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Most of the 14 people killed at a holiday banquet in San Bernardino County, California, worked in the same county public health department as the man who showed up with his wife and sprayed the hall with gunfire.
An official list of the dead was released Thursday, and families, friends and co-workers came forward to share some of their stories:
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AURORA BANALES GODOY, 26
The wife and mother of an infant son was killed in the attack, her aunt, Rebecca Godoy, said in Facebook post that linked to Godoy's own page.
"Yesterday in the shootings in San Bernardino many families were affected. Ours was one of them," Rebecca Godoy wrote. "We will keep her flame alive so that her young son does not forget his special mother."
Godoy's cousin, Nicole Rachelle Chelley, declined further comment when contacted by the AP through Facebook email.
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YVETTE VELASCO, 27
Velasco is being described by her family as smart, motivated and full of life.
In a statement, her relatives said she was "loved by all who knew her."
"We are devastated about what happened and are still processing this nightmare," the family said.
Velasco is survived by her parents and three sisters.
"Please pray for our family and the other families who have lost a loved one as a result of this terrible tragedy," her relatives wrote.
In the aftermath of the shooting, Velasco's relatives searched everywhere for her. Mindy Velasco, her aunt, called hospitals, police and evacuee centers in a harrowing search for information, the Los Angeles Times reported.
"I'm fearing the worst," she told the paper. "She would definitely be in contact after something like this."
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BENNETTA BETBADAL, 46
She was born in Iran in 1969 and came to the United States at age 18 to escape the persecution of Christians after the Iranian Revolution, according to a family statement on a fundraising account set up in her name.
Her cousin, Melani Betbadal, referred reporters to the statement and declined further comment.
She first settled in New York City but eventually moved to Rialto, California. She and her husband, a police officer, were married in 1997 and have three children ages 10, 12 and 15.
Betbadal graduated from California State Polytechnic University in Pomona with a degree in chemistry and took a job as a health inspector with San Bernardino County.
Her husband, Arlen Verdehyou, told The Daily Breeze that he and his wife exchanged texts at 8 a.m. Wednesday. He told her that he had withdrawn money from the bank and would do some Christmas shopping. Betbadal had recently decorated the family's Christmas tree.
She was planning to give a presentation at the annual holiday meeting Wednesday and was excited about it, the family said.
"It is the ultimate irony that her life would be stolen from her that day by what appears to be the same type of extremism that she fled so many years ago," the family said in the statement.
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SIERRA CLAYBORN, 27
Her friends say she stood out as someone who always had an encouraging word.
Timothy J. Lee remembers meeting Clayborn in a hip-hop class at the University of California, Riverside. She was active and outgoing, praising classmates when they mastered a routine.
"She always had something encouraging to say," Lee said.
After graduating in 2010, Clayborn worked jobs in retail and at a bank before landing a position at the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health. Like a number of other victims, she inspected restaurants.
Matthew Peairs, 27, a manager at Red Baron Pizza in Big Bear Lake, California, said Clayborn visited the restaurant a day before the shooting to complete an inspection.
"She was one of the nicest health inspectors that we've ever had," he said. "She talked to us like normal people, not just doing her job."
He said they discussed their holiday plans and she mentioned she was going to the department's Christmas party Wednesday.
"She was stoked about the party," Peairs said.
Word spread Wednesday among Clayborn's friends that she was missing. FBI agents later visited her family's house to tell them that she was killed in the attack.
"It's definitely going to be different without her," Lee said.
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ROBERT ADAMS, 40
The Yucaipa resident was known as a loving father and husband who married his high school sweetheart, friends said.
A fundraising page for his wife, Summer, and 20-month-old daughter, Savannah, had raised thousands of dollars in several hours Thursday.
Megan Neforos, who set up the page, said she knew Adams' wife through a Facebook group for mothers of young children.
"He was her high school sweetheart. This is tragic for her," she said. "He was an incredibly loving father and devoted husband."
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NICHOLAS THALASINOS, 52
He identified as a Messianic Jew and passionately defended Israel, actively debating about religion in online forums and in person, his friends said.
Only two weeks ago, Thalasinos, of Colton, was having a heated on-the-job discussion about the nature of Islam with Syed Rizwan Farook, his fellow restaurant inspector and one of the shooters.
Thalasinos' friend, Kuuleme Stephens, told The Associated Press that she happened to call him while he was working with Farook and that he brought her into their debate, loudly declaring that Farook "doesn't agree that Islam is not a peaceful religion."
She heard Farook counter that Americans don't understand Islam, and Thalasinos responded by saying, "I don't know how to talk with him," she said.
Stephens said she didn't sense any pending violence at the time, and it is not clear if their debates factored in the attack. Stephens said Thalasinos did not believe his co-worker would ever turn violent.
However, Stephens said Thalasinos' grieving wife told her later Thursday to tell the media that she now "believes her husband was martyred for his faith and beliefs." It wasn't immediately clear why Jennifer Thalasinos came to that conclusion.
