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A man may have accidentally set an apartment on fire while trying to burn a huge spider, US media report.

The fire occurred on Sunday in a block of flats in the city of Redding in northern California.

A witness living in the flat where the fire occurred told a local newspaper that the burning spider may have spread the fire across the apartment itself.

It is not clear whether the spider survived the fire. No injuries were reported but the block was evacuated.

The local fire department chief, Gerry Gray, confirmed to the BBC that a fire had taken place in an apartment block, but that the cause of the fire was still “undetermined”.

“The information regarding the ‘spider’ was presented by civilian witnesses, at the scene of the fire, and is certainly part of our investigation,” Mr Gray said.

The spider was a “huge wolf spider”, according to a witness quoted by the local Redding Record Searchlight newspaper who lives in the apartment where the fire took place.

The fire department told the paper that the fire appeared to have been started by a blowtorch.

Redding, where the incident occurred, is 162 miles (261km) north of the state capital, Sacramento.

Witnesses say that the spider spread the fire when it scurried onto a nearby mattress.

The fire on the mattress was reportedly extinguished by residents, but it had already spread to other parts of the flat.

Officials said the fire caused about $11,000 (£8,000) in damage and some apartments in the building were “uninhabitable”.

Note: This story is auto-generated from BBC syndicated feed and has not been edited by AFRICA PRIME NEWS

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A court has thrown out charges against a Nevada rancher who was at the centre of a 2014 armed standoff with law enforcement over access to public land.

Judge Gloria Navarro dismissed the case against Cliven Bundy “with prejudice”, meaning it cannot be tried again.

She said prosecutors had improperly withheld evidence that could have helped Mr Bundy and three co-accused.

It is the latest episode in a decades-old conflict between ranchers and the government over use of public land.

Supporters cheered on Monday as Mr Bundy hugged his wife and walked out of the Las Vegas court a free man.

He said he had been jailed for 700 days as a “political prisoner”.

US District Judge Navarro last month declared a mistrial in the case. Bundy, 71, two of his sons, Ryan and Ammon Bundy, and a Montana militia leader, Ryan Payne, went on trial in October.

The four were charged with felony counts of carrying and using a firearm, engaging in conspiracy and threatening a federal officer.

Cliven Bundy expresses racist views

Oregon militia stand-off ends

On Monday, the judge said her decision was partly based on “flagrant prosecutorial misconduct”, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports.

She said the prosecution had withheld evidence that could have been favourable to the defence team.

This included records about federal surveillance at the Bundy ranch, the presence of government snipers and previous law enforcement assessments that the Bundys posed no threat.

The four-day standoff happened in April 2014 near government-owned land outside Bunkerville, 80 miles (130km) north of Las Vegas.

Law enforcement officials tried to remove Mr Bundy’s cattle, saying he owed more than $1m (£737,000) in grazing fees on US Bureau of Land Management property.

Hundreds of armed supporters rallied from across the country to keep officers off Mr Bundy’s ranch.

The Bundys argued that the government lacked the constitutional authority to control the land where his cattle fed.

Last year, two separate trials against six other men accused of conspiracy in the Bundy ranch standoff ended without convictions.

Ammon and Ryan Bundy also led a 41-day standoff with federal officials at an Oregon wildlife preserve two years ago.

The brothers were among seven defendants acquitted last year in that case, but others were convicted.

The cases became a lightning rod for anger over perceived government overreach in the American West.

The Bureau of Land Management oversees much of the land west of the Rocky Mountains.

Note: This story is auto-generated from BBC syndicated feed and has not been edited by AFRICA PRIME NEWS

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Donald Trump’s lawyers are in talks with investigators who are seeking to interview the US president as part of a justice department probe, reports say.

The Washington Post, quoting an unnamed person close to Mr Trump, says investigation lead Robert Mueller is likely to interview him within weeks.

Mr Trump’s legal team has not confirmed the reports.

Mr Mueller is investigating possible collusion between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia in the US elections.

Tensions between Mr Mueller, the special counsel appointed to look into alleged Russian interference, and the president have risen since the investigation led to charges against several former members of Mr Trump’s campaign team.

Mr Trump’s administration denies working with Russia on the election, and the president has labelled the investigation “a witch hunt”.

