LOS ANGELES — An L.A. County judge denied District Attorney Nathan Hochman’s bid Friday to revoke a petition to resentence the Menendez brothers that was filed by his predecessor, setting the stage for a hearing that could offer the brothers a path to freedom next week.

Superior Court Judge Michael Jesic denied Hochman’s request after a ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — The possibility that an idle, unconnected Southern California Edison transmission line somehow reengerized on Jan. 7 is "a leading hypothesis" for what started the destructive Eaton fire, Edison International Chief Executive Pedro Pizarro said Friday.

In response, Edison will take steps to harden other idle towers and lines ...Read more

NEW YORK — Puzzling and vaguely threatening graffiti appeared overnight around a Manhattan luxury townhouse once occupied by President Donald Trump’s former wife Ivana Trump, including the ominous message, “We killing u for Ivana Trump.”

The graffiti, which also referenced the first daughter, with “My queen Ivanka Trump,” was ...Read more

New Jersey acting U.S. Attorney Alina Habba has ordered an investigation of Gov. Phil Murphy and state Attorney General Matthew Platkin for allegedly refusing to cooperate with President Donald Trump’s ongoing federal immigration crackdown.

Habba announced the investigation on Fox News host Sean Hannity’s show Thursday night.

“I am ...Read more

BOISE, Idaho — An Ada County judge on Friday ruled partially in favor of four women who sued the state after they were denied health condition-related abortions in Idaho because of strict bans on the procedure.

The ruling puts in place the first clear carve-out of a health exception in the ban, a contentious issue that has sparked multiple ...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said he underwent and passed a cognitive exam during a roughly four-hour physical exam conducted Friday by his physician.

“I took a cognitive test and I don’t know what to tell you other than I got every answer right,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Florida.

Trump, in response ...Read more

Wall Street economists maintained their forecasts for a sharp slowdown in U.S. economic growth and warned recession risk is still elevated despite the Trump administration’s decision this week to delay major tariffs on a wide range of trading partners.

Morgan Stanley, BNP Paribas, RBC Capital Markets, Barclays Plc and UBS issued updated ...Read more

NEW YORK — The company operating the helicopter that crashed into the Hudson River carrying a family from Spain, killing them all, has a history of close calls and financial problems that resulted in a 2019 bankruptcy filing, records show.

In June 2013, a craft owned by the same company, New York Helicopter, experienced engine failure with ...Read more

NEW YORK — New York Attorney General Letitia James and 18 other AGs Friday threw their support behind professors seeking to halt the Trump administration’s efforts to deport international students.

In a friend of the court brief, the coalition accused the federal government of weaponizing immigration enforcement to crack down on speech ...Read more

A dozen former OpenAI employees are objecting to the startup’s plan to restructure as a for-profit as Elon Musk wages a high-stakes legal challenge to the overhaul.

In the latest turn in a showdown between the world’s richest person and one of the most valuable startups, the data scientists and technicians argued in a court filing Friday ...Read more

ORLANDO, Fla. — Survivors of the 2016 Pulse nightclub massacre and the families of those killed must now decide if they want to tour the property before it is demolished, leaving them a “hard” and “painful” choice about whether to commemorate the ninth anniversary of the shootings with a look inside the shuttered building.

Orlando ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — After months of questions in the aftermath of the Eaton and Palisades fires, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health has finally shared preliminary results from soil testing in and around the burn areas. The publicly available data are still somewhat vague — but they do show concerning levels of lead on properties ...Read more

NEW YORK — The National Transportation Safety Board said it isn’t ruling anything out as it probes the deadly crash of a New York City tourist helicopter.

“Everything is on the table,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said Friday during a media briefing on the accident, in which a sightseeing helicopter plunged into the Hudson River.

The ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. warned Food and Drug Administration staff about the influence of the “deep state” on the agency in an all-hands meeting Friday where he also made off-color comments about children with developmental disabilities.

FDA employees gathered at the agency’s Maryland-based headquarters for a “viewing party...Read more

Lawyers for British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell said they asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn her 2021 sex-trafficking conviction, arguing she was shielded from prosecution under a deal her former boyfriend Jeffrey Epstein reached with the government in a separate case.

In her petition, which was provided by her lawyer, Maxwell argued she ...Read more

Luigi Mangione’s attorneys argued Friday that federal prosecutors should be precluded from seeking the death penalty for the Towson, Maryland, native on charges that he killed a health insurance executive.

Attorney General Pamela Bondi’s announcement earlier this month directing prosecutors to pursue capital punishment in the case was “...Read more

MEXICO CITY — A war over water is brewing at the U.S.-Mexico border.

This week, President Donald Trump threatened Mexico with new tariffs for failing to deliver billions of gallons of water under a 1944 treaty governing the dispersal of three rivers that run through both countries.

“Mexico has been stealing the water from Texas farmers,�...Read more

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Following a wave of schools and professional sports teams over the last 20 years scaling back usage of Native American-themed names, imagery, mascots and logos, the Democrat-led Illinois House has advanced legislation that aims to place a statewide ban on such usage from elementary through high schools.

The legislation has...Read more