Nearly a decade before he was charged in the grisly murders of Rob and Michele Reiner, the couple’s son Nick Reiner told a podcast he’d concocted a plan in which he faked being “crazy” to get access to medication.

In a resurfaced 2016 clip from the “Dopey: On the Dark Comedy of Drug Addiction” podcast, the now-32-year-old recalled ...Read more

Donald Trump’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein were back in focus Tuesday following the latest document dump by the Justice Department, which included a host of references to the president and communications between prosecutors remarking he’d traveled on the serial sex offender’s plane “many more times” than believed.

The remark was made in ...Read more

NEW YORK — Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani appointed Lillian Bonsignore, the FDNY’s former EMS chief, as the department’s next commissioner Tuesday, a historic move that puts a longtime emergency response expert in charge of the agency.

Bonsignore, the first openly gay person picked to lead the department in its 160-year history, retired from ...Read more

CHICAGO — The conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday denied a request from President Donald Trump’s administration to allow the Republican president to deploy National Guard troops to Illinois while a lower court’s restraining order is appealed.

The high court’s order represents a victory so far for Gov. JB Pritzker and ...Read more

BOSTON — Boston is seeing a early surge in flu cases this year, city and health officials warned, with sharp upticks in cases and hospitalizations and even higher increases for children and teens as winter sets in.

“Flu cases are on the rise in Boston, and we are urging residents to protect themselves and their loved ones from respiratory ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Two former employees of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement contractor are alleging a toxic environment at the Sacramento ICE facility where the former employees say, some case specialists routinely abused and sexually harassed fellow employees and undocumented immigrants.

In sworn declarations filed in Sacramento ...Read more

SEATTLE — Gov. Bob Ferguson has thrown his support behind an income tax on millionaires, backing what would be a seismic shift in Washington’s tax code.

At a budget news conference Tuesday, Ferguson said he’ll back a proposal brewing among legislative Democrats that would impose a 9.9% tax on people who earn more than $1 million annually...Read more

MIAMI — A man who was caught on video destroying a menorah in downtown Miami Monday night has been detained, according to Miami police.

In a video shared by county officials, a man with a backpack can be seen charging at a lit menorah, wrestling with it and then slamming it to the ground, causing the light bulbs to break and scatter on the ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Tips provided to federal investigators about President Donald Trump’s alleged involvement in Jeffrey Epstein’s schemes with young women and girls are “sensationalist” and “untrue,” the Justice Department said on Tuesday, after a new tranche of files released from the probe featured multiple references to the president...Read more

On the campaign trail, Donald Trump wielded populist fury over the “Epstein files” as a cudgel against a corrupt and out-of-touch Washington elite that the president’s MAGA movement has long blamed for the country’s ills.

His base had high expectations after Trump took office. But in the span of 11 months, misstep after misstep has ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled against President Donald Trump on Tuesday and said he did not have legal authority to deploy the National Guard in Chicago to protect federal immigration agents.

Acting on a 6-3 vote, the justices denied Trump's appeal and upheld orders from a federal district judge and the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Melodee Buzzard, the 9-year-old whose disappearance was reported by Santa Barbara County educators in October, has been found dead, a relative confirmed to The Times on Tuesday.

Melodee vanished during an unusual road trip with her mother earlier this year, sparking a months-long investigation.

Her disappearance captivated and ...Read more

ORLANDO, Fla. — In the aftermath of Anna Kepner’s death last month aboard a cruise ship, her family discussed how to protect their children — including the teen stepbrother considered a suspect by the FBI.

Text messages released last week between divorced parents Thomas and Shauntel Hudson show how they scrambled to handle the news of ...Read more

The death certificates of slain Hollywood couple Rob and Michele Reiner were released Tuesday following the pair’s cremation.

The Reiners were cremated at Mount Sinai Mortuary, according to documents obtained by TMZ. Their cause of death is listed as “multiple sharp force injuries,” described as having occurred “with knife, by another.�...Read more

LOS ANGELES — The author of the LAFD’s after-action report on the Palisades fire declined to endorse the final report because of substantial deletions that altered his findings, calling the edited version “highly unprofessional and inconsistent with our established standards.”

Battalion Chief Kenneth Cook emailed then-interim Fire Chief...Read more

Russell Brand, the irreverent British comedian-turned-conservative influencer, faces two additional sex crime charges in the United Kingdom.

The Metropolitan Police announced Tuesday that prosecutors charged the 50-year-old “Get Him to the Greek” and “Rock of Ages” star with another count of rape and another count of sexual assault. The...Read more

A letter that appears to have been written by Jeffrey Epstein to serial sex abuser Larry Nassar, a former Michigan State University doctor, is among a batch of documents released this week by the U.S. Department of Justice.

The short message references President Donald Trump and, according to another released file, was submitted by the FBI for ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — California milk cartons may lose their coveted recycling symbol, the one with the chasing arrows, potentially threatening the existence of the ubiquitous beverage containers.

In a letter Dec. 15, Waste Management, one of the nation’s largest waste companies, told the state the company would no longer sort cartons out of the ...Read more

The U.S. Justice Department released another tranche of files related to Jeffrey Epstein, including some that add fresh pressure on President Donald Trump over his past relationship with the late, disgraced financier.

The trove includes thousands of additional pages of material related to investigations of Epstein, including a 2020 email from a...Read more