LOS ANGELES — Real estate developer and former gubernatorial candidate Stephen Cloobeck, who exited the race in November, was arrested in Los Angeles County on Tuesday.

Jail records show Cloobeck, 64, was arrested before 11 a.m. and booked at the West Hollywood station on $300,000 bail, according to Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Severely disabled veterans in California could be getting an expanded tax break.

State lawmakers are considering legislation that would exempt from taxation 50% of the residential property owned by a fully disabled veteran, or 100% if their household income does not exceed $40,000.

"I've seen firsthand the financial challenges ...Read more

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- The South Carolina Supreme Court has ruled to overturn the 2023 double murder conviction of disgraced attorney Alex Murdaugh.

In it’s ruling Wednesday, the state Supreme Court said the actions of former Colleton County Court Clerk Becky Hill denied “Murdaugh his right to a fair trial by an impartial jury.”

Murdaugh’s ...Read more

NEW YORK — The Mamdani administration hopes to speed up service on Q70-SBS bus service to and from LaGuardia Airport by building a dedicated bus lane on a stretch of Broadway in Jackson Heights ahead of the World Cup.

The eastbound lane would run down the center of Broadway, from Roosevelt Ave. to 69th St. The street would maintain an ...Read more

Health Secretary Wes Streeting is preparing to resign from the U.K. government and challenge Prime Minister Keir Starmer for the leadership, according to his allies.

Streeting, who met Starmer briefly in Downing Street on Wednesday morning, is likely to quit the Cabinet this week and attempt to trigger a leadership contest, they said, ...Read more

President Donald Trump arrived in Beijing for the first state visit to China by a U.S. leader in nine years, as the world’s two largest economies look to stabilize ties with a summit playing out against the backdrop of the Iran war.

Air Force One touched down at the Beijing Capital International Airport slightly before 8 p.m. on Wednesday, ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — When state wildlife officials euthanized "Blondie" the bear over the objections of local elected leaders in March, it was unclear if her two orphaned bear cubs would ever be able to live in the wild again.

The tiny furry creatures weighed just 5.8 and 7.6 pounds. They required spoon-feedings four times a day. And they could not ...Read more

At a recent dental appointment, I was unexpectedly seen by a new provider in my longtime dentist’s practice. Early in the visit, he realized we were both Iranian American. Like me, he had been born and raised in the United States. We were both fluent English speakers and fully accustomed to navigating American medical settings.

...Read more

President Donald Trump announced on May 1, 2026, that the United States will withdraw 5,000 U.S. troops from Germany – personnel who had been deployed there as a response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Germany-U.S. tensions started after the U.S. invasion of Iran. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz refused to support Trump’s war...Read more

Beginning in July 2026, Detroiters will be paying higher water and sewer bills.

That’s because The Great Lakes Water Authority, or GLWA, voted unanimously on Feb. 25, 2026, to increase water rates by 5.8% and sewer rates by 4.26% for its customers. GLWA raised rates by similar amounts in 2025.

Residents at GLWA’s last rate...Read more

President Donald Trump arrived in Beijing for the first state visit to China by a U.S. leader in nine years, as the world’s two largest economies look to stabilize ties with a summit playing out against the backdrop of the Iran war.

Air Force One touched down at the Beijing Capital International Airport slightly before 8 p.m. on Wednesday, ...Read more

U.S. President Donald Trump repeated his military threats against Iran ahead of a visit to China, the Islamic Republic’s largest oil customer and a key diplomatic partner.

Iran will either “make a good deal” with the U.S. or face devastation, Trump said on Tuesday. The war on Iran, which has sent energy prices soaring because of Tehran’...Read more

LOS ANGELES — The COVID-19 pandemic brought tough times for both Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Crime briefly rose. Rising housing prices combined with the opportunity to work remotely led to declines in population. Concerns over blights and quality of life became political issues.

But now, there are early signs of a postcrisis divergence in...Read more

From the Rockies to the Cascades to the Sierra Nevada, mountainsides across the West are sparsely covered by the snow that usually blankets the high country well into the summer.

That snowpack is like a savings account that the West draws on when the hot, dry months arrive. It moistens the landscape as it melts, lessening the risk of severe ...Read more

SEATTLE — While Navneet Kaur was pregnant with her son, she hung up sonogram images on the walls of her and her husband’s Auburn, Washington, home, shopped for cute baby clothes and talked about how happy she was to soon welcome her first child.

She was also unknowingly in a phase of life when women are at higher risk of intimate partner ...Read more

TAMPA, Fla. — Tampa Bay’s new congressional map looks like a pinwheel, with districts shaped like vanes that carve through Black neighborhoods in the urban cores and fan out into the rural, white and Republican counties beyond.

East Tampa, with its historically Black neighborhoods, will share a representative with the outer reaches of ...Read more

CHICAGO — The woman parked her car and thought about going to the front entrance of her luxury River North apartment building. But walking through the front door felt impossible.

So the woman instead hurried from the parking lot through the building’s back entrance, bypassing the front desk where she worried that the security guard who ...Read more

Donald Trump is expecting economic deals and a “wild” welcome this week in China. He’ll arrive facing an emboldened Xi Jinping, just as his own hand is constrained by the conflict in Iran.

When the U.S. president touches down in Beijing on Wednesday evening for a 36-hour summit, it’ll mark his first overseas trip since waging war in ...Read more

Nancy Guthrie’s neighborhood association has asked supporters to stop leaving mementos and flowers outside her Tucson residence three months after her apparent dead-of-night abduction, citing warmer temperatures and encroaching wildlife.

“I write this message with a very heavy heart as our friend and neighbor, Nancy Guthrie, remains missing...Read more