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Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times/TNS

The high-tech tools used to track down Nick Reiner after his parents' slayings

Current News / News & Features /

LOS ANGELES — It didn’t take long for police to focus on Nick Reiner after his parents were found fatally stabbed in the master bedroom of their Brentwood home Sunday afternoon.

The challenge became finding him.

Reiner lived in Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner’s guesthouse but was not there when police arrived around 3:30 p.m. ...Read more

Europe stumbles in its attempt to bypass Trump's world order

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Ursula von der Leyen was supposed to sign the European Union’s largest free-trade agreement on Saturday, proving the bloc’s standing as a geoeconomic force.

Instead, the European Commission president will have to figure out a way to salvage the Mercosur pact by rallying last-minute support from countries including Italy that helped delay ...Read more

Blue Origin completes first space flight with wheelchair user

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Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin completed a suborbital joyride Saturday with a six-person crew, including the first wheelchair user to reach space and one of SpaceX’s first engineers.

The flight took off at about 9:15 a.m. ET, and the capsule landed roughly 11 minutes later in West Texas.

The mission was initially slated to occur on Dec. 18 ...Read more

Sergei Supinsky/Getty Images North America/TNS

US offers joint talks with Ukraine, Russia, Zelenskyy says

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The U.S. offered to hold talks together with Ukrainian and Russian representatives in Florida as Donald Trump’s administration pushes for a peace deal, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

Whether the trilateral talks will take place depends on the U.S.-Ukrainian negotiations that started Friday, Zelenskyy told journalists in Kyiv ...Read more

Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times/TNS

Recipe for LA's fire disaster: Intense rains followed by unprecedented heat and dry conditions

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LOS ANGELES — One fire appears to have been caused by a spark from old power lines, the other allegedly started by an Uber driver with a fascination with flames.

In the end, the Eaton and Palisades fires destroyed more than 16,000 homes, businesses and other structures and left 31 people dead. They were the second and third most destructive ...Read more

Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times/TNS

The fire took his sister and his lifelong home. He's been fighting to get back ever since

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LOS ANGELES — Shortly after his childhood home burned down in west Altadena, Zaire Calvin learned his mom's insurance carrier had dropped her months before. He handled her bills but said he hadn't received any email or notice from Allstate before the January wildfire.

For weeks, he tried to get answers, waiting on returned calls, asking for ...Read more

Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times/TNS

Failed emergency alerts during LA firestorms eroded public trust. How to fix a broken system?

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LOS ANGELES — During the first days of the January firestorms, Los Angeles became a case study in what can go wrong with emergency alerts and evacuations.

In Pacific Palisades there was chaos Jan. 7 as people in the foothills tried to flee, only to hit traffic gridlock. Then when the Eaton fire erupted in Altadena, evacuation orders did not ...Read more

Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times/TNS

A teenager processes life after disaster. 'My whole life was stripped away'

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LOS ANGELES — Kiley Hoiles doesn't want to keep talking about the Palisades fire.

She is 15. And it's been nearly a year since the blaze incinerated her family's cozy little house on Edgar Street in Pacific Palisades. And her entire neighborhood. And her old elementary school, Marquez Charter. And the dojo where she trained three times a week...Read more

Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times/TNS

This housekeeper lost her job in the Palisades fire -- but not her hope

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LOS ANGELES — Via de Las Olas was once a scenic drive in Pacific Palisades, perched above Will Rogers State Beach, offering sweeping views of ocean and sky. Now it resembles an archaeological site of its former self.

"There were beautiful homes here, people would walk with their dogs in the morning when I would get here," said Amalia Atayde, ...Read more

Kayla Bartkowski/Los Angeles Times/TNS

LA's hydrants ran dry during the fires. Residents are still demanding solutions

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LOS ANGELES — As the flames of the Palisades fire licked at his home, Ricardo Kawamura stood in his front yard watching smoke pour out of a second-story window. He saw a fire engine parked next to a hydrant on his street, and called for help.

