SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Hazy clouds of smoke from dozens of wildfires darkened the sky to an eerie orange glow over much of the West Coast on Wednesday, keeping street lights illuminated during the day and putting residents on edge. The California Highway Patrol urged drivers to turn on their ...

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin Democrats, stung by President Donald Trump's narrow win four years ago, are confident the lessons they learned will ensure he doesn't do it again. But Republicans say civil unrest that followed a police shooting in Kenosha, and Trump's "law and order" message, ...

SEATTLE (AP) — A group of states suing over service cuts at the U.S. Postal Service is asking a federal judge to immediately undo some of them, saying the integrity of the upcoming election is at stake. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has already said he's halting some of the changes, ...

ATLANTA (AP) — Thousands of absentee ballots get rejected in every presidential election. This year, that problem could be much worse and potentially pivotal in hotly contested battleground states. With the coronavirus creating a surge in mail-in balloting and postal delays reported across ...

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — As she inched ahead in her rusty Chevy pickup, Brianna Lordz bemoaned that engine problems had prevented her from making it to the last few drive-up produce giveaways organized by a Des Moines food pantry. But Lordz managed to coax her old truck to a former Sears ...

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A couple's plan to reveal their baby's gender went up not in blue or pink smoke but in flames when the device they used sparked a wildfire that burned thousands of acres and forced people to flee from a city east of Los Angeles. The fire prompted evacuations in parts of ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Police in the nation's capital on Thursday released body camera footage from the officer who fatally shot a Black teenager a day earlier, leading to protests outside Mayor Muriel Bowser's home and a police station. Deon Kay, 18, was shot in the chest Wednesday afternoon in ...

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — A day after the U.S. Census Bureau said that it has already taken steps to wind down operations for the 2020 census, a coalition of cities, counties and civil rights groups is trying to stop the statistical agency in its tracks. The coalition asked a federal judge in San ...

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Jacob Blake's father said Friday that his "happy-go-lucky" son is optimistic for his future, although he remains paralyzed from the waist down after being shot seven times in the back by a Kenosha, Wisconsin, police officer. A clearly exhausted Jacob Blake Sr., speaking ...

NEW YORK (AP) — Not five minutes after police slipped a "spit hood" over Daniel Prude's head, the 41-year-old Black man went limp. A week later, he was taken off life support. Prude's suffocation in Rochester, New York, in March has drawn new attention to the hoods — mesh bags that have ...

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — Wyoming's governor is promoting a Trump administration study that says capturing carbon dioxide emitted by coal-fired power plants would be an economical way to curtail the pollution — findings questioned by a utility that owns the plants and wants to shift away from ...

RENO, Nev. (AP) — Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak said Thursday he is pursuing the possibility of easing COVID-19 restrictions on religious gatherings as a rural church pushes forward with its legal effort to strike down the current 50-person cap as unconstitutional. Lawyers for Calvary Chapel ...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — After years of study, the National Cancer Institute said Tuesday that some people probably got cancer from the radioactive fallout that wafted across New Mexico after the U.S. government detonated the first atomic bomb in 1945. However, the exact number is ...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Police unions and other law enforcement organizations went into overdrive to thwart a measure that would have added California to the majority of states that can end the careers of officers with troubled histories. It failed as lawmakers scrambled to wrap up their ...

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — A knife, a bloody washcloth and some missing fingernail scrapings are among evidence that should be DNA tested in the case of a Tennessee man scheduled to be executed in the brutal stabbings of a mother and daughter 33 years ago, lawyers for Pervis Payne said ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A former friend and adviser of Melania Trump said Tuesday that she made recordings of her conversations with the first lady because she needed evidence to protect herself amid questions about the costs of President Donald Trump's inauguration. Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, ...

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — It's been two months since Mississippi legislators acted under pressure to retire the last state flag that included the Confederate battle emblem that's widely seen as racist. On Wednesday, a commission is expected to recommend a new state flag design — one that will ...

PITTSBURGH (AP) — The battle over who can keep Americans safe after recent deadly protests has emerged as the sharpest dividing line for the presidential campaign's final weeks, with Joe Biden on Monday condemning the violence and President Donald Trump defending a supporter accused of ...

By ALEXANDRA JAFFE and WILL WEISSERT Associated Press PIITSBURGH, Pa. (AP) — Joe Biden is mounting a more aggressive offense against President Donald Trump with a rare public appearance in Pittsburgh on Monday, where he's expected to say Trump is contributing to the violence in the streets ...

PHOENIX (AP) — Andrew McCutchen has relished these past few days in the Philadelphia Phillies clubhouse, having difficult, important conversations with baseball teammates about racial injustice. As a Black man in a sport that's filled with mostly white and Hispanic players, he doesn't feel ...