LOS ANGELES — The patchwork efforts to identify and safely remove contamination left by the 2025 Eaton and Palisades fires has been akin to the Wild West.

Experts have given conflicting guidance on best practices. Shortly after the fires, the federal government suddenly refused to adhere to California’s decades-old post-fire soil-testing ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Drawing on decades of experience after having dealt with the beating of Rodney King, the killing of George Floyd and more, American law enforcement leaders, civil rights advocates and other legal experts have honed best practices for officers making street arrests, conducting crowd control and maintaining public safety amid mass ...Read more

NYPD officers too often stop Black and Hispanic drivers without justification, a lawsuit filed Wednesday alleges.

The suit, filed in Manhattan Federal Court by the New York Civil Liberties Union and Bronx Defender Services, comes after a city law went into effect at the start of 2022 requiring officers to document every vehicle stop — as well...Read more

Republican supermajorities in the Kansas Legislature passed a bill late Wednesday barring people from using restrooms in government buildings that don’t align with their sex assigned at birth.

The legislation targeting transgender Kansans was adopted after a series of remarkable procedural maneuvers that circumvented all public input on key ...Read more

LAS VEGAS — Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford asked a federal judge Wednesday to dismiss a Trump administration lawsuit that is trying to force Nevada to release an unredacted voter roll list to the federal government.

The administration targeted the state’s top elections official, Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar, in a Dec. 11 lawsuit ...Read more

COLUMBIA, S.C. — With less than a year left in his term, Gov. Henry McMaster sought to look at what the state would be like after he leaves office.

McMaster, South Carolina’s longest serving governor, delivered his ninth and final State of the State address Wednesday. Because of term limits, he cannot run for reelection this year.

In his ...Read more

Hundreds of students across the Bay Area walked out of their classes Wednesday to protest the recent killings of two people in Minneapolis by federal agents and President Donald Trump’s nationwide immigration crackdown.

The local walkouts — which included a march through the streets of downtown San Jose, along with other walkouts near San ...Read more

OTTAWA, Canada — Mark Carney’s Liberal Party is enjoying a surge in polls after the Canadian prime minister earned praise from other world leaders for his Davos speech urging smaller countries to resist coercion by superpowers.

A new survey released by Leger Marketing finds Carney’s Liberals with a nine-point lead over the Conservative ...Read more

A 5-year-old Minnesota child detained with his father at a Texas immigration facility appeared lethargic during a visit Jan. 28 by members of Congress, who demanded the family’s immediate release and an end to the use of family detention.

Liam Conejo Ramos, a Columbia Heights preschooler, was taken by federal agents Jan. 20 along with his ...Read more

A lawsuit from the state of Minnesota that aims to hold the oil industry accountable for allegedly misleading the public about climate change can move forward, a state appeals court ruled Monday. The ruling inches the case closer to trial after nearly six years of legal challenges.

The decision affirms a lower court’s ruling, denying a motion...Read more

SAN DIEGO — The San Diego County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved $8.75 million Wednesday to address the ongoing Tijuana River pollution crisis through health studies, infrastructure improvements and an expanded air purifier program.

The funding package includes $4.75 million for epidemiological studies and a temporary infrastructure...Read more

WASHINGTON — Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem already had weathered missteps in the past year pressing the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement policy and changes to federal disaster relief — and then came her response to immigration agents fatally shooting two Minnesotans.

The former South Dakota governor ...Read more

DENVER — At least one of Colorado’s collared wolves roamed widely across southwestern Colorado in the last month, a new map of wolf locations released Wednesday by Colorado Parks and Wildlife shows.

One of the state’s 19 collared wolves traveled quickly through a number of watersheds in that region, including near tribal land, according ...Read more

NEW YORK — State prosecutors in Manhattan on Wednesday pushed to try Luigi Mangione for the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in July, before his federal case gets underway.

In a letter to Justice Gregory Carro, Assistant District Attorney Joel Seidemann said state prosecutors should get to present their case before President ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Key Republicans in the Trump administration are retreating from their blanket defense of Border Patrol agents who fatally shot a U.S. citizen Saturday on a Minneapolis street, part of a larger effort by the White House to turn down the temperature after the killing provoked widespread outrage.

But it remains unclear whether the...Read more

OLYMPIA, Wash. — A bill barring law enforcement officers from concealing their identities while performing public duties advanced out of the Washington Senate Wednesday, sending one of the session’s most closely watched public safety proposals to the House amid heightened scrutiny of masked federal immigration enforcement.

Substitute Senate...Read more

A West Virginia librarian was arrested for allegedly using social media to recruit someone to assassinate President Donald Trump.

Ripley resident Morgan Leigh Morrow, 39, was taken into custody after she engaged in the “social media recruitment of individuals to pursue and assassinate President Trump,” the Jackson County Sheriff’s ...Read more

After weeks of the Trump administration verbally hammering Minnesota officials, it looked earlier this week like a détente was in sight over the immigration crackdown during which two citizens have been killed by federal agents.

But now, the bickering is back on.

Earlier this week, amid fallout from the killing of Alex Pretti, President ...Read more