Spot, the four-legged robot from Boston Dynamics Inc., is perhaps best known for its viral dance routines to songs like “Uptown Funk.” But beyond its playful antics, Spot’s ability to climb stairs and open doors signals a potentially controversial role as a policing tool.

Five years after its commercial debut, the 75-pound, German ...Read more

JOSHUA TREE NATIONAL PARK, Calif. — One day after the government shutdown ended, a ranger ambled down a trail in Joshua Tree National Park, bathed in golden light.

It was her first day back, and she had just walked through a sea of scorched Joshua trees rising from blackened earth, their dagger-like leaves bleached an unhealthy yellow.

It ...Read more

In a tacit admission that U.S. food production requires foreign labor, the Trump administration is making it easier for farmers to employ guest workers from other countries.

At the same time, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in recent months appears to be refraining from conducting agricultural workplace raids, even as it scours ...Read more

TAMPA, Fla. — In 2019, a couple wanted a baby. Because they were both women, they asked a friend to provide the sperm.

The insemination happened at their Tampa home without the mediation of doctors, lawyers, clinics or cryo banks — just a plastic syringe from a drugstore kit. That’s essentially where the trouble started.

Ashley Brito ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — When Minneapolis City Council Member Robin Wonsley began pursuing a carbon fee in 2022, she saw it as a promising way to cut the city’s greenhouse gas emissions and raise revenue for climate-related projects.

Wonsley succeeded in passing the carbon fee last year, making Minneapolis the only major city in the Midwest to do so. ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — A major emergency was declared at the Port of Los Angeles on Friday night as 186 firefighters worked to combat a massive and stubborn blaze involving hazardous materials on a cargo ship, authorities said.

An electrical fire was reported below deck of the 1,100-foot container ship 1 Henry Hudson at 6:38 p.m., according to the Los...Read more

U.S. prosecutors urged a judge to reject a request by Luigi Mangione’s lawyers to dismiss federal death-penalty charges over last year’s fatal shooting of a UnitedHealth Group Inc. executive in New York.

Lawyers for Attorney General Pam Bondi argued Friday that she properly decided to seek the death penalty should Mangione, 27, be convicted...Read more

LOS ANGELES — A major emergency was declared at the Port of Los Angeles on Friday night as 186 firefighters worked to combat a massive and stubborn blaze involving hazardous materials on a cargo ship, authorities said.

An electrical fire was reported below deck of the 1,100-foot container ship 1 Henry Hudson at 6:38 p.m., according to the Los...Read more

A Mexican woman was sentenced to 20 years in prison for her role in last year’s killing of two Australian brothers and an American friend during a surfing trip in Baja California.

The Baja California sate attorney general’s office said in a written statement that the woman, identified as Ary Gisell Silva Raya, 23, pleaded guilty to ...Read more

PHILADELPHIA — A federal judge in Philadelphia on Friday blocked President Donald Trump’s administration from obtaining the private medical records of youth who sought gender-affirming care at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

The decision, issued by U.S. District Court Judge Mark A. Kearney, was a victory for patients’ privacy ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — A judge in Santa Barbara County Superior Court has dismissed a felony false imprisonment charge against Ashlee Buzzard, the county district attorney said in a statement.

Buzzard, 40, of Lompoc, remains at the center of a mystery surrounding the whereabouts of her 9-year-old daughter Melodee. Melodee was reported missing Oct. 14,...Read more

European leaders sought to buy time for Ukraine to work out a new ceasefire framework with Russia after the Trump administration set a one-week deadline to agree to terms that Kyiv and its allies rejected as an unacceptable giveaway to Moscow.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and leaders in France, Germany and across the continent were working to ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Less than a year after 6,822 structures burned in the Palisades Fire, the first rebuilding project has reached the finish line in Pacific Palisades: a two-story showcase home located at 915 Kagawa St.

In a news release, Mayor Karen Bass announced that the home received a certificate of occupancy from the L.A. Department of ...Read more

During an extraordinarily cordial meeting at the White House on Friday, President Donald Trump showered New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani with compliments and vowed to be “a big help” to his incoming administration — sparking perhaps the most improbable bromance in American politics.

The sympatico tone was a shocking turnaround for...Read more

Pras Michel, a Grammy-winning rapper turned political influencer, was sentenced to 14 years in prison for conspiring to wage a back-channel lobbying campaign to end U.S. probes of fugitive Malaysian tycoon Jho Low and other crimes.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly sentenced Michel, 52, on Thursday in Washington federal court, where ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — An unusual series of storms has made this the wettest November on record for swaths of Southern California, dumping as much as 8.9 inches of rain along the coast as of Friday afternoon before a week of dry weather will provide a reprieve through the Thanksgiving holiday.

Scattered light showers are still possible through ...Read more

CHICAGO — Nearly 60 years after earning his law degree, imprisoned former House Speaker Michael Madigan was formally disbarred this week in a one-paragraph notice buried in a monthly list of attorney discipline from around the state.

Madigan, the notice from the Illinois Supreme Court stated, was disbarred by his own consent following his ...Read more

The prosecutor hand-picked by President Donald Trump to pursue a criminal case against James Comey now says the indictment of the former FBI director was properly presented to a grand jury for a vote — a day after telling a judge the final version of the charging papers was never shown to the full jury.

In a “notice correcting the record”...Read more

CHICAGO — U.S. Sen. Ruben Gallego walked down 26th Street in Chicago's Little Village neighborhood on Friday morning while moments from his past came back to life. This is where he came every year to buy shoes for school. Across the street was the shop where he rented a tuxedo for prom.

There weren’t many restaurants around that didn’t ...Read more