SAN DIEGO — The final week of the year will bring low tides to San Diego’s coastline, giving tide poolers one more chance this month to participate in a statewide quest to find sea stars — otherwise known as starfish.

The Solstice Sea Star Search along the California coast is an initiative from the California Academy of Sciences to track ...Read more

DENVER — Colorado lawmakers are set to introduce a pair of bills in the next legislative session that would bar municipal courts from imposing more severe sentences than state courts for the same crimes, as well as limit city courts from criminalizing missed hearings.

The first bill, sponsored by Rep. Javier Mabrey, a Denver Democrat, seeks ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — It wasn't long after becoming a police officer in the northern English town of Hull in the 1980s that Django Sibley realized patrolling without a gun meant "policing by consent."

His beat was the town's public housing tenements, and Sibley said he quickly worked out that people responded better to persuasion than threats of ...Read more

An AI-powered chatbot could help move the needle on Washington's stubbornly low FAFSA completion rate.

According to a recent report from the Washington Student Achievement Council, students who subscribe to OtterBot, a text-based chatbot developed by the organization, were more likely to fill out college financial aid forms than peers who didn'...Read more

The roommate of Sebastian Zapeta, the Guatemalan migrant who police say horrifically killed a woman by setting her on fire as she slept on an F train in Brooklyn, and then watched as she burned to death, said Tuesday that Zapeta seemed like a “regular guy” who gave no indication that he could turn violent.

Raymont Robinson, 54, who slept ...Read more

A 7-year-old boy critically injured Saturday by a falling drone during a holiday show at Lake Eola Park remains in intensive care, his mother said Monday in a post on a GoFundMe page.

“Zander is out of surgery and still fighting!” Jessica Lumedge wrote. “I will be missing work at this time, and he will be celebrating Christmas in the ICU....Read more

The U.S. Senate confirmed Judges Benjamin Cheeks and Serena Murillo to fill U.S. District Court vacancies in California in what was expected to be its final judicial votes this year.

The confirmations help establish new records for Black, Latino, women and other minority judges.

Cheeks is the 63rd Black judge named by President Joe Biden, ...Read more

A snowy owl was rescued Monday evening by a woman who was surprised to find it trapped in the grille of a car in a Duluth, Minnesota, parking lot.

Annabell Whelan, a good Samaritan who had also rescued another owl earlier in the day, said she was near the Bentleyville “Tour of Lights” display at Bayfront Festival Park when she found the ...Read more

NEW YORK — The migrant accused of torching a homeless woman on a Brooklyn subway made his first court appearance Tuesday to face murder charges — and prosecutors revealed he used his shirt to fan the flames after he ignited her clothes with a lighter.

Sebastian Zapeta, a 33-year-old Guatemalan migrant living in a Brooklyn men’s shelter, ...Read more

Kimberly Williams took her three daughters to the mall for some last-minute Christmas shopping this week and ended up buying a week’s worth of showers and emergency food for a person living on the street, pots and pans for a once-homeless person moving into their own place, and a blanket and binky for a newborn baby.

The unplanned purchases ...Read more

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — A Missouri judge last week torpedoed parts of a state law that have required sweeping redactions to court records, preventing the public from accessing routine information.

Moniteau County Associate Circuit Judge Aaron Martin ruled provisions requiring redaction of witness and victim information from court records ...Read more

U.S. lawmakers dropped a potential review of South Africa’s ties with Washington on the basis that they pose national-security risks.

President Joe Biden on Monday signed a version of a key annual defense-policy bill that didn’t contain an earlier amendment passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in June that sought the review.

Two ...Read more

It’s that time of year, when families and friends come together to share their holiday cheer and a few circulating pathogens.

Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease specialist at UC San Francisco, said people should be on the lookout for the “Big Four”: three respiratory viruses currently moving through the U.S. — influenza, COVID-19 ...Read more

Americans are more optimistic about 2025 than they were about 2024 — in large part because of President-elect Donald Trump, according to new polling.

In a December CBS News/YouGov poll, 57% of respondents said that, when looking ahead to 2025, they feel more hopeful than discouraged. Meanwhile, 23% said they feel more discouraged, and 20% ...Read more