Last year, Toyota, General Motors (GM) and a handful of other automakers sided with the Trump administration in the legal fight over California’s right to determine its own clean-air standards for greenhouse gas emissions. The state wants to uphold an Obama-era policy that requires car manufacturers to make vehicles that can hit 54.5 miles per gallon on average by 2025, but Trump wants to ease the standard to 37 miles per gallon—the difference is about six billion tons of carbon dioxide....

Lately, Clinton has been eager to bask in the gay love. Her young presidential campaign has already held two fund-raisers with major gay and lesbian donors. This week, after a scheduled appearance with the other Democratic contenders at a forum in L.A. on gay issues, she’ll head to a fund-raiser at the West Hollywood gay hangout the Abbey. The attention may be paying off. According to gay journalist Lisa Keen’s analysis of fund-raising to date in 2007, Clinton has earned 48 percent of the contributions from heavily gay ZIP codes nationally, compared with 39 percent for Barack Obama and 13 percent for John Edwards....

This couple’s biggest hurdle: Wildly different energies. Positive aspects of this match: Tons of chemistry in the bedroom. That’s usually not enough to sustain this couple for long, though. This couple’s biggest hurdle: Incompatible worldviews. Positive aspects of this match: Opposites really can attract if both signs are willing to put the effort in and be patient with each other. This couple’s biggest hurdle: Major lifestyle clashes. Positive aspects of this match: Capricorn can be a much-needed grounding force for Gemini, and Gemini can help Capricorn loosen up and enjoy life—if they manage to look past their differences....

The recall applies to various Chevrolet trucks from 2015 and 2016, as well as GMC Sierra 1500, 2500 and 3500 trucks. For more reporting from the Associated Press, see below. Documents posted Friday by U.S. safety regulators say the airbag inflator can rupture or the end cap can fly off on both sides of the trucks. Documents say three inflators ruptured in 2015 Silverados last month, one in Florida and two in Texas....

For the last year and a half, Guster, a popular indie rock band, has been on a mission to spread green wisdom to its fans along with its music. On each of their stops, band members invite their audiences—mostly undergrads who turn out for their Campus Consciousness Tour—into their bus, where they tout the benefits of biodiesel, show off their biodegradable tableware (made from corn and potatoes), explain that they use only rechargeable batteries onstage and soy ink in their liner notes, and urge fans to buy carbon credits to offset their car rides to the concert....

The Bush administration now administers two Green Zones, one in Baghdad and one in the White House. The question raised by both is the same: can the people inside deal with the people outside? In and around the Oval Office, I am told, there is little mention of–let alone game-planning for–the very real possibility that Democratic insurgents will win the House, and perhaps the Senate, on Nov. 7. Press secretary Tony Snow scoffed at the whole notion....

Earl Gray and Tom Plunkett, the attorneys for former officers Thomas Lane and J. Kueng, respectively, said that their clients had only been on the job for four days when George Floyd was killed, according to a report by Associated Press. Police records indicate that they joined the Minneapolis police department in February 2019 and became full officers in December. Minneapolis police officers have to serve a year on probation and spend time training with senior officers before being fully qualified....

“This will be one of the best things that you can pass across America,” Floyd said Tuesday during an appearance on CNN’s New Day. “People shouldn’t have to live in fear,” he added. “African American people, people of color, they are dying at a rate that we shouldn’t have in this world.” George Floyd died on May 25 last year after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes during an arrest....

The Kings gave the veteran coach a win his return to the NBA on Friday night, 109-101 over the Celtics. MORE: Exciting All-Star Game photos | Report: Kobe to retire after next season | Kings sign Stockton’s son Based on what two of the Kings’ top players said after the game, they’re buying in for now. From DeMarcus Cousins, who’s being watched closely for signs of tension between he and Karl (via the Sacramento Bee):...

Kittle did not participate in 49ers practice on Wednesday as a result of a groin injury. The 28-year-old reportedly suffered the injury during practice on Monday and wasn’t feeling good enough to return to the field, per 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan. “Was hoping he’d be good today,” 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan told reporters during a news conference on Wednesday. “Did a little on Monday and not feeling good today. So we’ll have to see; [he’s] day-by-day....

