Shoring up his environmental legacy before leaving office, President Joe Biden on Tuesday, Jan. 7, is visiting California’s eastern Coachella Valley to call attention to more than 600,000 acres he’s preserving by establishing a new national monument. Located south of Joshua Tree National Park, Chuckwalla National Monument will be the fifth-largest in the mainland U.S.,…

By ERIC TUCKER, Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Special counsel Jack Smith said Tuesday that his team was finalizing a two-volume report on its investigations into President-elect Donald Trump and that at least one volume of it could be released by the Justice Department as early as Friday. The disclosure came in response to a…

“How expensive?” tracks measurements of California’s totally unaffordable housing market. The pain: Orange County’s home-price appreciation topped a ranking of 30 major US markets. The source: My trusty spreadsheet reviewed the November home-price report by First American Data & Analytics, which covers 30 US metro areas, including six in California. Not only does the report…

Socialists are wrong about virtually everything. It’s no surprise, then, that democratic socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont has come out swinging against the H-1B visa program. The program allows up to 65,000 foreign workers in “specialty occupations” with a college education and “practical application of a body of highly specialized knowledge” to work in…

Twelve fire companies were sent to battle a large-scale fire that erupted in a boarded-up commercial building in downtown Los Angeles Tuesday. The “Greater Alarm” blaze was reported around 6 a.m. at the two-story building located on West Pico Boulevard near South Hope Street. Firefighters respond to a “Greater Alarm” blaze in downtown Los Angeles…

A suspect was booked on several felony charges after a pursuit through multiple San Bernardino County communities, but not before he went to his girlfriend’s house to kiss her goodbye.  According to the Upland Police Department, officers located a Chevy Tahoe that was wanted for felony evading by authorities in West Covina around 1 a.m.…

Wild weather arrived in Southern California Tuesday morning. Rain and snow in some areas will be followed by an afternoon of “life-threatening” winds and dangerous fire conditions. “This is a rather bizarre forecast,” KTLA Meteorologist Henry DiCarlo said. “I’ve been doing this a long time and haven’t really seen a setup like this with rain…

By THOMAS ADAMSON, SYLVIE CORBET and ELAINE GANLEY, Associated Press PARIS (AP) — Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of France’s far-right National Front who was known for fiery rhetoric against immigration and multiculturalism that earned him both staunch supporters and widespread condemnation, died Tuesday. He was 96. A polarizing figure in French politics, Le Pen was…

By Gabrielle Calise, Tampa Bay Times TAMPA, Fla. — Mike Rinder, a former top Scientology spokesperson who later broke away and became one of the church’s most outspoken critics, died Sunday, Jan. 5 in Palm Harbor due to esophageal cancer. He was 69. Rinder, who once worked closely with church leader David Miscavige, later went…

Huntington Beach will pay $182,092 in attorneys’ fees and costs after losing a case over the city declining to release the complete 2023 air show settlement agreement. Gina Clayton-Tarvin, a resident and a member of the Ocean View School District Board of Trustees, sued the city in 2023 after City Attorney Michael Gates refused to…