U.S. President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping discussed foreign policy on Friday and Saturday at a retreat near Palm Springs, California.
“We are more likely to achieve our objectives of prosperity and security of our peoples if we are working cooperatively rather than engaged in conflict,” Obama told reporters.
View our top photos of the week.
Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
A day at the gun range: Reuters visits a gun range in Los Angeles, California, to learn about recreational shooting culture.
A former Los Angeles police officer linked to a killing spree targeting police and their families is believed to have died in a rural cabin that burned down around him in a fiery end to a massive California manhunt, authorities said on Wednesday.
Police were awaiting forensic analysis to confirm that charred remains found inside the cabin in the wooded hills of the San Bernardino National Forest were that of 33-year-old Christopher Dorner.
Authorities including Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said the man who had barricaded himself inside the cabin was almost certainly Dorner.
“Almost everybody believes it is him, but at this point we’re not absolutely sure,” Villaraigosa told CNN.
READ ON: Fugitive ex-Los Angeles cop believed killed in fire after shootout
The city of Oakland has sued to block U.S. authorities from closing down a prominent medical marijuana dispensary that is featured on a reality television show, escalating a long-running conflict with the federal government over pot.
The lawsuit by Oakland’s city attorney asks a federal judge to declare as unlawful federal government attempts to close down Harborside Health Center (here), which is featured in the Discovery Channel reality show “Weed Wars.”
The action, filed on Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, follows a forfeiture action against the property where the dispensary is situated that was filed in July by the U.S. Attorney’s office, officials said.
READ ON: Oakland sues government to defend pot dispensary in city
The ninth Circuit Court of Appeals cleared the way for the Supreme Court to consider California’s gay marriage ban, declining an appeal to revisit the case.
Supporters of the 2008 ban have lost two rounds in federal court but have made clear they will appeal to the Supreme Court and hope for a favorable response from the conservative court.
DEVELOPING: Prop 8 case looks to be headed to Supreme Court
The children bounded off the bus and ran excitedly towards a tall fence topped with razor wire. In the distance, through layers of fencing overlooked by a guard tower, huddled a group of mothers in baggy blue prison-issue clothes, pointing, waving and gasping. Many had not seen their children in over a year.
An annual Mother’s Day event, Get On The Bus, provides free transport for hundreds of children to visit their incarcerated moms at California Institute for Women in Chino, and other state prisons. Sixty percent of parents in state prison report being held over 100 miles from their children, and visits are impossible for many.
California locks up more women than any other state in the U.S. — 11,250 in 2007 – and three quarters are mothers. The children left behind with family or in foster care often feel abandoned and some don’t see their moms for years.
PHOTO BLOG: “Mother’s Day behind bars,” by Lucy Nicholson
California Highway Patrol officers take positions at the Golden Gate Bridge in anticipation of May Day demonstrations in San Francisco, California May 1, 2012. Authorities anticipated demonstrators would shut down the bridge, but agreement was reached to prevent that action. REUTERS/Robert Galbraith
LIVE BLOG: May Day protests around the world
![Camilla the rubber chicken is seen at over 120,000 feet (36,576 m) above California in this NASA handout still image taken from video dated March 3, 2012. During last month’s solar storm a group of students called “Earth to Sky” from Bishop, California, launched a helium balloon which lifted the chicken into space to study solar radiation.
Camilla, which is the mascot of NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, reached the stratosphere along with a payload carrying radiation sensors, cameras, GPS trackers, a thermometer, insects and sunflower seeds.
The flight took two and a half hours and reached an altitude of approximately 40 km (25 miles) before the balloon burst parachuting Camilla’s spacecraft safely back to earth. [REUTERS/NASA/Earth to Sky/Bishop Union High School/Handout]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m2wj5u5iXd1qmaoalo1_1280.jpg)
Camilla the rubber chicken is seen at over 120,000 feet (36,576 m) above California in this NASA handout still image taken from video dated March 3, 2012. During last month’s solar storm a group of students called “Earth to Sky” from Bishop, California, launched a helium balloon which lifted the chicken into space to study solar radiation.
Camilla, which is the mascot of NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, reached the stratosphere along with a payload carrying radiation sensors, cameras, GPS trackers, a thermometer, insects and sunflower seeds.
The flight took two and a half hours and reached an altitude of approximately 40 km (25 miles) before the balloon burst parachuting Camilla’s spacecraft safely back to earth. [REUTERS/NASA/Earth to Sky/Bishop Union High School/Handout]
The gunman who police suspect killed seven people and wounded three at a Christian college in Oakland, California, was upset with the school’s administration and students over what he viewed was unfair treatment while he was enrolled there, the Oakland police chief said Tuesday.
Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan said ABC’s “Good Morning America” that One Goh, 43, has been cooperating with investigators trying to piece together a motive for killings at Oikos University. It was the deadliest shooting rampage on a U.S. college campus since 32 people were killed at Virginia Tech University in April 2007.
“We’ve learned that the suspect was upset with the administration at the school,” Jordan said. “He was also upset that students … in the past when he attended the school, mistreated him, disrespected him and things of that nature.