Pell was found guilty of sexually abusing two boys in the 1990s, but was released from prison earlier in the week after Australia’s High Court overturned the verdict. The cleric served 13 months of a six-year prison sentence. The conviction made Pell the most senior member of the Catholic Church to be jailed for child sexual abuse. At the time, he was an adviser to Pope Francis and the Vatican treasurer....

Georgetown decided to be proactive in filling the empty seats by devising a fairly creative LivingSocial deal for fans to “be a student for a day.” For the Hoyas’ Dec. 20 game against Charlotte and their Jan. 3 game against Creighton, the school has earmarked 150 of the 800 student section tickets for the Living Social promotion. Fifteen dollars will get Georgetown fans a “We Are Georgetown” shirt, a seat in the student section, a lanyard, a campus map and what the school calls an “honorary student of basketball degree” delivered by Jack the Bulldog....

Meridith Styer, who teaches rhetoric at Georgia College & State University, asked one student to mask up because she had a family member who could die if they contracted COVID-19, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported on Friday. The University System of Georgia reportedly doesn’t have a mask mandate for students and faculty in classrooms, which the student cited when asked to mask up—telling his professor “I respectfully decline to do it....

Edwin McCullers, 66, and his wife Linda McCullers, 58, died at Memorial Hospital, Bainbridge, Georgia, on Saturday, August 28. The married couple were the owners of several local businesses in the city of Bainbridge, Decatur County, Georgia. This included Flint River Outfitters, which sells outdoor equipment, and hunting and fishing gear, and Linda’s hair salon. On Facebook, Bainbridge local and friend of the McCullers, Jay Wells wrote: “Edwin and his dear wife Linda McCullers were two of the hardest working people I ever knew....

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis told the Associated Press in an interview that her team is making good progress and expects to make a decision on whether to charge the former president in the first half of the year. “I believe in 2022 a decision will be made in that case,” Willis said. “I certainly think that in the first half of the year that decisions will be made....

Administrators at Kennesaw Mountain High School in Cobb County instructed students last week to remove the Black Lives Matter display, which was first put up by students in early February. The display included the names of Black Americans who had been killed by police, such as George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. The words “Black Lives Matter” and “Say Their Names” were included in yellow cut-out letters. “It wasn’t just the Black students that made the door, all types of races made that door,” Jariyah Butler, a 15-year-old in ninth grade at the high school, told Fox 5 Atlanta....

Voters in Georgia on Tuesday faced issues with long queues, with some spending hours in line. There were also problems with machines and sites pulling out due to COVID-19. Coronavirus was also blamed in part for queues, with warnings suggesting safety measures implemented to stem its spread caused delays. Michael J. Abramowitz, president of research and advocacy group Freedom House, said work must be done to prepare for November 3....

Trump continues to claim without any evidence that he lost in Georgia and several other battleground states because of widespread voter fraud. In the wake of his Georgia loss, Trump pressured Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, and Governor Brian Kemp to find a way to overturn his loss. Trump also applied pressure to Byung Jin “BJay” Pak, a former Atlanta-based U.S. attorney, according to newly released Senate Judiciary Committee testimony,...

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, both Republicans, separately vouched for new policies that would require absentee voters to submit photo identification alongside their mail ballots in remarks delivered last month, when the state certified its election results for Joe Biden. Raffensperger, who has pushed back fiercely against Donald Trump’s unproven allegations that misconduct contributed to Georgia’s election outcome, called for reforming absentee ballot laws during a public address delivered November 20....

The state’s Republican lawmakers pointed to the new law last month when requesting that the board appoint the performance review board for an investigation of Fulton County’s handling of elections. The panel will be appointed during the board’s Wednesday meeting. Most of Atlanta is in the heavily Democratic county, amounting to about 11 percent of the state’s active registered voters. Fulton County was targeted by President Donald Trump last year after his narrow loss to President Joe Biden in Georgia, with accusations of election fraud as evidence of a stolen election....