LOS ANGELES — Authorities arrested 56 people and seized 3,500 birds, as well as firearms and drug paraphernalia, during a multiweek cockfighting investigation in San Bernardino County, officials said.

The operation, dubbed “Crowing Rooster,” ran from June 14 to Aug. 1 and entailed 26 search warrants served at locations throughout the ...Read more

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday to ease regulations for the commercial space industry, including steps to speed the licensing process for rocket launches in a win for the growing sector and onetime ally Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

The executive order directs the secretary of Transportation to review regulatory requirements ...Read more

NEW YORK — An upstate New York man made four calls threatening UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson’s family in the days after the executive was murdered in Midtown Manhattan, authorities said Wednesday.

Shane Daley, 40, of Galway, was charged with cyberstalking for the nasty calls, the Justice Department said in a press release.

Daley made...Read more

MIAMI — Former Miami-Dade County Judge Jason A. Reding Quiñones was sworn in Wednesday as the new U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida.

But the afternoon ceremony making his appointment by President Donald Trump official didn’t happen in the district’s home base, Miami, according to tradition. Nor was he sworn in by the ...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he would meet with House and Senate Democratic leaders ahead of a government funding deadline but cast doubt on a deal to avoid a federal shutdown.

Trump has not met with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries or Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, both of New York, since returning ...Read more

More than 131,000 Nevadans could lose food and nutrition benefits because of the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” officials said during a Nevada legislative committee meeting Wednesday.

New work requirements and other changes to eligibility for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as food stamps, could put those ...Read more

NEW YORK — Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani brought his anti-Trump tour to Staten Island on Wednesday, where he said “despite the caricatures” of the island, he was confident he could make inroads because of his focus on affordability and immigration.

Mamdani won several election precincts in the borough in the June primary, but ...Read more

Nearly one-third of all gambling activity in the United States is conducted with an illegal operator or at an unlawful site, according to the industry’s main lobbying group.

A new analysis from the Washington, D.C.-based American Gaming Association claims that 31.9 percent of the total U.S. gambling market is controlled by illegal operators. ...Read more

BOSTON — The Massachusetts Department of Public Health raised the risk level for West Nile Virus, or WNV, to high in many communities, urging residents to protect against the mosquito-borne disease.

“WNV findings in mosquitoes have accelerated rapidly over the last several weeks,” State Epidemiologist Catherine Brown said. “We are now ...Read more

DENVER — More evacuation orders rolled out across Colorado’s Western Slope on Wednesday as five active wildfires burn across hundreds of square miles.

Colorado’s largest wildfire reached the Garfield County line on Wednesday, prompting officials to scale up evacuation orders for people living northwest of Rifle.

New mandatory evacuation ...Read more

U.S. President Donald Trump warned he would impose “very severe consequences” if Russian leader Vladimir Putin didn’t agree to a ceasefire agreement later this week, following a call with European leaders ahead of his meeting with the Russian president.

Trump also said he hoped to use the Friday meeting to set up a “quick second ...Read more

Months of anti-government rallies in Serbia lapsed into violence again as supporters of President Aleksandar Vucic clashed with his opponents in three of the Balkan country’s biggest cities.

The rival groups hurled flares, rocks, firecrackers and bottles at each other in the capital of Belgrade, the northern city of Novi Sad and in Nis in ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has been granted an extension after failing to fully divest all his assets in compliance with an ethics agreement, according to documents reviewed by Bloomberg.

The Office of Government Ethics, or OGE, gave Bessent until Dec. 15 to complete the divestiture of assets he identified ahead of his ...Read more

LANSING, Mich. — Michigan Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks, D-Grand Rapids, said Wednesday that she's concerned about a potential state government shutdown this fall and that it's irresponsible to delay budget negotiations in the Capitol any longer.

Brinks made the comments during a press conference 48 days before the end of the state's ...Read more

TAMPA, Fla. — Attorney General James Uthmeier said Wednesday that his office is reclassifying concentrated 7-hydroxymitragynine products as a Schedule 1 drug in an effort to remove the product from stores in Florida.

Uthmeier, invoking his office’s ability to create rules in the face of a “true public health emergency,” said at a news ...Read more

The more than $700 million in assets the United States says it has confiscated from Venezuelan ruler Nicolás Maduro includes multiple luxury properties in Florida, Attorney General Pam Bondi said Wednesday.

Bondi’s remarks to Spanish language outlet Fox Noticias followed Friday’s announcement that the U.S. had doubled the bounty for the ...Read more

Tropical Storm Erin on Wednesday continued to push west through the Atlantic with a forecast to become the season’s first hurricane, growing to major hurricane strength by Friday, according to the National Hurricane Center.

As of the NHC’s 5 p.m. Eastern time update, the center of Erin was located about 1,200 miles east of the northern ...Read more