Crews are making progress against a smoky wildfire in Southern California that broke out Friday morning.

The Justice Department says a high-ranking member of a Mexican drug cartel accused of faking his own death and living in the U.S. under a fake identity has been arrested on federal charges.

The remains of a World War II service member who died in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in the Philippines in 1942 have been brought home to California.

A small earthquake has shaken the Southern California desert near where the Coachella music festival is being held this weekend.

As the Amazon drought rages on, public authorities in Brazil are scrambling to deliver food and water to thousands of isolated communities throughout a vast and roadless territory, where boats are the only means of transportation.

Authorities say a suspected drug trafficker is on the run with nearly 60 pounds of methamphetamine belonging to a California sheriff’s department.

The family of a slain Southern California sheriff’s deputy has demanded the resignation of a judge who had previously released the lawman’s shooter despite a violent criminal record.

Authorities say a Virginia sheriff’s deputy who they believe traveled to California to kill three family members of a 15-year-old girl he tried to sexually extort online killed himself with a government-issued firearm.

A Virginia sheriff’s deputy who killed the family members of a 15-year-old California girl he tried to sexually extort online had been detained in 2016 for a psychiatric evaluation over threats to kill himself and his father.

California’s four-year-old legal marijuana market is in disarray.

A coyote was caught on camera hiding in a bathroom stall at a California middle school on Monday.

California lawmakers have voted to make vasectomies cheaper for men.

A year after they were freed from the horribly abusive home of their parents in Southern California, some of the 13 children said they felt pressure to move to a rundown apartment in a crime-ridden area by the county agency tasked with their care.

Joshua Franco prepares to defend his title belt against Andrew Moloney in their third matchup in over a year.

— Health officials say they’ve found evidence in a Florida man of the latest U.S. case of the new and apparently more contagious coronavirus variant first seen in England. The cases have triggered questions about how the COVID-19 variant circulating in England arrived in the U.S., where experts say it probably already is spreading. The Grafton Police Department said the former Advocate Aurora Health pharmacist was arrested on suspicion of reckless endangerment, adulterating a prescription drug and criminal damage to property. GOP senators are ignoring the outgoing president’s demand to increase the $600 COVID-19 aid checks to $2,000. ___Find AP’s full coverage of the coronavirus pandemic at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic

RIVERSIDE, Calif. – A man sleeping in his bedroom was pinned against a wall when a car smashed through the house in Southern California, authorities said. There was nothing between the wall and the car except the resident, Fire Department Battalion Chief Bruce Vanderhorst said. Firefighters used the Jaws of Life, a tool normally employed to cut open smashed vehicles, to free the man. Police arrested the driver of the car, a 22-year-old man. He could face charges including driving under the influence of alcohol causing injury and DUI with a blood-alcohol level higher than .08 causing injury, both felonies, the newspaper said.