California

With British pop singer Maisie Peters' tour across North America underway, there's one city she's particularly looking forward to playing: Sacramento, California.

Why? The Greta Gerwig effect.

"That's like a 'Lady Bird,' Greta Gerwig pilgrimage," Peters told The Associated Press in a recent interview. "So I'm excited for that."

California authorities have taken a major step forward in expanding driverless taxi services in San Francisco, giving the green light for operators Waymo and Cruise to compete with ride-share services and cabs.

Four-time Olympic champion Simone Biles made a triumphant return to gymnastics after a two-year hiatus, dominating the U.S. Classic on Aug. 5 in her first competition since the Tokyo Olympics.

Biles, a 19-time world champion, electrified a sellout crowd in suburban Chicago with a stunning performance, receiving an all-around judges' total score of 59.100 points.

A dozen of Hollywood's highest-earning stars, from George Clooney to Meryl Streep, have each donated $1 million or more to support out-of-work actors as their strike enters its fourth week, their union's charitable foundation said on Aug. 2.

A vintage Apple computer signed by company co-founder Steve Wozniak is being sold at auction.

Angus Cloud, the actor who starred as the drug dealer Fezco "Fez" O'Neill on the HBO series "Euphoria," has died. He was 25.

Cloud's publicist, Cait Bailey, said Cloud died on July 31 at his family home in Oakland, California. No cause of death was given.

In a statement, Cloud's family said goodbye to "an artist, a friend, a brother and a son.

U.S. tech giant Apple is being targeted by a class action lawsuit seeking over $1 billion in damages from developers angry about the high price it charges to market apps to users of its products, organizers said yesterday.

The lawsuit was launched by competition professor Sean Ennis at the University of East Anglia on behalf of 1,500 British app developers.

The cause of death for British actor Julian Sands, who went missing while hiking on a mountain in California in January, has officially been ruled as "undetermined," local authorities said on July 24.

Sands, who shot to fame as the romantic hero in the 1980s period drama "A Room with a View," vanished on the 3,000-meter Mount San Antonio, known locally as Mount Baldy.

Greece was Saturday facing its hottest July weekend in 50 years, with temperatures forecast to soar above 40 Celsius (104 Fahrenheit), while a record-breaking heat wave stretching across the southern United States was expected to expand in the coming days.

Comic books, video games and colorful "cosplay" outfits took center stage at Comic-Con as the giant pop culture event kicked off on July 20 without its usual A-list stars due to the Hollywood strike.

Braving the soaring heat, tens of thousands of fans dressed as characters from Wonder Woman to Barbie and Ken flocked to San Diego, California.