LOS ANGELES — When she ran for mayor four years ago, Karen Bass said she wanted to regrow the Los Angeles Police Department to the 9,500-officer force it was before the ranks began to shrink. Now up for reelection — and facing a budget crunch — Bass says her plan has shifted.

The aim going forward, she told The Times in a recent interview...Read more

MIAMI — A Haitian immigrant has confessed to fatally beating a woman to death with a hammer last week at the Fort Myers convenience store where she worked, according to police and court records. Rolbert Joachin is now facing murder charges in Lee County.

The case has become the latest flashpoint in immigration politics because Joachin had ...Read more

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Three years after Illinois passed a sweeping assault weapons ban in the wake of Highland Park’s Fourth of July mass shooting, state lawmakers are weighing another measure aimed at the firearms industry: requiring some gun manufacturers to redesign pistols so they can’t be easily converted into automatic weapons.

The ...Read more

In his attempts to position himself at the confluence of money and power, Jeffrey Epstein cultivated myriad relationships among the ruling elite of the Middle East, according to an extensive Miami Herald review of several million pages of documents recently released by the U.S. Justice Department.

From his Palm Beach and New York mansions and ...Read more

In NATO’s glass and steel corridors, calls and texts were coming in from European governments: Mark Rutte needs to tone it down. This isn’t our war.

Less than 48 hours earlier, on Feb. 28, European leaders had watched in shock as the U.S. and Israel pummeled Iran without consulting their allies. Across the continent, leaders anxiously ...Read more

The U.S. and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire and Tehran pledged to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a last-ditch deal that saw President Donald Trump vow to pursue talks rather than escalate the war.

Trump announced the agreement on Tuesday night, shortly after mediator Pakistan implored him to rethink a threat to unleash massive devastation on...Read more

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declared victory in the U.S. and Israeli war against Iran on Wednesday, a day after Washington and Tehran agreed to a two-week ceasefire.

“Operation Epic Fury was a historic and overwhelming victory on the battlefield,” Hegseth said, using the Pentagon’s name for the war against Iran.

Hegseth spoke after ...Read more

The U.S. and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire and Tehran pledged to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a last-ditch deal that saw President Donald Trump vow to pursue talks rather than escalate the war.

Trump announced the agreement on Tuesday night, shortly after mediator Pakistan implored him to rethink a threat to unleash massive devastation on...Read more

Public health institutions are under threat by populist governments across the globe.

From Budapest to Jakarta, Indonesia, public health agencies are being stripped of funding and independence. Meanwhile, disinformation has sown distrust in scientific experts. The results are already visible through the return of diseases once thought...Read more

The urban monkeys in New Delhi are so bold they’ll steal the lunch right off your plate. If you’ve spent time in New York, you’ve probably seen squirrels try to do the same. Sydney’s white ibises got the nickname “bin chickens” for stealing trash and sandwiches.

This brazen behavior isn’t normal for most species in the ...Read more

When a drought turns into an urban water crisis, a city’s first step is often to limit lawn watering and launch a campaign to encourage everyone to conserve. It might raise water-use rates or offer incentives for installing low-flow devices.

While demand management techniques like these have had a lot of success in reducing water ...Read more

MIAMI — Martin Hochheiser was overjoyed when nurses told him he was going home to his North Miami Beach condo after a brief hospital stay — until the medical van began veering west toward Hialeah.

His dread turned to panic when Hochheiser, 79, was unloaded at Villa Rosa III, a 48-bed assisted living home with peeling paint, burglar bars, ...Read more

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A criminal probe into the Hope Florida Foundation is likely concluded, but the state-created charity could soon pique the interest of the Internal Revenue Service when it files its tax return.

The foundation’s financials, due May 15, should include the charity’s accounting for the $10 million it received from a state ...Read more

California lawmakers on Tuesday moved forward on a bill that could lead to the re-introduction of grizzly bears to the state, more than a century after the quarter-ton predators were hunted into local extinction.

The measure, which is backed by two Native American tribes, calls for a comprehensive study on the feasibility of bringing back the ...Read more

Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte has asked the nation’s top court to stop the impeachment proceedings against her by the House of Representatives, saying the process is unconstitutional and “marred by grave abuse of discretion.”

In her petition, Duterte claimed the move by the House justice committee to proceed with two impeachment ...Read more

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea fired an unidentified projectile Wednesday, South Korea’s military said, just days after South Korean President Lee Jae Myung expressed regret over an incident involving drones that crossed the border into the North’s airspace.

Pyongyang launched at least one projectile toward waters off its east coast, ...Read more

Google will donate $30 million to mental health hotlines and its Gemini bot will be updated to better respond to people in mental health crisis, the company announced Tuesday — five weeks after a South Florida father sued the AI giant over his son’s suicide.

A Google spokesman said the company’s mental health announcement Tuesday was ...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump stood down from bellicose threats to strike Iran’s critical infrastructure on Tuesday night, agreeing instead to a last-minute, two-week pause in fighting to make room for negotiations.

But he did so stating that diplomacy would revolve around a 10-point proposal from Tehran, a framework he described as a...Read more

WASHINGTON — The United States and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire that is expected to halt the American-Israeli military campaign in exchange for Tehran reopening the Strait of Hormuz.

President Donald Trump announced the agreement Tuesday on social media hours after Pakistan, a mediator in talks, implored the U.S. leader to back off his...Read more