Alphabet Inc.’s Google said it will automatically delete records of user visits to sensitive locations, including abortion clinics, responding to growing concerns that the data could be used to prosecute those seeking reproductive care and other personal services.

The internet search and advertising leader said the Location History feature on...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Multiple Southern California fireworks shows have been canceled following a state investigation into the company hired to provide the pyrotechnics.

The cities of Lancaster, Palmdale, La Puente and Lynwood were among those forced to cancel or revise their shows after the California State Fire Marshal raided the warehouse of ...Read more

At least two Republicans lawmakers will be required to testify before the Fulton County special grand jury investigating former President Donald Trump and Georgia’s 2020 elections, a superior court judge indicated Friday.

But the judge suggested that prosecutors will be significantly limited in what they can ask.

Fulton Superior Court Judge ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Eight-year-old Lalani Erika Walton wanted to become “TikTok famous.” Instead, she wound up dead.

Hers is one of two such tragedies that prompted a linked pair of wrongful death lawsuits filed Friday in Los Angeles County Superior Court against the social media giant. The company’s app fed Lalani and Arriani Jaileen Arroyo,...Read more

California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday signed a controversial bill to repeal a provision of state law that bans loitering for the intent to sell sex — a proposal that deeply divided Democrats in the Legislature and pitted transgender rights activists against advocates to stop human trafficking.

Anti-loitering laws have been contentious ...Read more

A man is in custody after several Jefferson Park stores were defaced with swastikas, authorities said.

Swastikas were painted on the Supreme Smoke Shop’s back door, boarded-up front door and street sign on Tuesday night. The white supremacist graffiti also was found at another nearby shop owned by people of color, Supreme Smoke Shop owner ...Read more

ALBANY, N.Y. — The Crossroads of the World is among the “sensitive places” where guns could be banned as lawmakers seek to strengthen New York’s gun laws in response to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling overturning a century-old concealed carry law.

New York’s Democrat-controlled Legislature is poised Friday to approve sweeping new firearm ...Read more

Despite soaring gas prices and the threat of delayed or canceled flights, experts are predicting travelers will be out this holiday weekend at levels not seen since before the pandemic, and in some cases, at record highs.

Experts with the American Automobile Association predict that 42 million people across the U.S. will be on the road over the...Read more

Mississippi is on track to block access to abortion pills by Thursday without the intervention of a federal court, according to attorneys trying to keep alive a generic mifepristone manufacturer’s legal battle against a state health official.

“Absent judicial intervention, as of July 7, 2022, nearly all abortions in Mississippi will be ...Read more

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy signed a pair of bills to bolster abortion rights as about half of U.S.. states, empowered a week ago by the nation’s highest court, move to outlaw the procedure.

One law bars New Jersey public agencies from assisting out-of-state criminal investigations of abortion patients. Another prevents the extradition of...Read more

A coalition of abortion providers asked the Oklahoma Supreme Court on Friday to block enforcement of the state’s criminal abortion laws and to declare access to the procedure protected under the Oklahoma constitution.

It’s the third such challenge filed directly at the Oklahoma high court since the U.S. Supreme Court signaled it would ...Read more

The average number of COVID-19 cases per day reported over a 7-day period in Kansas City has surpassed 400 For the first time since February. This reported number is likely far lower than the actual case count, as home testing has made new infections harder for states to track.

Despite fluctuating case numbers in recent weeks, hospitalizations ...Read more

NEW YORK — R. Kelly has been placed on suicide watch at Brooklyn’s federal jail following his 30-year sentence for sex trafficking — and his lawyer says the disgraced R&B star has no business being there.

The 55-year-old has been alone in a cell at the Metropolitan Detention Complex since his sentencing Wednesday for a 25-year scheme in ...Read more

The day after the Kansas City Council approved legislation that could reimburse city employees who need to travel to have an abortion — and after St. Louis began pursuing similar legislation — Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt called the efforts “plainly illegal.”

Kansas City’s ordinance, which passed 10-2 during Thursday’s ...Read more

A court in Moscow began the trial of U.S. women’s basketball player Brittney Griner on drug smuggling charges Friday, the latest in a series of cases involving Americans held by Russian authorities amid deteriorating relations.

Griner, 31, a two-time Olympic Gold medalist, faces a maximum of 10 years in prison if convicted. She was detained ...Read more

The Jan. 6 committee apparently suspects that the Trump loyalist who sought to pressure bombshell witness Cassidy Hutchinson into keeping quiet was not only acting as an intermediary for White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.

The panel reportedly wants to interview the unnamed “associate” of Meadows as a “fact witness” to what the ...Read more