ORLANDO, Fla. — Two toddlers found shot Friday evening in Orange County died at a hospital, while a man who was their father was found dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

At 6:30 p.m. deputies responded to the 4400 block of South Rio Grande Avenue over a report of a man with a gun who’d ...Read more

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The fear is real when it comes to Florida’s looming property tax cuts — but so is the zeal.

The prospect of voters heading to the polls in November to decide whether to give themselves a break on their property taxes has put cities in South Florida and across the state on edge, triggering alarm and dread.

At the ...Read more

LAS VEGAS — The Colorado River Basin faces a complete “system crash,” with little chance that a wet winter will fully prevent a worst-case scenario, a leading group of experts says in a new academic paper.

That is, unless water managers can get serious about cutting water use fast.

Study author Anne Castle, a fellow at the University of ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is seeking to steer Iranian assets toward helping U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf rebuild from damage inflicted by Tehran, and to repair any future destruction.

The effort, which was described by a senior administration official who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly, is unfolding alongside fitful ...Read more

Rita Elias and her family fled southern Lebanon to shelter with relatives in Beirut during the last war between Hezbollah and Israel in 2024, returning only after a truce. This time, she stayed to protect her property, her husband’s trucking business and their tobacco farm.

“We didn’t want to leave and come back to nothing,” the 36-year...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A federal judge sided with California and other Democratic states on Friday in a preliminary injunction that blocked the Trump administration's attempt to condition food benefits on compliance with the president's policies on gender and immigration.

Twenty states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit in March ...Read more

U.S. and Iranian forces traded fresh attacks overnight, at the end of a week that saw the worst flare-up in tensions since the shaky ceasefire started and little progress toward an interim peace deal.

U.S. Central Command said it headed off multiple Iranian missiles and drones in the Persian Gulf and responded with attacks on radar sites in the...Read more

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz warned of a major shakeup in two key eastern German state elections in September where the Alternative for Germany leads in the polls, urging the political center to work together to counter the far-right party.

“If we don’t do our job and if we’re not good enough, there will be a big bang in September,”...Read more

DENVER — Fourth-generation Colorado rancher Susan Nottingham acknowledges that one of her employees was behind the killing of the matriarch of the new King Mountain wolf pack in March.

“One of my employees ended up shooting the mother female. The investigation is still ongoing and extremely stressful, costing me tens of thousands of dollars...Read more

LOS ANGELES — A year ago, on June 6, federal agents descended on Ambiance Apparel, detaining dozens of workers in one of the largest workplace immigration enforcement actions Southern California had seen in years.

By day’s end, more than 40 workers, many of them from Zapotec Indigenous communities, were arrested in an enforcement operation ...Read more

NORFOLK, Va. — Sailors and Marines aboard the USS Iwo Jima returned Saturday to Naval Station Norfolk from a 10-month deployment spent mostly in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Originally bound for Europe, the Iwo Jima was rerouted after leaving Norfolk in August and was extended twice to support missions, including Operation Southern Spear....Read more

LOS ANGELES — Around 7 a.m., Saturday, in a lot beside the shuttered Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, a strange set of cars and trucks began to gather. Three Model A's. A couple of '60 convertibles. A 1964 Chevrolet Impala station wagon. Also, a big bull on trailer wheels.

"Am I in the right place?" asked a man in one of the Model A's.

"Going ...Read more

ORLANDO, Fla. — Now that Floridians will decide in November whether to approve a historic property tax overhaul that would provide property tax relief at the expense of many essential local government services, expect an intense campaign for their votes.

In just the last few days, the rhetoric has already taken on a new level of specificity �...Read more

LOS ANGELES — The back rooms of the La Brea Tar Pits are, at the moment, a maze of packing crates tagged with handwritten sticky notes that say things like "bison skulls" or "camel hip."

Every bone, down to the last dire wolf rib, must be carefully sheathed in a custom foam shell. Sloth jaws and sabertooth fangs and a truly astonishing amount...Read more

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Following an Illinois spring legislative session in which efforts to regulate data center development and curb government support for the energy-hungry facilities stalled, Gov. JB Pritzker took matters into his own hands Friday.

The governor issued an executive order instructing the state agency overseeing a program that ...Read more

A U.S. citizen who contracted Ebola while working as a doctor in East Africa has been discharged from a hospital in Germany after receiving treatment and testing negative for the virus.

Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin admitted Peter Stafford, who had pronounced symptoms of the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, on May 20 amid a surge of the ...Read more

TAMPA, Fla. — After nearly a year, police have closed their investigation into the death of Terry Bollea — better known as Hulk Hogan — concluding there was no evidence his death was “anything other than natural.”

The Clearwater Police Department released more than 70 pages of files on Friday, detailing interviews with Hogan’s ...Read more

Ebola cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo jumped by 71 in a day and another 21 deaths were recorded as health workers expanded testing in the mining town where the outbreak is believed to have begun, pointing to an epidemic that may be much bigger than previously understood.

The infections brought the number of laboratory-confirmed cases ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — A series of military exercises taking place in empty buildings across the Southland are scaring residents and rattling neighbors as the sound of gunfire rings out in the dark and troops descend from helicopters.

Multiple nights this week, the sounds of simulated urban warfare have erupted in the middle of the night in parts of ...Read more