LOS ANGELES — As California grapples with worsening cycles of drought, a proposal to create a new water district in Butte County has sparked fears of a profit-driven water grab by large-scale farmers and outside interests.

In the walnut and almond orchards along State Route 99 near Chico, agricultural landowners have led a yearslong campaign ...Read more

Rishi Sunak joked as he switched on the Christmas tree outside 10 Downing Street that it would be nice to “just click a button” and have everything turn out brighter. It was rare light moment in a week in which the prime minister found himself under fire for both the buttons he pushed and those he couldn’t bring himself to press.

Sunak ...Read more

ATLANTA — Does a Georgia railroad company’s plan to build a spur to serve private businesses qualify as a “public use,” allowing it to force property owners in its path to sell their land?

That question is at the heart of a controversial eminent domain fight that has rocked a small, mostly Black east Georgia town. The outcome could ...Read more

If you’re wealthy, you’ll be able to afford help in your home or care in an assisted living facility or a nursing home. If you’re poor, you can turn to Medicaid for nursing homes or aides at home.

But if you’re middle-class, you’ll have a thorny decision to make: whether to buy long-term care insurance.

It’s a more complex ...Read more

For 35 years, Angela Jemmott and her five brothers paid premiums on a long-term care insurance policy for their 91-year-old mother. But the policy does not cover home health aides whose assistance allows her to stay in her Sacramento, California, bungalow, near the friends and neighbors she loves. Her family pays $4,000 a month for that.

“We ...Read more

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Tom Hauge, a veteran wildlife biologist in Wisconsin, was told 21 years ago that a deadly disease had shown up in deer that roamed across the state’s southwest corner.

He knew what that meant. Chronic wasting disease one day could spread across Wisconsin and deplete the deer population that had made his state well known as ...Read more

Boris Johnson is expected to issue an “unreserved apology” at the COVID-19 public inquiry next week, but will insist that his decisions saved lives during the pandemic, according to the Times.

In evidence that stretches to more than 200 pages, the former prime minister will make a series of key points about his handling of the coronavirus ...Read more

Officials at Kensington Palace reportedly did everything they could to squash talk of Prince William’s alleged 2019 affair with pal Rose Hanbury, according to the explosive new exposé “Endgame.”

Royal expert Omid Scobie reveals in the new book that the palace“pulled out all the stops” to keep anything from coming out about the 41-...Read more

India will begin releasing results of recent state elections on Sunday, providing important clues about voter support for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party as he seeks a third term in office.

Three northern states — Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh — will be key to watch, since they are spread across what’s known as...Read more

Exxon Mobil Corp. CEO Darren Woods cuts a strange figure at the COP28 climate summit — an oil executive moving among thousands of government officials, business leaders and activists gathered in Dubai to limit global temperature rise.

After all, he’s the head of the largest American oil and gas company — villainized by some ...Read more

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The revelation that a transgender girl was playing on the Monarch High girls’ volleyball team — as well as the resulting administrative shakeup — shocked many this week. But the student’s battle had actually been detailed in public court papers for more than two years.

The now 16-year-old athlete and her ...Read more

U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said her department needs more money to stop China from catching up on cutting-edge semiconductors.

“We cannot let China get these chips. Period,” she said at the Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, California, on Saturday. “We’re going to deny them our most cutting-edge technology.”

To...Read more

Israel’s military increased airstrikes on Hamas targets in southern Gaza, a widening front in the war, as each side ruled out further talks toward a renewed cease-fire.

Israel pulled its negotiating team from Qatar, denting hopes that a seven-day cease-fire, accompanied by exchanges of hostages and prisoners, would be extended. Saleh al-...Read more

LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has moved to fire two deputies involved in a wreck that killed two young boys and injured several other people when their patrol car crashed into a group of pedestrians in 2017, according to two law enforcement sources who were not authorized to speak publicly about the case.

The ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Restaurant workers wiped tables and prepped menus at L.A. Live on Friday morning, readying for the typical weekend rush of concertgoers, diners and visitors at the downtown complex.

Visitors stopped to admire a Christmas tree in the center of an open-air ice rink, either unaware or unconcerned that a man had been gunned down ...Read more

DENVER — Denver Mayor Mike Johnston plans to shut down homeless encampments near 20th and Curtis streets and 48th Avenue and Colorado Boulevard and move more than 200 people living in them off the streets, his administration announced Friday.

Those relocations will happen “in the next couple of weeks,” city spokesman Derek Woodbury said ...Read more

DETROIT — Former Michigan House Speaker Rick Johnson has surrendered at a minimum-security federal prison camp in Minnesota to serve a 55-month sentence for pocketing bribes and corrupting the state's marijuana industry, according to an inmate database updated Saturday.

The database shows Johnson, 70, among the 433 inmates at FPC Duluth near ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Gabriela Leos was at the Michelada Rumble in Santa Anita Park when she ran into El Monte Mayor Jessica Ancona.

The two women had been at odds for almost a year, with the dispute playing out in federal court after Leos sued Ancona and the city.

That September afternoon, Ancona and her supporters started filming Leos on their ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Michael Latt, a 33-year-old marketing strategist and social justice advocate who was shot and killed in his Los Angeles home Monday, leaves behind a legacy of uplifting marginalized artists — but he didn't foresee this path for himself.

After graduating from Chapman University in 2013 with a degree in public relations and ...Read more

DENVER — More than 100 teens and young adults were at an Aurora house party early Saturday when gunfire erupted, wounding four people.

Officers were in the area when they heard gunshots about 12:15 a.m., the Aurora Police Department reported on X. They responded to the shooting in the 1300 block of Joliet Street, where they found the more ...Read more