US

Thousands of homes in Northern California wine country and central Oregon were under evacuation orders and warnings Sunday as firefighting crews battled wildfires in dry, hot weather. The Pickett Fire, which had charred about 10 square miles (26 square kilometers) of Napa County, was just 11% contained by Sunday evening, according to the California Department … Read more

Former Mexican cartel kingpin Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada is expected to plead guilty to federal charges related to his role in the violent drug trade that for years flooded the U.S. with cocaine, heroin and other illicit substances NEW YORK — Former Mexican cartel kingpin Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada is expected to plead guilty Monday … Read more

COLUMBIA, S.C. — The University of South Carolina has given the all-clear after issuing an alert Sunday about a possible active shooter near a library on the main Columbia campus, just days after false reports of active shooters at Villanova University and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga led to panic and temporary lockdowns as … Read more

WASHINGTON — France has summoned the American ambassador to Paris after the diplomat, Charles Kushner, wrote a letter to French President Emmanuel Macron alleging the country did not do enough to combat antisemitism. France’s foreign ministry issued a statement Sunday announcing it had summoned Kushner to appear Monday at the French Ministry for Europe and … Read more

NEW ORLEANS — Twenty years ago, Hurricane Katrina changed the face of education in New Orleans forever. The school system was utterly destroyed and then utterly transformed, becoming the first and only all-charter school district in the country. Ahead of the storm’s anniversary, The Associated Press asked three survivors to reflect on what it was … Read more

Six workers who died in what authorities suspect was exposure to gas at a dairy farm include a 50-year-old father and two sons, an incident that left rural Colorado communities in mourning. Weld County Chief Deputy Coroner Jolene Weiner on Friday confirmed the identities of the deceased — all Hispanic males, including four members of … Read more

WASHINGTON — Now that Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has signaled that the central bank could soon cut its key interest rate, he faces a new challenge: how to do it without seeming to cave to the White House’s demands. For months, Powell has largely ignored President Donald Trump’s constant hectoring that he reduce borrowing … Read more

HOUSTON — Just as Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Colin Allred was holding a town hall near the Mexican border as part of an “unrig Texas” campaign tour, the state’s Democratic fundraising powerhouse Beto O’Rourke rallied support in Austin for lawmakers who left the state to delay a redistricting plan led by President Donald Trump. The … Read more

SEATTLE — Residents of the Western U.S. sweltered in a heat wave Saturday that hospitalized some people, with temperatures forecast to hit dangerous levels throughout the weekend in Washington, Oregon, Southern California, Nevada and Arizona. About 1.2 million people were under extreme heat risk, meaning temperatures were expected to stay dangerously high with no relief … Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Religious colleges that require students to sign a statement of faith cannot be excluded from a popular Minnesota program that lets high school students take college courses for credit, a federal judge has ruled, tossing a state law that she called an unconstitutional violation of religious freedom. The ruling late Friday from U.S. … Read more