According to The Post, Mr Mueller first raised the possibility of interviewing the president in a meeting with his lawyers, John Dowd and Jay Sekulow, in late December.

“This is moving faster than anyone really realises,” the newspaper quotes a person within the president’s circle, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Mr Trump’s lawyers are reluctant to allow him to sit down for open-ended questioning and are discussing whether to allow him to provide written answers to some of the questions, The Washington Post and NBC News report.

According to NBC, which cited three people close to the story, the talks are “preliminary and ongoing”.

President Trump’s legal team did not confirm the reports, but told both media outlets: “The White House is continuing its full co-operation with the OSC [Office of Special Counsel Robert Mueller] in order to facilitate the earliest possible resolution.”

A spokesman for Mr Mueller also declined to comment.

The Post, quoting an unnamed source, says the two sides planned to meet again to continue discussions on terms and substance of any interview.

Aside from the Russia angle, special counsel Robert Mueller may also look into whether the president and his inner circle sought to obstruct justice while in office following the firing of FBI director James Comey.

Mr Trump in a later TV interview connected his sacking of Mr Comey with a prior investigation into Russia and the 2016 election led by the then-FBI boss.

Mr Comey testified that in a private meeting prior to his dismissal, the president had asked him to show leniency in an inquiry into his top aide, Michael Flynn.

President Trump has repeatedly denied accusations he pressed Mr Comey to drop his inquiries.

Robert Mueller was appointed by the justice department as special counsel shortly after Mr Comey’s dismissal.

• Is Trump closer to obstruction of justice?

Sitting presidents have been interviewed by prosecutors in the past, most notably when Democrat President Bill Clinton testified before a grand jury in 1998 over his sexual relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

Justice department officials quoted by NBC say Mr Mueller is unlikely to pass up on an opportunity to interview the president directly.

Two of President Trump’s former aides, including Mr Flynn, have already been implicated in Mr Mueller’s investigation and are acting as witnesses for the probe.

Last month Mr Flynn, Mr Trump’s short-lived national security adviser, became the most senior official to be charged after admitting to making false statements to the FBI about meetings with Russia’s ambassador.

The US intelligence community has already concluded that Moscow tried to sway the presidential election in favour of Mr Trump, though Russia denies this.

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Google has been accused of discriminating against conservative white men in a class action lawsuit filed by two former engineers.

The duo say they want to represent all staff discriminated against due to their “perceived conservative political views, male gender and Caucasian race”.

James Damore, fired last year over a controversial memo, is behind the suit.

His memo argued there were few women in top jobs at the firm due to biological differences between men and women.

• Google sued over ‘sex discrimination’
• Google fires diversity memo author

Mr Damore and David Gudeman, another former engineer at the firm, filed the suit at Santa Clara Superior Court in California.

A spokesperson for Google said they “look forward to defending against Mr Damore’s lawsuit in court.”

A separate case filed by three women who used to work at Google, alleging it pays women less than men for comparable work, was dismissed last month, but has been refiled in an amended form.

Mr Damore and Mr Gudeman claim in their lawsuit that Google employs illegal hiring quotas to fill posts with women and minorities.

They accuse the company of failing to protect employees with conservative views, including supporting US President Donald Trump.

Their lawsuit says the men were “openly threatened and subjected to harassment and retaliation” at the company, which they describe as an “ideological echo chamber”.

It says Google “openly shames” managers who fail to meet goals, even booing them at meetings.

Mr Damore’s memo caused fierce debate about free speech in the workplace and diversity in Silicon Valley.

The memo’s focus on perceived biological differences between men and women proved highly controversial.

• Was Google wrong to fire memo author?
• Does Silicon Valley have a sexism problem?

In the lawsuit, Mr Damore said the memo was intended to remain internal and had been written in response to a request for feedback from a diversity and inclusion summit he had attended.

When Mr Damore lost his job, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said portions of the memo violated the company’s code of conduct and crossed “the line by advancing harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace”.

But Mr Damore said he had received “many personal messages from fellow Googlers expressing their gratitude” for speaking out.

Google is also under investigation by the US Department of Labor over whether its pay practices fall foul of equal pay laws.

Note: This story is auto-generated from BBC syndicated feed and has not been edited by AFRICA PRIME NEWS