“They told me they did not have enough water,” Kawamura said. “And unfortunately, there was ...Read more

Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times/TNS

On a $1 houseboat, one of the Palisades fire's 'great underdogs' fights to stay afloat

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LOS ANGELES — Rashi Kaslow sat on the deck of a boat he bought from a friend for just $1 before the fire. After the blaze destroyed his uninsured home in the Palisades Bowl mobile home park — which the owners, to this day, still have not cleared of fire debris— the boat docked in Marina del Rey became his home.

“You either rise from the...Read more

Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times/TNS

Edison neglected maintenance of its aging transmission lines before the Jan. 7 fires. Now it's trying to catch up

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LOS ANGELES — Southern California Edison did not spend hundreds of millions of dollars on maintenance of its aging transmission lines that it told regulators was necessary and began billing to customers in the four years before the Jan. 7 wildfires, according to a Times review of regulatory filings.

Edison told state regulators in its 2023 ...Read more

Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times/TNS

After Palisades failures, is LAFD prepared for the next major wildfire?

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LOS ANGELES — As the Palisades fire raged, then-Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley went on a television blitz, calling out city leadership for systematically underfunding her agency.

The LAFD, she said, didn’t have enough firefighters, based at enough fire stations, to quench the wind-driven flames that were tearing through ...Read more

Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times/TNS

'Both sides botched it.' Bass, in unguarded moment, rips responses to Palisades, Eaton fires

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LOS ANGELES — The setting looked almost cozy: Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and a podcast host seated inside her home in two comfy chairs, talking about President Trump, ICE raids, public schools and the Palisades fire.

The recording session inside the library at Getty House, the official mayor's residence, lasted an hour. Once it ended, the ...Read more

Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times/TNS

For LA's mayor, a Palisades recovery marked by missteps, reversals and delays

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LOS ANGELES — It was supposed to be a speech with a clear message of hope for survivors of the Palisades fire.

In her State of the City address in April, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass called for a law exempting fire victims from construction permit fees — potentially saving them tens of thousands of dollars as they rebuild their homes.

...Read more

Emily Mesner/Anchorage Daily News/TNS

1 in 500 Alaskan deaths during pandemic was from COVID-19, state reports

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ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Over a roughly three-year period beginning in March 2020, 1,564 Alaskans died from COVID-19.

That's according to a new report from the Alaska Department of Health, which provides a detailed review of data on how the state fared dealing with the coronavirus between March 2020 and the end of the the federal public health ...Read more

Tracey McManus/Tampa Bay Times/TNS

'Betrayed': Investors grapple with Trump commuting sentence of man who defrauded them

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WASHINGTON — Jeffrey Rosenberg is still trying to understand why President Donald Trump would free the man who defrauded him out of a quarter of a million dollars.

Rosenberg, a retired wholesale produce distributor living in Nevada, has supported Trump since he entered politics, but the president's decision in November to commute the sentence...Read more

Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times/TNS

Watchdogs warn LA County is undermining efforts at oversight of Sheriff's Department

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LOS ANGELES — After steadily gaining power and influence for more than a decade, the watchdogs that provide civilian oversight of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department face an uncertain future.

A recent leadership exodus has left behind gaps in experience and knowledge, and a succession of legal challenges and funding cuts by the county...Read more

Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images North America/TNS

Trump leaves Rocky Mount without endorsing in NC's crowded 1st district primary

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Republicans in the 1st Congressional District are vying for President Donald Trump’s endorsement, but he left his speech in Rocky Mount on Friday night without offering one, or acknowledging the candidates.

Candidate filing ended at noon Friday, and five Republicans are hoping to defeat Rep. Don Davis, a Democrat from Snow Hill.

The 1st ...Read more

Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images North America/TNS

Trump touts economic record, avoids Epstein files in rally

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President Donald Trump began a rally Friday night in North Carolina talking about crime and then highlighted his efforts to combat economic uncertainty — while also steering clear of addressing new disclosures involving the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

In front of hundreds of people at Rocky Mount Event Center in eastern North ...Read more