LOS ANGELES — For Alicia Flores Gonzalez, Aug. 4 began like any other day. She dropped her little girl at day care and drove to work at a winery in the Sonoma Valley. But as she was parking her white Toyota Tacoma, she found herself surrounded by several armed men. …...Read More

Tim Brown, director of the Western Regional Climate Center at the Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nev., said the extreme warmth had caused vegetation to become exceptionally dry and to burn more readily. Temperature, humidity, wind and solar radiation combine to dry out brush and are the key elements for …...Read More

Welcome to our weekly analysis of the state of the 2020 campaign. The week in numbers In good news for President Trump, the Cook Political Report made two changes to its elections forecast, moving Florida from “Lean Democrat” to “Toss Up,” and moving Nevada from “Likely Democrat” to “Lean Democrat.” …...Read More

The last time Wendy Jerome was seen alive she was leaving her home in Rochester, N.Y., to deliver a birthday card to a friend who lived nearby. It was around 7 p.m. on Thanksgiving and Wendy, who was 14, had to be home by an 8 p.m. curfew. When Wendy …...Read More

“We were very fortunate that the winds did not sustain another day like we had experienced” in the previous four days, said Doug Grafe, the chief of fire protection at the Oregon Department of Forestry. As residents flee fire-ravaged communities, officials have struggled to manage a series of migrations reminiscent …...Read More

James S. Jackson, who changed the way scholars examined Black life in the United States, leading to new insights on health, social support systems and more, when he founded the Program for Research on Black Americans at the University of Michigan in 1976, died on Sept. 1 at his home …...Read More

This list of President Trump’s accomplishments has been circulating on social media for months and has most likely been viewed by millions of people. I examined each claim to the best of my ability, reaching out to people and institutions who had special insight to see if they considered the …...Read More

MIAMI — Four months after a federal judge ruled that it was akin to an unconstitutional poll tax for Florida to require that people with serious criminal convictions pay court fines and fees before they can register to vote, an appeals court narrowly overturned that decision on Friday. The court’s …...Read More

In one instance, the prosecutors said, Mr. Chauvin had been arresting a juvenile when he used a neck restraint and pinned him to the floor. Another time, prosecutors said, he restrained a woman by putting his knee on her neck while she lay on the ground. And last year, the …...Read More

“The idea is you don’t go after candidates, you don’t indict candidates, or perhaps someone that’s officially close to a candidate — that is essentially the same — within a certain number of days before an election,” Mr. Barr said in an April interview with the conservative radio host Hugh …...Read More