LOS ANGELES — About 260 California billionaires would be subject to Proposition 40's one-time 5% wealth tax according to the Forbes Real-Time billionaires list. Just 30 of those billionaires or their spouses, or 1 in 8, spent money opposing Proposition 40, the billionaire tax, according to a Times analysis of recent campaign filings.

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Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, is speaking out amid reports that her estranged father, Thomas Markle Sr., had a massive stash of child sex abuse materials at his home in the Philippines.

“I am deeply distressed at the news that has come to light in the last 24 hours, and my thoughts are with any children who may have been harmed,” ...Read more

A Minnesota Star Tribune analysis shows roughly two-thirds of state residents in Medicare Advantage will lose their plans next year, forcing about 340,000 people to find new private coverage or evaluate options with original Medicare.

The disruption in Minnesota is greater than in any other state, reflecting a mix of local and national ...Read more

A tanker carrying diesel left the Russian port of Primorsk and intermittently signaled New York, potentially marking the first such shipment following a fuel-supply agreement between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.

The vessel, hauling almost 43,000 metric tons of ultralow-sulfur diesel, left the Baltic Sea port on Thursday and would arrive in ...Read more

Wall Street strategists who recommended loading up on Brazil assets after Flávio Bolsonaro emerged as the frontrunner for president are about to see if they led clients astray or to profits ahead of Sunday’s too-close-to-call runoff.

Bolsonaro’s first-round lead over incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva spurred firms from UBS Global Wealth...Read more

On a Monday night in September 1964, television viewers watched a little girl counting petals on a flower. Her voice gave way to a man counting down, and then a nuclear blast filled the screen.

The ad ran as a paid spot only once, in support of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s reelection campaign. It never mentioned his opponent, ...Read more

DETROIT — “I’ve checked out.”

That’s how Dallas Cruze sums up his political journey from willing Trump voter in 2016 to now, when he says voting seems pointless.

Seated at a table in a board game store in suburban Detroit, the 34-year-old construction worker says that despite expecting to clear about $85,000 as a health and safety ...Read more

New Jersey public schools are weighing policies on how generative AI is making its way into classrooms and whether students and teachers should be allowed to use the technology.

Some require schools to get parental consent at the beginning of the school year for students to use AI for assignments, while others like Cherry Hill considered but ...Read more

BOISE, Idaho — English is already Idaho’s state language, according to state law.

But on Election Day, voters will have the option to double down on the language’s official designation by voting to amend the state constitution.

If passed, the amendment would name English as the state’s official language in the constitution — and ...Read more

“You have cancer.” It’s a phrase that comes as a shock, then is quickly followed by a whirlwind of decisions that somehow feel fast and slow at the same time.

You have treatments to decide on. You are trying to figure out how you might work, care for your family and undergo a variety of intensive medical appointments all at the ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — A federal judge indicated Thursday that jurors in the upcoming retrial of a man accused of an arson that sparked the Palisades fire will not be allowed to consider whether Los Angeles firefighters adequately extinguished the blaze that prosecutors say later reignited and spread, devastating the community.

U.S. District Judge ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A police department in California has opened an investigation into an officer accused of abusing Flock Safety cameras and using another police database for reasons not connected to a criminal investigation.

The accusations appeared this week in a report from Fresno’s in-house police watchdog called the Office of ...Read more

Subtropical Storm Josephine became a powerful extratropical storm off the U.S. coast Thursday while the National Hurricane Center kept its eye on another system also in the Atlantic.

As of the 5 p.m. NHC advisory, what is now Post-Tropical Cyclone Josephine was located about 235 miles east-southeast of Nantucket, Massachusetts, and 335 miles ...Read more

Donald Trump and World Liberty Financial, the cryptocurrency venture he co-founded with his sons, were sued by a shareholder in a rival crypto firm over claims the president illegally profited from his office in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

J. Benjamin Greenberg, a shareholder in Circle Internet Group Inc., claims illegal competition ...Read more

PHILADELPHIA — Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner — whose office is now the subject of a federal grand jury investigation over potential obstruction of justice— said Thursday that he is not worried about the prospect of facing criminal charges, saying: “There is not a jury in the world that is going to find me guilty of ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — A West Hollywood father who punched a self-described “MAGA influencer” during a viral clash earlier this year will not face criminal charges, his attorney said Thursday.

David Vulin, 32, completed the terms of a “pre-filing diversion” agreement with the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office, and no longer faces...Read more

WASHINGTON — Calley Means, a top adviser to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., resigned Thursday, dealing a setback to the administration’s efforts to overhaul the U.S. food system.

Means’ departure is likely to come as a relief to big food companies, who had fought against his efforts to create a federal definition of ultra-...Read more