state capital, Sacramento.

SAN FRANCISCO —

A baby girl, her parents and uncle who were kidnapped at gunpoint from their central California business two days ago were found dead Wednesday, the sheriff of Merced County said.

"Our worst fears have been confirmed," Sheriff Vern Warnke told reporters Wednesday night.

Watch the surveillance video in the player above.

A farmworker found the bodies close together in a Merced County orchard, he said.

The announcement came after authorities released surveillance video of a man kidnapping 8-month-old Aroohi Dheri; her mother Jasleen Kaur, 27; father Jasdeep Singh, 36; and uncle Amandeep Singh, 39, on Monday.

Authorities said they were taken by a convicted robber who tried to kill himself a day after the kidnappings.

"There's no words right now to describe the anger I feel and the senselessness of this incident," Warnke said. "I said it earlier: There's a special place in hell for this guy."

Investigators, including crime lab technicians from the California Department of Justice, would be processing the crime scene through the night, Warnke said. He didn't immediately supply other details.

The family members were taken from their business in Merced, a city of 86,000 people about 125 miles (200 kilometers) southeast of San Francisco in the San Joaquin Valley, California's agricultural heartland.

Relatives of Jesus Salgado, 48, contacted authorities reporting that he had admitted to them he was involved with the kidnapping, Warnke told KFSN-TV on Tuesday. Salgado tried to take his own life before police arrived at a home in nearby Atwater, and he has since been hospitalized.

Efforts to reach Salgado's family were unsuccessful Wednesday.

The video released earlier Wednesday showed the suspect first walking by the property before talking to one of the men. Later, it shows him leading the men, who had their hands zip-tied behind their backs, into the back seat of Amandeep Singh's pickup truck. The suspect then went back to the trailer that served as the business office and led Jasdeep Singh, who was carrying her baby in her arms, out and into the truck before the suspect then drove away.

Family members said nothing was stolen from the trucking company but that their relatives were all wearing jewelry. Warnke had said that after the kidnappings, an ATM card belonging to one of the victims was used in Atwater, about 9 miles (14 kilometers) north of Merced.

Warnke said the kidnapper made no ransom demands in what he believes was a financially motivated crime.

Relatives of the victims had earlier asked anyone who owns a convenience store or gas station in the area to check their surveillance cameras for images of the suspect or the family. They said they were worried the baby wasn't being fed because the family didn't have any baby food with them at the time of the kidnapping.

"Please help us out, come forward, so my family comes home safe," Sukhdeep Singh, a brother of the victims, said, his voice breaking.

At the earlier news conference, Warnke said detectives had not been able to speak to Salgado, who has been under medical sedation in the hospital, but they were hoping to do so Wednesday with the help of doctors.

"I can tell you that every time he has even come near consciousness he has been violent," Warnke said.

Salgado was previously convicted of first-degree robbery with the use of a firearm in Merced County, as well as attempted false imprisonment and an attempt to prevent or dissuade a victim or witness. He was sentenced to 11 years in state prison in that case, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

He was released from prison in 2015 and discharged from parole three years later. He also has a conviction for possession of a controlled substance, the corrections agency said.

Investigators have not found a link between Salgado and the family to show they knew each other before the kidnapping.

"As of right now, we believe it was random," Deputy Alexandra Britton said. "We don't have evidence to prove otherwise."

Family members told KXTV-TV that the office for Unison Trucking Inc., the family's business, had only opened about a week earlier.

"My husband is very peaceful and calm person. We don't have any clue why they kidnapped them," said Jaspreet Caur, wife of the kidnapped uncle.

The sheriff said detectives believe the kidnapper destroyed unspecified evidence in an attempt to cover his tracks.

The sheriff's office said that firefighters on Monday found Amandeep Singh's truck on fire. Merced Police Department officers went to Amandeep Singh's home, where a family member tried to reach him and the couple. When they were not able to reach their family members, they called the Merced County Sheriff's office to report them missing, the office said.

Merced County Undersheriff Corey Gibson said a farmer found a phone belonging to one of the victims on a street in Dos Palos, a town 30 miles (48 kilometers) southwest of Merced, and answered it when the family called it.

Warnke said that while detectives have not established any motive or determined whether Salgado worked with any accomplices, he believes the suspect was driven by money and colluded with someone else.