LA PAZ, Bolivia — Bolivia’s presidential election Sunday will bring an end to two decades of rule by a socialist government that ran the economy into the ground. But the giddiness of voters and investors over the prospects of change will soon give way to the reality of a difficult turnaround.

The Andean nation’s sovereign bonds have ...Read more

TAMPA, Fla. — Yordanka Rumayor said she paid $18,000 to an immigration service in Tampa that promised temporary permits or humanitarian parole and legal representation for her family. But the paperwork, she said, was never filed.

María Victoria Abio La Rosa said she paid the same service $15,000 for applications for herself, her husband and ...Read more

BOISE, Idaho — Word about a new facility at Mountain Home Air Force Base to train Qatari fighter pilots spread rapidly when it was teased a week ago, but details of the sudden U.S. Defense Department deal have remained limited.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s announcement took many by surprise, including Idaho’s governor and federal ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Janet Stotko loved baking buttery kolach breads and sweet carrot cake for her friends and family.

But since she was struck from behind by an electric bicycle, or e-bike, while walking on a sidewalk in her Hastings neighborhood over a year ago, she can no longer taste the flaky crunchy crusts of her pastries or swaths of sweet ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — For decades, rolling blackouts and urgent calls for energy conservation were part of life in California — a reluctant summer ritual almost as reliable as the heat waves that drove them. But the state has undergone a quiet shift in recent years, and the California Independent System Operator hasn’t issued a single one of those...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump urged Russia and Ukraine to “make a DEAL” after meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House on Friday but refused to offer the Tomahawk missiles or other help that Kyiv says are necessary to force Moscow to the negotiating table.

Zelenskyy had hoped that the meeting would be a ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles County is poised to pay out an additional $828 million to victims who say they were sexually abused in county facilities as children, months after agreeing to the largest sex abuse settlement in U.S. history.

The award, posted on the county claims board agenda Friday, would resolve an additional 414 cases that were ...Read more

NEW YORK — Luigi Mangione’s lawyers said his federal death penalty case should be dismissed because comments made by President Donald Trump, Attorney General Pam Bondi and other top officials have damaged his ability to get a fair trial.

Mangione, 27, is accused of fatally shooting UnitedHealth Group Inc. executive Brian Thompson in ...Read more

One Marine died and another was hospitalized after their helicopter crashed in a desert area of Imperial County, California, during a training mission Thursday.

An AH-1Z Viper carrying two pilots from Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 369, known as the “Gunfighters,” crashed in an unpopulated area of Imperial Gables around 7:05 p.m., ...Read more

PHILADELPHIA — A federal judge on Friday ordered Meta — the parent company of Facebook and Instagram — not to comply with a request by the Department of Homeland Security seeking information about the operators of MontCo Community Watch, a grass-roots organization behind a pair anonymous social media accounts that tracks local ICE activity...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump announced Friday that he commuted the prison sentence of former Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., in a social media post that mostly attacked Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.

Santos pleaded guilty last year to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft after prosecutors charged him with various schemes, including ...Read more

There are two disturbances in the Atlantic basin, one of which could become the next named storm of the season in the Caribbean in the next week or so.

The National Hurricane Center currently gives both disturbances a low chance of developing anytime soon. As of 2 p.m. Eastern time Friday, the disturbance nearest to the Caribbean had no chance ...Read more

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — For decades, state and federal officials have been warning about the kind of catastrophic damage wrought by the storm that hit Western Alaska over the weekend.

But those predictions, along with hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding for mitigation efforts, were not enough to prevent dozens of homes from ...Read more

WASHINGTON — White House officials met Friday with the leaders of several colleges about the Trump administration’s proposed preferential funding compact, according to a person familiar with discussions, after rejections of the accord by a number of elite schools showed the idea is struggling to gain traction.

Three of the schools invited ...Read more

SAN JOSE, Calif. — “Paper or plastic?” Your days are numbered.

The question that millions of shoppers have heard for years when they roll up to the checkout aisle at grocery stores will soon be a thing of the past.

On Friday, California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced a legal settlement with four major plastic bag manufacturing ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — In a rare public rebuke, the Los Angeles City Council pressed the city’s top lawyer to abandon her attempt to halt a federal judge’s order prohibiting Los Angeles Police Department officers from targeting journalists with crowd control weapons.

One day before “No Kings” demonstrations against the Trump administration ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Friday to quickly lift a lower court order that blocked the deployment of federalized National Guard troops to assist immigration officials in the Chicago area.

The application argues the decision from Judge April Perry of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of ...Read more

The right wing‘s war on Netflix wages on.

The Pentagon issued a statement blasting the streamer’s programming and leadership Friday following an inquiry about the new series “Boots” from Entertainment Weekly. While the response from Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson did not directly address the gay coming-of-age military show, it...Read more

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy has requested that President Donald Trump declare a major disaster for the state in response to storm damage in Western Alaska.

"I determined this incident is of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of the state and affected local governments," Dunleavy ...Read more