Shared testimonies, collective singing, silent meditation and baptism rituals – these are all activities you might find at a Christian church service on a Sunday morning in the United States. But what would it look like if atheists were gathering to do these rituals instead?

Today, almost 30% of adults in the United States say they ...Read more

As flu season progresses, so does the chorus of advice, professional and otherwise, to drink plenty of fluids and take fever-reducing medications, like acetaminophen, ibuprofen or aspirin.

These recommendations, well-intentioned and firmly entrenched, offer comfort to those sidelined with fever, flu or vaccine side effects. But you ...Read more

BALTIMORE — Once, it was somewhere.

“If you drive there, you’re driving through my backyard,” Rochelle Atkins said. “I tell my grandchildren, that’s where I used to live, by the lamp post.”

Her childhood home at 1916 W. Mulberry St. is long gone, demolished, along with nearly 1,000 others, to construct a highway meant to extend ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — The fire refugees arrive with regularity at the checkpoint on Pacific Coast Highway. They come alone or in pairs, lining up behind the clutch of police cruisers and a National Guard Humvee, pleading to get back to homes inside the Palisades wildfire perimeter.

They want medicines and other necessities, sure. But they also want a...Read more

LAS VEGAS — When a man wielding a metal bat charged at police officers outside a southeast Las Vegas Valley apartment complex in September, Metropolitan Police Department officers deployed an electronic control device — some of these are more popularly known as Tasers — in an effort to stop him.

It didn’t work, police said. When the man...Read more

TikTok was unavailable for U.S.-based users late Saturday after the company failed to thwart a nationwide shutdown required under a new national security law that takes effect Sunday.

“A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S.,” according to an in-app pop-up message. “Unfortunately, that means you can’t use TikTok for now.”

...Read more

ATLANTA — With Donald Trump just days away from returning to the White House — and getting started on a promised immigration crackdown of historic proportions — a majority of Georgia voters said they believe that most immigrants living in the country illegally should be given a chance to remain.

That’s according to a new poll by The ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — The former human resources director of the Broad is suing the Los Angeles museum and its former chief operating officer, accusing them of discrimination, retaliation and sexual harassment.

In the lawsuit filed Thursday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, former HR director Darron Rezell Walker accuses former COO Alysa Gerlach ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Squeals of joy can be heard from the playground at Eagle Rock Recreation Center. A group of 30 children is huddled into groups according to their favorite breakfast item.

“I like pancakes better than waffles,” one child announced.

“Pancakes, pancakes!” they chanted together as they beckoned for others to join them.

...Read more

WASHINGTON — Most of the people flying from Georgia to Washington this weekend were coming to celebrate Donald Trump’s return to the White House. Sarah Sheehan was in town to protest it.

The Griffin resident met up with her mother and her mother’s co-worker, two nurses who traveled from Oregon. Together, the three of them participated ...Read more

As inauguration day approaches, members of the crypto industry are eagerly anticipating a slew of digital asset friendly executive actions at the dawn of a second Trump administration.

Potentially at the top of the wish list would be an executive order prompting the regulatory agencies, including the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the...Read more

TAMPA, Fla. — The four years between Donald Trump’s first term in office and his second were marked by an extraordinary political shift in Florida.

In January 2021, President Joe Biden entered the White House with Florida ostensibly still on the map of battleground states. Republicans held power in Tallahassee, but by simple majorities in ...Read more

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — An illegal gambling network that ran from strip-mall casinos to a warehouse in Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood was taken down this week by state and local law enforcement agencies.

Authorities raided slot-machine parlors in suburban West Palm Beach, Fort Pierce, Vero Beach and Zephyrhills, confiscating machines and cash...Read more

LOS ANGELES — California Attorney General Rob Bonta on Saturday warned landlords that price gouging rules in effect because of the L.A. County fires apply even in cases where bidding wars break out over their property.

Under those rules, which kicked in when the governor declared a state of emergency, local landlords generally can’t charge ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Five major banks are offering homeowners up to three months of mortgage payment relief in areas devastated by the Southern California wildfires, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Saturday.

In a statement, Newsom's office said the banks will have a streamlined process that will not require submitting forms or documents and when the ...Read more

NEW YORK — A 20-year-old man was slashed with a box cutter during a fight with an older man on a subway train entering Penn Station, MTA officials said Saturday.

The attack came just a day after Gov. Kathy Hochul vowed to put police on every overnight subway train in the system.

The two men were on the No. 2 train entering the Midtown ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Thirteen years ago, Los Angeles Fire Department officials were bracing for the kind of dangerous winds that could drive flames across hillsides and canyons and tear through neighborhoods from Malibu to the Pacific Palisades to the San Fernando Valley.

The National Weather Service had issued red flag warnings of doomsday gusts as...Read more

BOSTON — A national think tank says the ACLU of Massachusetts is “grasping for relevance” with a settlement it secured in its challenge of the first Trump administration’s pattern of separating married couples and families seeking legal immigration status for a spouse at risk of deportation.

The ACLU has won a settlement that will allow...Read more

NEW YORK — New York City Mayor Eric Adams on Saturday doubled down on defending his meeting with soon-to-be president Donald Trump, claiming he was “fighting for” New Yorkers, as fellow Democrats accused him of cozying up to Trump in efforts to get a presidential pardon for his federal corruption case.

“I don’t care if it’s a ...Read more