Nicholas and Jennifer Thalasinos had recently renewed their marriage vows, and they appeared together frequently on his Facebook page.
"He was a wonderful person," said Joey Shimoni, another friend. "A great husband and just a sweet soul."
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LARRY DANIEL KAUFMAN, 42
He ran an independently owned coffee shop inside the Inland Regional Center where the county health workers were using a hall for their holiday banquet. The shop's workers included people with developmental disabilities, which can include epilepsy, autism and intellectual disabilities.
Eileen Richey, the executive director of the Association of Regional Center Agencies, said his death "fills us with sorrow, knowing so many families are in mourning."
Kaufman, of Rialto, was an avid participant in the Original Renaissance Pleasure Faire in Southern California each spring, said friend Katherine Panowicz, who had known him for 15 years.
She said he typically participated in parades, carrying either a pennant or a lance on a make-believe horse. The fair community is devastated to lose a friend with such a big smile, she said.
"It would change the entire environment of a room just because he had a big brilliant smile," she said.
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MICHAEL RAYMOND WETZEL, 37
Friends and fellow church members appealed for help supporting his widow, Renee, a stay-at-home mom in Lake Arrowhead, California, and children.
"Michael was the most amazing person," Renee Wetzel said in a statement, issued through her friend Celia Behar. The couple had five children from previous marriages and one child together.
"He was my best friend and an incredible father who was loved by all. I have never known a better person," the statement said. "He loved his work and his family so very much. Without him, this family will never be the same. We appreciate all the love and support that everyone is showing."
Behar runs a blog for mothers where Renee Wetzel frequently posted, and she turned there to ask for prayers shortly after learning that her husband, an environmental health supervisor, could have been attacked.
"My husband was in a meeting and a shooter came in. There are multiple people dead/shot. I can't get a hold of him," she wrote.
After last month's deadly shootings in Paris, she posted a vacation photo on Facebook, overlain by the colors of the French flag.
After her husband's death was confirmed, she posted a Bible passage: "When my heart is overwhelmed lead me to the rock that is higher than I."
The Lil' Mamas blog set up an online fundraiser for the Wetzel family on Thursday and quickly raised tens of thousands of dollars.
Church of the Woods also asked its members to pray for the extended family: "Please continue to pray for Renee, his children, and his former wife Amy as they process this terrible tragedy and loss of their husband and father," the church said in a statement.
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DAMIAN MEINS, 58
He was passionate about serving his community, a message he took from the priests at his Catholic high school in Riverside and carried throughout his life.
Meins never strayed far from his church or its teachings, said Walter Hackett, who met Meins some 40 years ago in high school.
"Service to others, helping others. He very much took that to heart," Hackett said.
Hackett called his friend "a good, good guy."
"Funny and smart and tall. A real quick smile, very friendly and outgoing," he said. "It's a real hard hit for all of us who knew him."
Meins married his high school sweetheart, now a Catholic school principal, and they raised two daughters, one a teacher. Meins was fondly remembered as the guy who dressed up as Santa for school pictures, according to a parent's social media posting Thursday.
Meins' Facebook page, where he can be seen smiling with his family in front of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, says he studied business administration at the University of Redlands starting in 1991. In 1979, he graduated from UC Riverside. He was also retired from the Riverside County after working there for 28 years.
In addition to working in the public health department in San Bernardino, Meins was an extended care coordinator at St. Catherine of Alexandria School in Riverside, where he also helped kids create Christmas art projects and religious murals, Hackett said.
Meins received a community award for his work in Riverside, which was based on "compassion, courage, forgiveness, generosity, humility, inclusiveness, integrity, kindness, respect and service."
A living Rosary for the Meins family was held Thursday.
Question mark for Nov. jobs report: Did pay growth continue?
As the government prepares to issue the November jobs report, a key question remains unanswered: Is the U.S. job market finally healthy enough to lift Americans' long-stagnant pay?
Some tantalizing signs have suggested that wages are beginning to pick up after barely moving in the 6½ years since the Great Recession officially ended. On Friday, the latest jobs data should offer some clues about whether the modest pay gains will continue.
By many measures, the job market is nearly back to normal. The unemployment rate is 5 percent, down from its 10 percent peak in 2009. Employers have added a robust average of 206,000 jobs a month this year, more than enough to keep lowering the jobless rate over time.
Economists have forecast that Friday's report will show that 200,000 more jobs were added in November and that the unemployment rate remained at 5 percent, according to data firm FactSet.
Even if hiring falls far short of those numbers, the Federal Reserve is widely expected to raise the short-term interest rate it controls for the first time in nine years after its next policy meeting Dec. 15-16. Friday's jobs report will be the last one the Fed will see before that meeting.
Fed Chair Janet Yellen said in a speech Wednesday that the job market should soon reach full health as long as the economy keeps growing at its current pace. More hiring and better pay should also lift inflation back up to the Fed's 2 percent target over time, Yellen added.
But given the significant gains the job market has made in recent years, the Fed won't likely be dissuaded from a rate hike later this month no matter what Friday's report says.
