Nation

As wildfires continue to burn around Southern California, thousands of business owners, homeowners and renters are confronting the daunting challenge of rebuilding from the ashes. For some number of them, the road ahead will be all the more difficult because they didn't have any or enough insurance to cover their losses. For them, the U.S. Small Business Administration is a possible lifeline.

Just a day after President Joe Biden took Cuba off the list of nations that sponsor terrorism in exchange for the release of political prisoners, the deal is falling apart.

As winds finally died down, there was growing despair and frustration in the vast fire zones on Wednesday as residents demanded to get back into their neighborhoods.

The Biden administration released a proposal Wednesday to dramatically reduce nicotine levels in cigarettes, a move that anti-smoking advocates believe would save millions of lives but that threatens the powerful tobacco industry.

The sentencing hearing of a methamphetamine dealer in South Dakota would have been routine except for one detail: Gov. Kristi L. Noem had used his photo to falsely suggest the man was a drug trafficker for Mexican cartels who had hidden out on a reservation.

The House on Tuesday passed legislation banning transgender athletes from competing in girls and women’s sports in elementary school through college, elevating a top GOP campaign issue to one of the first priorities in the new Congress.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Investigators have learned that the gun used to shoot and seriously wound two kindergartners last month at a small faith-based school in Northern California was sold to the gunman by a convicted felon in Arizona. Glenn Litton, 56, shot two boys who were outside for recess at Feather River Adventist School in Oroville before fatally shooting himself, Butte County sheriff’s ...

LEXINGTON, Ky. — Kentucky students, including the Kentucky Student Voice Team, on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against the state of Kentucky, asserting the state has failed to fulfill its constitutional obligation to provide all students with an adequate and equitable public education. The lawsuit, filed in Franklin Circuit Court, draws from the 1989 Rose decision that spurred the Kentucky ...

LOS ANGELES — A week after flames leveled huge swaths of Pacific Palisades and Altadena, Southern California remained under a severe fire threat as residents still struggled to comprehend the scale of the loss. An army of firefighters spent Tuesday putting out small fires before they got out of control, and continued building containment lines on the Palisades and Eaton fires in hope of ...

Former first lady Michelle Obama will not attend President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration next week, her office announced Tuesday.

AUSTIN, Texas — The Texas House saw an unexpected proposal on the opening day of the 89th legislative session: a marriage proposal. Rep. Venton Jones, D-Dallas, asked his partner, Gregory Scott Jr., to marry him shortly after lawmakers were sworn in Tuesday afternoon. Scott said yes. “In a time when our love and our very existence are challenged, often in the halls of this very building, this ...

Senate Democrats on Tuesday hammered Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for defense secretary, in an early test of Republican loyalty as lawmakers take up the incoming administration’s slate of unconventional and contentious Cabinet picks.

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Wednesday over a Texas law that requires pornography websites to verify the ages of their visitors, a case over salacious content that might influence the power of Congress and states to regulate minors’ access to the internet.

An unprecedented fourth "particularly dangerous situation" fire weather warning took effect Tuesday morning and is expected last through Wednesday.

If Donald Trump hadn’t won the presidential election in November, the Justice Department would have had ample evidence to convict him at trial of trying to obstruct the 2020 election results, special counsel Jack Smith said in a report released early Tuesday.

LOS ANGELES — Prosecutors charged nine people with looting Monday in areas wrecked by the devastating Palisades and Eaton fires, and accused another man of intentionally setting a blaze in an Azusa park during last week's firestorm. One trio of men is accused of stealing $200,000 worth of valuables from a home in Mandeville Canyon early Thursday, while another group is accused of stealing ...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A nurse practitioner with licenses registered in Stockton and New York who allegedly sold opioids and other addictive drugs to clients around the country is the subject of a civil lawsuit announced Monday by federal prosecutors in Sacramento. In the lawsuit filed last week in federal court, acting U.S. Attorney Michele Beckwith said Joan Rubinger traveled the country ...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Gov. Gavin Newsom asked legislative leaders Monday to approve at least $2.5 billion in response to the wildfires that have ravaged Los Angeles County — a move that expands the focus of the special session in California beyond strictly fighting President-elect Donald Trump. The wildfire aid comes as Democrats at the state Capitol find themselves under mounting pressure to ...