ORLANDO, Fla. — A federal probe has found that drones meant to dazzle holiday season viewers on the shores of Orlando’s Lake Eola didn’t have the most updated flight path programming installed, triggering a chain of mishaps in which some of the aircraft collided with each other, fell from the sky and, in one case, dived into a crowd of ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — With fire containment improving and winds dying down, some residents are being allowed back into neighborhoods devastated by the Eaton and Palisades fires.

Los Angeles County officials say as many as 11,000 people will be able to return home as crews continue to get a handle on the deadly Palisades and Eaton fires that started ...Read more

Will she or won’t she?

Palm Beach gossip watchers can’t help but wonder if Donald Trump Jr.’s new girlfriend is going to attend the inauguration in Washington, D.C., on Monday.

There’s a good chance Bettina Anderson may be front and center as she and Jr., though not Instagram official, have been dating for a hot minute.

The two were ...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Friday declared the Equal Rights Amendment the law of the land, creating a constitutional quandary three days before leaving office and after years of warning that his successor would shred the rule of law.

At question is a 1982 deadline for state ratification of the amendment, which the Biden White House ...Read more

ATLANTA — The day after a northwest Georgia senator’s attempt to ignore his banishment from the House led to his arrest, the chamber’s speaker announced he was lifting the ban.

State Sen. Colton Moore, who previously served in the House, was arrested Thursday after he repeatedly tried to enter the House chamber for a joint session with ...Read more

WASHINGTON — One of the flashpoints of South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem’s confirmation hearing Friday before the Senate’s Homeland Security Committee came when Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said he was disappointed with Trump’s statements about withholding disaster relief to California.

Blumenthal repeatedly asked whether Noem would ...Read more

ATLANTA — Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis can’t revive part of her racketeering case against incoming President Donald Trump and more than a dozen others, an appeals court ruled Friday.

In a unanimous decision, a three-judge panel on the Georgia Court of Appeals agreed with a lower court judge who killed six counts in the ...Read more

A man defaced two crisis pregnancy centers in Texas in light of the leaked Dobbs v. Jackson Supreme Court draft opinion that indicated the high court was going to turn abortion decisions back to the states in 2022, federal prosecutors said.

He took a can of spray paint to the two centers in Denton in May 2022, writing phrases including “not a...Read more

WASHINGTON — Kristi Noem on Friday sailed through a confirmation hearing to be the next secretary of Homeland Security, with responses on major issues related to illegal immigration, international terrorism and cybersecurity that were unlikely to erode what appears to be a solid backing from Republicans.

The Senate Homeland Security and ...Read more

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Gov. Ron DeSantis wants the power to suspend or criminally charge local officials who don’t train at least 10% of their law enforcement staff to detain and deport undocumented immigrants or follow other tough new immigration rules he’s proposed.

In a four-page memo to legislative leaders, DeSantis said he wants to make...Read more

ATLANTA — Countywide elections for all five seats on the Houston County Commission block representation for Black voters, resulting in an all-white board, according to lawsuit by the U.S. Department of Justice filed Thursday.

Only one Black candidate has ever been elected to the Houston Commission since post-Civil War Reconstruction in the ...Read more

MIAMI — A 36-year-old man from New York City has been arrested in the beating death of two homeless people in downtown Miami early Thursday morning, police said Friday, with the head of the county’s homeless agency calling on law enforcement to investigate the attacks as a “hate crime.”

According to Miami Police, this is what happened: ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Friday upheld a law mandating the social media giant TikTok sell its U.S. subsidiary or face a ban in the United States, setting the stage for the app potentially to be banned as early as this weekend.

The unanimous unsigned opinion found that Congress had legitimate concerns about the Chinese government’s ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Some Senate Republicans have turned attention to a powerful spy authority as Donald Trump’s picks for key national security roles go through the confirmation process, with the lawmakers seeking to emphasize their positions on the important yet controversial surveillance tool that bitterly divided both parties last Congress.

...Read more

ATLANTA — Metro Atlanta’s largest water utilities, in response to a federal deadline, reported this fall that there were no lead pipes in their drinking water systems that they knew of.

But thousands of pipes on private property remain unchecked. And a new federal rule requires local governments and water utilities to be more proactive ...Read more

TAMPA, Fla. — Gov. Ron DeSantis’ announcement that he’s appointing Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody to fill the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Marco Rubio places the Tampa area native in an exotic locale far from home.

But if her personal history is any indication, she will attract notice in Washington as a hard-charging — and highly ...Read more

In the weeks leading up to President-elect Donald Trump’s return to office, at least two U.S. Capitol rioters from North Carolina have tried to delay their federal sentences in hopes that he will pardon them.

Federal judges shot down both requests, but Trump’s promise to pardon “most” of the more than 1,400 people who stormed Capitol ...Read more