LAS VEGAS — A California man accused of defacing some five dozen political signs in the Las Vegas Valley pleaded no contest to a gross misdemeanor in court early Wednesday and was sentenced to 30 days in jail along with restitution.

David Lawrence Smith Jr., 73, appeared in court with the assistance of a walker and wearing unkempt, long white...Read more

President Donald Trump has removed Venezuela from a U.S. list of countries deemed to have failed to meet their international counternarcotics obligations, citing increased cooperation with interim President Delcy Rodríguez’s government following the capture of strongman Nicolás Maduro by U.S. forces.

Venezuela remains classified as a major ...Read more

CHICAGO — Lawyers for the “Broadview Six” are urging a federal judge to order the Chicago U.S. attorney’s office to divulge any communications with officials in Washington about the controversial case, saying in a filing late Tuesday that the government’s “hair-splitting” response so far was just one indication of an ongoing cover-...Read more

RICHMOND, Va. — Gov. Abigail Spanberger has declared a state of the emergency to help Virginia farmers facing a statewide hay shortage caused by persistent drought conditions.

The emergency order allows temporary over-width waivers for trucks transporting hay and other essential agricultural supplies, making it easier for farmers to get feed ...Read more

NEW YORK — New Yorkers are finally going places.

Seventeen state-of-the art new public bathrooms will be open for business soon in neighborhoods across the city under a pilot project designed to bring relief to people in their time of need.

“Too many New Yorkers know what it’s like to have nowhere to go while they’re on the go,” ...Read more

Venezuela has released hundreds of political prisoners and eased some of its harshest forms of repression since Nicolás Maduro was captured by U.S. forces in January, but the security apparatus responsible for years of torture, disappearances and other serious abuses remains largely intact, United Nations investigators said Wednesday.

The U.N....Read more

LOS ANGELES — Three people were killed when an NBC4 news helicopter crashed and burst into flames Tuesday night in Chatsworth not far from a serious collision involving a Metro bus that also left two people dead.

The area was already swarming with police, fire officials and the news media because of the bus crash when there was a fireball and...Read more

LOS ANGELES — They were a dynamic duo, often taking to the skies to document some of the biggest breaking news stories across Southern California.

But on Tuesday evening, KNBC reporter Eliana Moreno and pilot George Marciniw flew together for the last time, before their NBC4 news helicopter crashed and burst into flames in Chatsworth, killing...Read more

LOS ANGELES — If you've been to the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, you've probably been wowed by the fossilized remains of Thomas, the formidable 34-foot-long Tyrannosaurus rex dominating the Dinosaur Hall.

More than 66 million years after Thomas' death around the age of 17, the animal is continuing to contribute to science's ...Read more

A grassroots revolt against automated license plate readers, or ALPRs, has gained momentum across the United States.

ALPRs are AI-powered cameras that capture images of all passing vehicles. The camera systems turn details into datapoints searchable by anyone with access to the information.

Today, there are more than 130,000 ...Read more

As a scholar of “Buddhist medicine,” I have studied the connections between Buddhism and well-being since the late 1990s. During the course of that research, I would periodically run into sources claiming that meditation could sometimes have unexpected or adverse health effects. When I discovered in 2020 that psychologists were beginning ...Read more

Millions of people worldwide – as many as 1 in 8 adults in the U.S. – are on GLP-1 medication, such as Ozempic, Mounjaro, Wegovy and Zepbound, for treating diabetes or for weight loss.

These drugs are adding a medical twist to religious observances that involve fasting, such as the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, which will be ...Read more

Donald Trump Jr. apparently wanted to look his best for the glossy, heavily produced images that his new influencer wife shared of their lavish destination wedding to the Bahamas in May — which the couple recently admitted was partially funded by a Russian businessman with ties to the Kremlin.

To appear as strong and square-jawed as possible ...Read more

BRUSSELS — European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed Canada becoming the first associate member of the European Union, forging a novel transatlantic alliance as President Donald Trump tears apart the old one.

She offered the invitation during her state of the union address in Strasbourg, France, Wednesday, with Canadian ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Tuesday afternoon recommended holding an associate of Jeffrey Epstein in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with congressional subpoenas related to the investigations of the late sex offender and his former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell.

The committee voted, 41-0, to ...Read more

In a rare accusation of a Kremlin-orchestrated plot on U.S. soil, a New York federal grand jury indicted a network of five people, among them two Cubans and one Venezuelan, of recruiting American citizens to carry out surveillance and assassinations of Russian dissidents.

The ring of five also targeted military and civilian infrastructure in ...Read more

MIAMI — Miami International Airport fully opened a runway Tuesday night as the wreckage of a crashed Amazon cargo plane was moved out of the way.

The runway, one of four at MIA, had been limited to eastbound departures in recent days. The opening means three of the airport’s four runways are up and running.

The charred Amazon plane, which ...Read more

DETROIT — Detroit's Office of Inspector General is investigating Detroit Police Chief Todd Bettison's interactions with a local activist who said the chief asked him to remove social media photos of now-Mayor Mary Sheffield and a former romantic partner.

The city's Office of Inspector General, or OIG, is an independent oversight body ...Read more