LOS ANGELES — A rapidly growing wildfire straddling the Ventura-Los Angeles county line Thursday afternoon triggered evacuations in and around Piru and Castaic amid a major heat wave that officials warned could foster extreme fire growth and behavior.

The Canyon fire was initially reported to be about 30 acres, but within about two hours that...Read more

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi talked trade with his Brazilian counterpart and is expected to head to China for the first time in seven years in August, against the backdrop of worsening ties with the U.S.

Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Modi discussed the imposition of unilateral tariffs against their nations and ...Read more

President Donald Trump recently unveiled plans to build a large ballroom on the White House grounds, sparking mixed reactions from the public, new polling reveals.

The new event space will span 90,000 square feet — about the size of 1.5 football fields — and it will be situated near the East Wing, the White House announced on July 31.

The ...Read more

FRESNO, Calif. — As ICE raids continue across the state, families in Central California are bracing for the possibility that an undocumented loved one could be detained and eventually deported.

Instead of figuring things out as they happen, some families are preparing in advance by making a plan for who to call if they’re detained and who ...Read more

The U.S. confirmed it would end stacking of universal tariffs on Japan and cut car levies as promised, Tokyo’s top trade negotiator Ryosei Akazawa said after a meeting with his counterparts in Washington.

His comments following talks with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent provided some relief amid doubts ...Read more

You are not imagining it. Fire season in California is indeed starting earlier and lasting longer in virtually every region of California than it did two decades ago, researchers have found, thanks largely to human-caused climate change.

In the Sierra Nevada, fire season starts about 24 days earlier than it did in the early 1990s. In the ...Read more

SAN DIEGO — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested a parent outside a Chula Vista school during morning drop-off on Wednesday, officials said.

School officials said the incident did not occur on the property of Enrique Camarena Elementary School in Otay Ranch.

“The Chula Vista Elementary School District is committed to ...Read more

"Chimp Crazy" star Tonia Haddix on Thursday was sentenced to 46 months in prison.

The 55-year-old exotic animal broker was convicted for lying to a federal judge about the death of her chimpanzee Tonka, whom she was hiding in her basement. Haddix, who calls herself the "Dolly Parton of chimps," pleaded guilty to perjury and obstruction of ...Read more

Nevada’s solar boom could be hampered by too much direct oversight from the Interior Department, the governor told the Trump administration in a letter Monday.

Gov. Joe Lombardo, a Republican, raised concerns about a July 15 memo that requires Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to directly sign off on every step of solar and wind development on ...Read more

CHICAGO — The man in a blue Hawaiian shirt paced up and down the line of fellow protesters outside the Congress Plaza Hotel on South Michigan Avenue, shouting into a megaphone with the fervor of someone leading the sermon at a megachurch.

“They are not welcome in this city!” he yelled. “This is an immigrant city!”

The “they” he ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — A rapidly growing wildfire straddling the Ventura-Los Angeles county line Thursday afternoon triggered evacuations in and around Piru and Castaic amid a major heat wave that officials warned could foster extreme fire growth and behavior.

The Canyon fire was initially reported to be about 30 acres, but within about two hours that...Read more

President Donald Trump said he’d be willing to meet with Vladimir Putin, even if the Russian leader hadn’t yet agreed to also sit down with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The signal from Trump suggested an increased willingness to grant the Kremlin’s request for a one-on-one meeting. But the U.S. president said he was “very ...Read more

MIAMI — The city of Miami wants another day in court.

Last week, a three-judge panel with Florida’s Third District Court of Appeal upheld a lower court’s ruling that found the city’s decision to postpone the November 2025 election to 2026 without voter approval was unconstitutional.

After two losses in court, the city is now asking for...Read more

OAKLAND, Calif. — The trauma among Oaklanders after a grueling spike in violence and property crime during the COVID-19 pandemic may not yet be healed, but now even the fiercest tough-on-crime voices here have begun to acknowledge that the city is becoming safer.

Oakland leaders, meanwhile, saw fit to take a victory lap Thursday, announcing ...Read more

Stanford University's student newspaper is suing the Trump administration, claiming the threat to deport foreign students for speaking out against Israel's handling of the war in Gaza is chilling free speech.

That threat is hampering the paper's ability to cover campus demonstrations and to get protesters to speak on the record, according to a ...Read more

MIAMI — A federal judge in Miami has ordered construction halted for two weeks at Florida’s immigration detention center in the Everglades, handing a victory to critics concerned about the potential environmental impacts of Alligator Alcatraz.

With the state potentially looking to expand the site, District Judge Kathleen Williams on ...Read more

DENVER — A retired Aurora police detective who spent 41 years on the job kept 30 boxes of investigative material in his home under his floorboards for years, Chief Todd Chamberlain said in a news conference Thursday.

The chief called the retired detective’s actions “unacceptable” and acknowledged that the records-keeping breach raises �...Read more

LOS ANGELES — A rapidly growing wildfire straddling the Ventura-Los Angeles County line Thursday afternoon triggered evacuations in and around Piru and Castaic amid a major heat wave that officials warned could foster extreme fire growth and behavior.

The Canyon fire was initially reported to be about 30 acres, but within about two hours that...Read more

Fewer Kentucky kindergarten students have received the vaccines required to attend school, and data from the state’s School Immunizations Survey shows religious objections are a growing reason why.

State data for the 2024-25 school year puts the overall percentage of kindergarten students fully caught up on required vaccines at 82%. That’s ...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said he would host the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan for a peace summit with expectation that the pair will sign an agreement seeking to end decades of conflict between the South Caucasus nations.

Armenian President Vahagn Khachaturyan and both Azerbaijani Prime Minister Ali Asadov and President Ilham ...Read more