"It is hard to imagine how weak (the report) would have to be for the Fed to reverse course," said Drew Matus, an economist at UBS.
Even so, wage growth has remained perhaps the job market's biggest weakness since the recession ended. Average hourly pay has grown at only about two-thirds of the pace typical of a healthy economy. Some economists point to the lagging pay as evidence that the job market isn't as healthy as the low unemployment rate would suggest.
With the number of unemployed dwindling, companies eventually should feel compelled to offer higher pay to attract and keep workers. Thicker paychecks, in turn, typically boost consumer spending and drive economic growth.
There have been signs in recent weeks that the improving job market is finally raising pay. In October, average hourly earnings rose 2.5 percent from 12 months earlier - the fastest annual increase since the recession ended. It's still below the roughly 3.5 percent annual gain consistent of a strong economy.
And last week, the government said total wages and salaries rose at a much faster pace in the spring and summer than it had previously estimated.
"Rising wages are proof positive that we are at full employment," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics. Full employment, as defined by most economists, is the lowest the unemployment rate can go without sparking inflation.
Yellen highlighted the potential turnaround in her speech Wednesday.
"We have seen a welcome pickup in the growth rate of average hourly earnings ... and of compensation per hour," she said.
Most economists expect pay increases to continue, though the data tends to be volatile and there may not be solid gains in each month's jobs report.
Jim O'Sullivan, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics, says some of the income gains over the spring and summer likely reflected bonuses and other one-time payments. Those increases typically aren't captured in the average hourly pay data in the jobs report. They show up months later in tax data.
Some economists argue that the recent wage increases haven't been large or consistent enough to justify a Fed rate hike.
"If lots of firms were expecting to do lots of hiring soon, they would have to push up their wages to attract those new workers, and we would start seeing stronger upward pressure on both wages and prices," said Andrew Levin, an economist at Dartmouth and former Yellen adviser.
There are other signs that the job market still isn't fully healed. The number of part-time workers who would prefer full-time jobs remains above its pre-recession level. And millions of Americans have stopped looking for work since the recession ended, in part because they were discouraged by a lack of opportunities.
Still, the Fed's ability to reverse those trends is limited. Some Americans who haven't worked or looked for work for an extended period may need intensive job training, for example.
"The answer, if there is one, is in a set of policies from the government, not interest rate policies from the Federal Reserve," Matus said.
California Supreme Court OKs organic labeling lawsuits
Consumers have a right to file lawsuits under California law alleging food products are falsely labeled "organic," the state Supreme Court ruled.
Thursday's ruling overturned a lower court decision that barred such suits on the grounds that they were superseded and not allowed by federal law.
Congress wanted only state and federal officials to police organic food violations in order to create a national standard for organic foods, a division of the 2nd District Court of Appeal decided in 2013.
But the state Supreme Court said allowing consumer lawsuits would further congressional goals of curtailing fraud and ensuring consumers can rely on organic labels.
"Accordingly, state lawsuits alleging intentional organic mislabeling promote, rather than hinder, Congress's purposes and objectives," Associate Justice Kathryn Werdegar wrote for the unanimous court.
The ruling will have an impact beyond California's borders, said Marsha Cohen, a professor at UC Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco.
"Nothing in here is irrelevant to a parallel case in another state," she said. "The court is simply saying federal law does not supersede our consumer protection functions."
At issue were allegations in a lawsuit by consumer Michelle Quesada that Herb Thyme Farms Inc. - one of the nation's largest herb producers - mixed organic and non-organic herbs then falsely labeled the product "100 % organic." The term "organic" means the food was produced using sustainable practices and without synthetic fertilizers, sewage sludge, irradiation, or genetic engineering, according to the California Department of Public Health. The department says products labeled "100% organic" must consist of only organic ingredients.
A call to Cliff Neimeth, an attorney for Herb Thyme Farms, was not immediately returned.
The company said in court documents it had been authorized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to use the organic label.
Allowing individual lawsuits challenging that designation would open it up to interpretation by a "lay jury," creating a patchwork of standards for the term "organic" that would defeat the goal of a national organic foods marketplace, the company said.
"If a lone consumer can second-guess the USDA's certification, and a grower cannot rely on its federal authorization to use the term, the already high cost of production of such products will skyrocket, or more likely, there will be no organic products to enjoy," Mark Kemple, an attorney for Herb Thyme Farms, wrote in a 2014 brief to the California Supreme Court.
Werdegar said judges - not juries - would decide such lawsuits using the federal organic labeling standard.
Raymond Boucher, an attorney for Quesada, said the ruling was a big victory for consumers.
"When Ms. Quesada goes in to buy a product that's stamped as organic, she wants to know this truly is organic, and she can feel good about it," he said.
The state Supreme Court's ruling reinstates Quesada's lawsuit. The suit seeks to represent thousands of consumers who "fell victim to Herb Thyme's scheme to mislead consumers into paying premium prices for impostor products," her attorneys wrote in a court filing.
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