US News Roundup: Trump holds campaign rally indoors despite coronavirus concerns; Iconic new tower opens as pandemic crushes Manhattan office market and more

Trump visits California, Biden talks climate change as wildfires shift campaign focus President Donald Trump will travel to California on Monday to be briefed about its devastating wildfires while Democratic rival Joe Biden plans a speech on the matter from Delaware, bringing climate change to the forefront of the presidential campaign.

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs.

Retirements, layoffs, labor force flight may leave scars on U.S economy

Judith Ramirez received a letter this month that she'd been dreading: The Honolulu hotel that furloughed her from a housekeeping job in March, during the lockdown triggered by the coronavirus pandemic, made her layoff permanent. Ramirez, 40, was originally told she might be called back after business picked up. But infections increased in Hawaii over the summer and quarantine restrictions for visitors were extended, a blow to the state's tourism-dependent hotels.

'All gone:' Residents return to burned-out Oregon towns as many West Coast wildfires keep burning

Search-and-rescue teams, with dogs in tow, were deployed across the blackened ruins of southern Oregon towns on Sunday as smoldering wildfires still ravaged U.S. Pacific Coast states after causing widespread destruction. A blitz of wildfires across Oregon, California and Washington has destroyed thousands of homes and a half dozen small towns this summer, scorching more than 4 million acres (1.6 million hectares) and killing more than two dozen people since early August.

U.S., California to unveil Daimler diesel emissions settlement: sources

U.S. and California officials will on Monday disclose the terms of Daimler AG's $1.5 billion settlement to resolve a long-running government investigation into its use of software to cheat diesel emissions tests, four people briefed on the matter told Reuters. The German automaker and parent of Mercedes-Benz disclosed on Aug. 13 it had reached a settlement in principle resolving civil and environmental claims tied to 250,000 U.S. diesel cars and vans.

Tropical Storm Sally's winds and rains begin to drench U.S. Gulf Coast

Louisiana and Mississippi residents were under evacuation orders on Monday as Tropical Storm Sally churned across the Gulf of Mexico towards a slow-motion landfall on the U.S. coast and was expected to bring high winds and floods from Louisiana to Florida. The second storm in less than a month to threaten the region, Sally is forecast to strengthen on Monday and bring heavy rains and winds of up to 85 miles per hour (137 km/h).

Iconic new tower opens as pandemic crushes Manhattan office market

One Vanderbilt, the latest super-tall skyscraper to grace New York's skyline, opens Monday in a socially distant ribbon-cutting ceremony as COVID-19 leaves offices and the streets of Manhattan largely barren. The airy $3.3 billion tower adjacent to Grand Central Terminal represents a major step in city efforts to ensure that a blocks-long swath of Midtown Manhattan, where buildings on average are 85 years old, remains a premier office district.

Factbox: Democrats threaten Senate's Republican majority in key races

President Donald Trump's slumping opinion poll numbers over his response to the coronavirus pandemic are also weighing on his fellow Republicans' chances of holding onto their 53-47 majority in the U.S. Senate. Democrats would need to win at least three Republican-held seats for a majority, if Democrat Joe Biden wins the White House, giving his running mate Kamala Harris a tie-breaking Senate vote, or four seats if Biden loses.

Trump holds campaign rally indoors despite coronavirus concerns

President Donald Trump held a Nevada campaign rally at an indoor venue on Sunday despite public health professionals' warnings against large indoor gatherings during the coronavirus pandemic. Trump, a Republican, railed against his Democratic rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, suggesting he was taking drugs and was soft on crime.

Trump visits California, Biden talks climate change as wildfires shift campaign focus

President Donald Trump will travel to California on Monday to be briefed about its devastating wildfires while Democratic rival Joe Biden plans a speech on the matter from Delaware, bringing climate change to the forefront of the presidential campaign. Trump, a Republican who pulled the United States out of the Paris accord on global warming because he found it too costly, has blamed poor forest management for the fires that are raging around the West Coast but has authorized federal disaster aid.

Gunman wounds two Los Angeles County deputies in ambush attack on their car

A gunman shot and critically wounded two Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies as they sat in their patrol car late on Saturday in an attack that was captured on video. Footage of the incident released by the sheriff's department showed the suspect approaching the parked vehicle on foot in the city of Compton and firing with a handgun through the passenger side window before running away.

'There are just no words': Oregon family returns home to find pile of ash

Tracy Koa, a high school teacher in Oregon, was in her classroom last Tuesday preparing for the first day of school - which would be online due to COVID-19 - when her 13-year-old daughter called in alarm: A fire was coming, and they had to evacuate, now. Koa raced home. From the driveway of her house in Talent, Oregon, she watched the cloud of smoke from the nearby wildfire turn to black from gray, a sign she knew meant homes were aflame. Within minutes, Koa, her partner David Tanksley and her daughter Seneca had packed their car with camping gear and their cat and joined a crawling line of traffic to evacuate.