SAN DIEGO — Authorities issued evacuation orders and warnings to nearby areas early Friday morning as a wildfire in the Otay Wilderness Area exploded to 4,250 acres in rugged terrain overnight. Crews were able to get 10% of it contained.

The evacuation area for the Border 2 fire is a large swath stretching north to Otay Lakes Road, east to ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California officials quietly disbanded a dedicated state wildfire-fighting team last year, less than three years after military leaders and Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Office of Emergency Services touted it as a key part of the state’s strategy for tackling California’s increasingly hotter and more prevalent wildfires.

...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The apartment was rented and decorated, schools found for the children and food had even been purchased for a special reunion meal, as Sacramento families prepared to welcome relatives set to arrive this week as refugees from Afghanistan and other foreign homelands.

Some may have even been at airports ready to board when ...Read more

DENVER — A Longmont Police Department officer is facing a federal civil rights lawsuit over allegations he falsified information in a financial crimes case, leading to a man’s arrest on suspicion of stealing from his mother.

Robert Lewandowski of Austin, Texas, is suing Officer Stephen Desmond, claiming Desmond violated his Fourth Amendment...Read more

President Donald Trump’s early action on health care reversed some of his predecessor’s policies, but former President Joe Biden’s most defining initiatives were left intact.

Signature Biden achievements, such as the $35-per-month cap on insulin, the $2,000 annual cap on prescription drugs and allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices ...Read more

BRUNSWICK, Ga. — After a 2½-day delay brought on by a rare winter storm along Georgia’s coast, prospective Glynn County jurors returned to the courthouse Friday in the trial of their former district attorney.

Jackie Johnson, who spent a decade as DA of the five-county Brunswick Judicial Circuit, stands accused of hindering the police ...Read more

The Broad and its former chief operating officer are facing a second lawsuit in less than a week, accusing them of discrimination, retaliation and defamation.

Former HR director Darron Rezell Walker filed the first suit, alleging that former COO Alysa Gerlach pressured him to fire a white employee, Rick Mitchell, 65, based on personal dislike ...Read more

The mountains of Catatumbo in eastern Colombia are so dangerous that the police and army generally don’t stray far from their barracks for fear of snipers.

The sharpshooters concealed in the jungle have varying allegiances, from drug cartels to Marxist guerrillas. But they’re all ultimately in the deadly business of asserting control over ...Read more

Two orphaned Karen children, a Somali family of five in Kenya and a Congolese woman are among the people whose trips to Minnesota were canceled after President Trump issued an executive order suspending refugee admissions.

Jane Graupman, executive director of the International Institute of Minnesota, said the resettlement agency had been ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — President Trump is expected to visit Los Angeles on Friday to survey the devastation from the firestorms that swept through the county.

The trip is expected to take place on Friday afternoon but few details were provided. He is reportedly also traveling to North Carolina to inspect hurricane damage.

The California firestorms in...Read more

California is advising health care providers not to write down patients’ immigration status on bills and medical records and telling them they don’t have to assist federal agents in arrests. Some Massachusetts hospitals and clinics are posting privacy rights in emergency and waiting rooms in Spanish and other languages.

Meanwhile, Florida ...Read more

As part of Harvard University’s agreement in response to two federal lawsuits filed by Jewish students alleging antisemitic discrimination, it will adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, or IHRA, “working definition” of antisemitism.

This is a definition favored by many Jewish community leaders and politicians ...Read more

On a typical day, you can’t turn on the news without hearing someone say that Congress is broken. The implication is that this dereliction explains why the institution is inert and unresponsive to the American people.

There’s one element often missing from that discussion: Congress is confounding in large part because its members ...Read more

As President Donald Trump issued a slew of executive orders and directives on his first day of his second administration, he explained his actions by saying, “It’s all about common sense.”

For over a century, presidents have pursued initiatives to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of government, couching those efforts in ...Read more

The current Supreme Court has upended historic precedent on abortion protections and drawn scrutiny for ethics conflicts, while its docket remains packed with high-profile cases set to dominate headlines in the months ahead.

Yet one of its lesser-known departures from the past lies in its approach to punctuation.

Justice Neil ...Read more

Red light therapy is increasingly viewed as a promising treatment for wrinkles, acne, psoriasis, scars and sun-damaged skin, and as a supportive therapy for some kinds of cancer. But does red light therapy live up to the hype that it’s practically a panacea for all sorts of ailments?

Praveen Arany is a professor of oral biology, ...Read more

The Holocaust was the first mass atrocity to be heavily photographed.

The mass production and distribution of cameras in the 1930s and 1940s enabled Nazi officials and ordinary people to widely document Germany’s persecution of Jews and other religious and ethnic minorities.

I co-direct an international research project to ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles County officials missed dozens of opportunities for water infrastructure improvements that experts say probably would have enabled firefighters to save more homes during the Palisades fire, public records show.

As crews battled the blaze, attempting to extinguish flames that burned huge swaths of L.A. County and ...Read more