LOS ANGELES — Federal prosecutors on Wednesday again accused a man of using a lighter to deliberately set the blaze that became the devastating Palisades fire, while his attorney argued that investigators settled on their theory months before conducting tests to support it.

The competing accounts opened the retrial of Jonathan Rinderknecht, ...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump probably has appointed his last U.S. Supreme Court justice.

With Democrats poised to hold at least 54 Senate seats starting Jan. 3, the party will have the power – and the motivation – to stop Trump from filling any vacancy that arises over the next two years.

Republicans had been quietly eyeing the ...Read more

For decades, Israel has been able to rely on rock-solid bipartisan American support for its every move, including diplomatic cover on the international stage and hundreds of billions of dollars in aid. Tuesday’s sweeping Democratic victories call all of that into question.

Michigan comfortably elected the country’s first Muslim senator, ...Read more

SAN JOSE, Calif. — A San Jose doctor and a Los Gatos restaurant have settled a long-running lawsuit by the doctor, who claimed a chicken-meatball dish called Dragon Balls was so spicy it burned her insides.

Harjasleen Walia in 2023 sued Coup de Thai — a fixture on the main strip of wealthy Los Gatos since 2014 — and alleged that while ...Read more

Senate Republicans are preparing to make the transition from the majority to the minority — and their top leaders will seek to retain their positions in the 120th Congress, even after the political drubbing they endured Tuesday night.

Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., will run for minority leader during next week’s GOP leadership ...Read more

WASHINGTON — As the scale of the Republican Party’s losses came into focus late Tuesday, President Donald Trump watched from the White House and went looking for someone to blame.

First it was Fox News. Just before midnight, with Democrats projected to seize control of the House, Trump wrote on Truth Social that the network “bears ...Read more

WASHINGTON — As Democrats look ahead to their new Senate majority for the next Congress, their current leader Charles E. Schumer made a prediction on Wednesday: “I’ll be reelected as majority leader.”

Schumer, a Democrat from New York, would be helming a larger caucus than most anticipated, ranging from 54 to 56 seats after the dust ...Read more

MIAMI — A Venezuelan man who lived in Miami was sentenced Tuesday to 12 years in federal prison for operating a vast international money-laundering network. The operation moved more than $1 billion through bank accounts, cryptocurrency wallets and shell companies, handling funds for drug traffickers and other illicit actors, according to ...Read more

White House staffers reportedly thought that Donald Trump, his loyal Cabinet officials and MAGA allies would have reason to celebrate Tuesday night, as they prepared what’s been described as a pretty elaborate party in the East Room to watch news about results of the midterm elections.

For this viewing party, staffers thought it would be ...Read more

NEW YORK — A Brooklyn appeals court on Wednesday handed Mayor Zohran Mamdani a key victory, greenlighting his signature pied-à-terre tax on pricey second homes owned by people who don’t call New York City home by reversing a lower court ruling that would have required the city to restart the process.

Overturning a decision issued last ...Read more

Democrats’ decisive sweep of the U.S. House and Senate in Tuesday’s elections will reshape the direction of federal health policy — setting the stage for oversight investigations, a legislative push to reverse cuts to the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid, and a focus on lowering costs such as insurance premiums and drug prices.

The ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Federal immigration agents didn’t swarm polling locations. FBI agents didn’t storm processing centers or seize ballots. A thousand federal election monitors caused little fuss. And President Donald Trump — the nation’s election denier in chief — responded to a shellacking for his Republican Party by saying he’d work ...Read more

Christa Pike is reportedly suffering from a rare blood disorder linked to cancer that her attorneys previously warned could cause dangerous complications during her execution by lethal injection.

Lawyers for Pike revealed her diagnosis in court documents filed nine months before her botched execution in Tennessee, People reported. She was ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Democrats heralded a new era in American politics Wednesday after voters broke Republicans’ control of government and delivered a pivotal rebuke of President Donald Trump.

Victories that handed Democrats control of the House and Senate on Tuesday night came in historic form, with margins outstripping expectations, posting ...Read more

MANAMA, Bahrain — Conferences in the Persian Gulf are usually positive affairs, with government officials, executives of state-owned companies and armies of consultants touting petro-fueled visions promising fantastical technology and prosperity.

Yet optimism seemed in short supply at the Manama Dialogue, an annual security and geopolitical ...Read more

CalRecycle has picked the number that decides how much plastic California has to cut under the state’s 2022 landmark plastic law, and it is low.

It’s just one-third of what the state estimated in a 2024 report, and 20% lower than an initial number the industry announced in June.

The benchmark number, known as the source reduction baseline,...Read more

WASHINGTON — The new Democratic majority in the Senate will feature a number of top recruits with significant government experience both on and off Capitol Hill.

None is more familiar than Sen.-elect Sherrod Brown, who unseated appointed Sen. Jon Husted just two years after losing Ohio’s other Senate seat to Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno.

...Read more

WASHINGTON — As the scale of the Republican Party’s losses came into focus late Tuesday, President Donald Trump watched from the White House and went looking for someone to blame.

First it was Fox News. Just before midnight, with Democrats projected to seize control of the House, Trump wrote on Truth Social that the network “bears ...Read more

The morning after voters delivered a blistering midterm rebuke of President Donald Trump, with Democrats flipping both chambers of Congress and racking up victories even in deep-red bastions, Vice President JD Vance said there was one main reason for his party’s widespread losses.

“The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said ...Read more