NEWSWORTHY
Facebook adds Alaska's Inupiaq as language option among community translation tools
Britt'Nee Brower grew up in a largely Inupiat Eskimo town in Alaska's far north, but English was the only language spoken at home. Today, she knows a smattering of Inupiaq from childhood language classes at school in the community of Utqiagvik. Brower even published an ...
Thousands evacuate in California amid threat of dam spillway collapse
Residents below the tallest dam in the United States, near Oroville in Northern California, were ordered to evacuate on Sunday after a spillway appeared to be in danger of imminent collapse. The abrupt evacuation orders came as authorities said that an auxiliary spillway on the ...
California surpasses France as world's sixth-largest economy
California is now the sixth-largest economy in the world, surpassing France, thanks to a robust state economy and a strong U.S. dollar. California was the world's eighth-largest economy in 2014, Irena Asmundson, chief economist of the California Department of Finance, said in a phone interview ...
AAA questions scientific basis for arbitrary laws on pot, driving
Motorists are being convicted of driving under the influence of marijuana based on arbitrary state standards that have no connection to whether the driver was actually impaired, says a study by the nation's largest auto club. The problem is only growing as more states contemplate ...
Asian-American vote emerges as the new prize in Nevada caucuses
As Democrats Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders compete for every vote before Saturday's Nevada caucuses, they are looking for support among members of the nation's fastest-growing ethnic group. Asian-Americans comprise 6 percent of the U.S. population, and their numbers have increased 56 percent since ...
A state senator in the predominantly Mormon state of Utah wants to declare pornography a public health crisis, echoing an argument made by many conservative religious groups as porn becomes more accessible on smartphones and tablets. Republican Sen. Todd Weiler, a Mormon, contends children are ...
Michigan's governor adds $28 million more to address Flint water crisis
Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder signed into law $28 million more in emergency funding on Friday to address Flint's lead-contaminated water, and said he didn't know some state workers in the city had received bottled water last year while officials were still telling residents that ...
U.S. top court bars automatic life terms for crimes committed by teens
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that people serving life terms for murders they committed as teenagers must have a chance to seek their freedom, a decision that could affect more than 1,000 inmates. The justices voted 6-3 to extend a ruling from 2012 that ...
Citizens group sues California agency over nuclear waste burial
A civilian watchdog group sued a California coastal agency on Tuesday, seeking to overturn its decision to allow 1,800 tons of radioactive waste from a closed nuclear power plant to be buried in containers not far from a beach. Citizens Oversight Inc. asked a San ...
U.S. youths file petitions, lawsuits to push government on climate change
They cannot vote yet, but dozens of young people want a say in the planet's future, so minors nationwide have been suing states and the federal government in recent years to push action on climate change. They say their generation will bear the brunt of ...
Businesses that might bid to build a high-speed rail network across California are questioning whether there will be enough government funding to complete the complex and ambitious project. That picture emerged from documents the companies submitted to the state rail authority overseeing the project, which ...
