President Donald Trump gave $45,000 cash as Christmas gifts last year to his assistant Natalie Harp, as well as two other female aides, financial disclosure documents revealed.

The president doled out the large bonus to Harp, who has raised eyebrows for her ubiquitous presence by his side, and the same amount to communications adviser Margo ...Read more

Acting wasn’t always the goal for Rob Riggle while he was at Shawnee Mission South and then the University of Kansas.

Hoping to be a naval aviator, Riggle joined the Marines at age 19 while in Lawrence. But he later decided to take a leap into show business and started working two jobs. During the day, Riggle was on active duty with the ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Astronaut Victor Glover, a Southern California native who piloted NASA's Artemis II mission around the moon this year, is stepping back from the space agency.

He began a full-time leadership position at his alma mater, Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, on Sept. 1, according to a news release from the university.

As the only pilot to...Read more

Brent oil topped $101 a barrel for the first time since July, as escalating attacks across the Middle East heightened concerns about further disruptions to energy flows out of the crude-rich region.

The global crude benchmark rose over 3% in New York, while West Texas Intermediate traded near $96. The U.S. military said it destroyed five ...Read more

BALTIMORE — A 2.1-magnitude earthquake occurred in Cecil County early Wednesday morning, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The quake was recorded around 12:41 a.m. near Rising Sun. It had a 6.2-kilometer depth, officials with the USGS said.

Rising Sun Town Administrator Calvin A. Bonenberger Jr. told The Baltimore Sun that officials ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Gov. Gavin Newsom's pending defamation case against Fox News could go to trial in early 2028, around the same time the governor could be running a 2028 campaign for president.

Newsom sued the news network last year over its coverage of a phone call that took place between the governor and President Donald Trump in June 2025, as ...Read more

Brent oil topped $100 a barrel for the first time since July, as fresh tensions between the U.S. and Iran heightened concerns about energy flows through the Strait of Hormuz.

The global crude benchmark rose about 3% in London. The U.S. military destroyed five Iranian tankers in response to attempts to hit a U.S. Navy warship with ballistic ...Read more

European countries will buy Ukraine more U.S.-made Patriot air defense systems and send missiles from their own stocks to help Ukraine repel an expected Russian winter onslaught.

The influx of missiles will arrive both through individual donations and a NATO program that lets European countries purchase U.S. weapons for Kyiv. The commitments ...Read more

Serbia will hold a snap vote on Oct. 25, setting in motion a political playbook that may see the embattled President Aleksandar Vucic transition to the role of prime minister.

Vucic signed an official decree on the snap ballot and parliament’s dissolution on Wednesday. The vote, long demanded by opposition groups, seeks to try to resolve ...Read more

NEW YORK – With the start of the release of hidden World Trade Center 9/11 documents held by New York City, we can begin to understand the critical questions of who knew what and when about the environmental health disaster released when the twin towers fell and the soaring plume of white dust rose, covering Downtown.

Mayor Mamdani and the ...Read more

BALTIMORE — A 2.1-magnitude earthquake occurred in Cecil County early Wednesday morning, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The quake was recorded around 12:41 a.m. near Rising Sun. It had a 5.1-kilometer depth, officials with the USGS said.

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SAN DIEGO — He’s been accused by five ex-wives, a business partner and an elderly San Diego woman of using them for their money. He’s been convicted of check fraud, charged with lying on election paperwork and disciplined for practicing healthcare without a license.

Now he’s the Republican candidate for Congress in South County.

Jeff ...Read more

DENVER — Large, fast-moving wildfires are devastating Colorado’s forests and they may not be able to recover to become the dense, dark-green habitats that people are used to seeing in the mountains, according to a recently published study.

Scientists at Colorado State University and Western Colorado University collected data from 3,500 ...Read more

State leaders are breathing a sigh of relief that the Trump administration’s threats to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency have subsided.

But experts say there’s still confusion about President Donald Trump’s decisions to approve or deny disaster declarations, leaving states with uncertainty about whether they can expect ...Read more

CHICAGO — Starting next year, Illinois will have new safeguards in place to prevent parents from being wrongly accused of child abuse or neglect when their children visit a doctor or hospital emergency room for unexplained injuries or ailments.

For advocates, the law speaks to the horrific circumstances families can endure when a medical ...Read more

KHARTOUM, Sudan — The ancient statues of the deities Heket and Beset, too heavy to move, were used for target practice. The 4,000-year-old skeletal remains from the bio-archaeology lab? Scattered or scorched. The gold vault lays ransacked, the storage rooms firebombed.

Walk through the grounds of the Sudan National Museum and the reminders ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Jeff Bezos got hit with a notice for about $244,000 in overdue L.A. County taxes and fees on his luxury jet.

A private aircraft that, according to flight tracking database JetSpy, is linked to Rihanna racked up a roughly $104,000 bill for unpaid taxes.

Stan Kroenke, the billionaire owner of the Rams, got dinged about $290,000 ...Read more

Women on parole report higher rates of housing instability, poor health and serious mental health and substance use disorders than men on parole and women who weren’t on parole, according to a new analysis from the nonpartisan think tank Council on Criminal Justice.

For people leaving prison, parole is a period of transition that can involve ...Read more

By the time Democrat Xavier Becerra left Washington, D.C., more Americans than ever had health insurance, owing partly to his work over the years to pass, defend, and expand the Affordable Care Act.

It’s an achievement the former congressman and former U.S. secretary of Health and Human Services often touts as he campaigns for California ...Read more