COP29 host Azerbaijan released a final draft of a climate finance deal, calling on rich nations to commit at least $300 billion a year in climate financing to the developing world.

The draft, which came early Sunday morning in Baku, set the stage for a hard-won financing agreement after two weeks of fraught negotiations.

The final funding ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — For more than 15 years, one of the world's most famous gemstones — the 180,000-carat Bahia Emerald — has been held in Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department custody, its ultimate fate uncertain amid more than a decade of discord, disagreement and courtroom wrangling.

Now, a federal judge has ruled that the smuggled stone ...Read more

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump selected Brooke Rollins, who heads a policy institute created to promote his agenda, as his nominee for U.S. secretary of agriculture.

Rollins’ commitment to supporting farmers, food self-sufficiency and the restoration of agriculture-dependent American small towns “is second to none,” Trump ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — In an effort to fight the sexual exploitation of children, federal authorities will teach Los Angeles Unified School District students, staff and parents how to stay safe online.

A memorandum of understanding between the nation's second-largest school district, the U.S. Attorney's Office and Homeland Security Investigations was ...Read more

SAN DIEGO — The deployment of military troops to the southwestern border is nothing new.

Presidents both Republican and Democrat have called on military support in San Diego and elsewhere many times over the years to assist with border security tasks, from surveillance to reinforcing barriers.

But President-elect Donald Trump’s hint this ...Read more

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling alliance won an election in Maharashtra by a wide margin, signaling policy continuity in a state which houses most of India’s billionaires and is home to some of the country’s biggest investments.

The Mahayuti coalition, led by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, is ahead with 228 seats of the 288-...Read more

Cameron James Pettit, one of three men charged in Mac Miller’s 2018 overdose death, has been released from federal lockup.

Pettit, 33, who allegedly sold the fentanyl-laced drugs to the rapper two days before his death, was released from California’s Federal Correctional Institution Mendota on Oct. 11, according to online inmate records. A ...Read more

WASHINGTON — In the waning days of his administration, President Joe Biden is pushing to strengthen Ukraine’s position against Russia before the return of Donald Trump to the White House.

That’s because the president-elect has pledged to promptly end the grinding war started by Russia’s Vladimir Putin almost three years ago. That likely...Read more

WASHINGTON — Scott Bessent, the veteran hedge fund manager who Donald Trump picked to become the next Treasury secretary, wants tariffs, a shadow chair for the Federal Reserve and maybe a weaker dollar.

If confirmed by the Senate, he will have a sprawling remit: oversee public financing, economic sanctions and the Internal Revenue Service; ...Read more

NEW YORK — Cops have arrested the man they say swiped a $3,000 gold-plated rose from a 9/11 memorial at a Midtown church.

Members of the New York Police Department's Manhattan Warrant Squad grabbed Deikel Alcantara, 21, for Wednesday’s theft at the Church of St. Francis of Assisi on West 31st Street near Seventh Avenue, down the block from ...Read more

Nearly a year after the Biden administration gave Florida the green light to become the first state to import lower-cost prescription drugs from Canada — a longtime goal of politicians across the political spectrum, including President-elect Donald Trump — the program has yet to begin.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis hailed the FDA’s approval ...Read more

A California agency charged with slowing health costs has set a lofty goal for insurers to direct 15% of their spending to primary care by 2034, part of the state’s effort to expand the primary care workforce and give more people access to preventive care services.

The board of the state Office of Health Care Affordability in October set its ...Read more

On Thursday, Nov. 26, 1789, George Washington woke early. Assisted by his enslaved valets – William “Billy” Lee and the young Christopher Sheels – he powdered his hair, put on his favorite black velvet suit, tied his white neckwear and donned his yellow gloves.

Finally ready, he set out to travel the short distance from the ...Read more

Thanksgiving doesn’t ring in the ear for months on end, unlike another holiday that lies just ahead. Yet readers may remember a couple of hymns that roll around each November in church, around the dinner table, or even – for readers of a certain age – in school. One I remember well is “Come, Ye Thankful People, Come.” Then there’s...Read more

Historians know that turkey and corn were part of the first Thanksgiving, when Wampanoag peoples shared a harvest meal with the pilgrims of Plymouth plantation in Massachusetts. And traditional Native American farming practices tell us that squash and beans likely were part of that 1621 dinner too.

For centuries before Europeans ...Read more

President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to run the sprawling government agency that administers Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act marketplace — celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz — recently held broad investments in health care, tech, and food companies that would pose significant conflicts of interest.

Oz’s holdings, some shared ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — For years, many residents in the working-class, mostly Latino communities of Sun Valley and Pacoima thought they were going crazy as doctors were unable to figure out why they were plagued with frequent headaches, nausea and nosebleeds.

It turns out they were being gaslighted.

Staff at the L.A. Department of Water and Power hid...Read more

BALTIMORE — County officials say funding the Harford public school system’s requested $60 million budget increase would require tax increases, while school officials warn that not covering the system’s $60 million budget deficit would result in devastating cuts for students. Both outcomes will have an impact on county residents. Here’s ...Read more