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By MARK SHERMAN and KIM CHANDLER WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Wednesday struggled over how courts should decide borderline cases of whether convicted murderers are intellectually disabled and should be shielded from execution. There was no clear outcome apparent after the justices heard two hours of arguments in an appeal from Alabama, which wants to put to death a man who lower federal courts found is intellectually disabled. Joseph Clifton Smith, 55, has been on death row roughly half his life after his conviction for beating a man to death in 1997. The Supreme Court prohibited execution of…

Pay raises across Southern California have shrunk to their smallest level in five years – hikes that barely keep pace with inflation. With government economic data delayed by the federal government shutdown, any hint of business conditions draws a larger-than-normal spotlight. To gauge job market conditions, my trusty spreadsheet reviewed the Wednesday, Dec. 10, release of the quarterly Employment Cost Index. It tracks what bosses pay their employees across 15 U.S. regions, including a five-county Southern California area.  This local yardstick of wages and salaries in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties shows compensation growing at a…

The gridlock was epic. For eight hours on Friday, Interstate 5 at Del Mar Heights Road in the San Diego area was closed, at times in both directions, as police talked with a suicidal man perched on a bridge above the freeway. And for miles around that spot, motorists endured a massive, extended transportation nightmare that slowed travel around the region. Social media posts captured some of the pain. For some, nature called and there was no way to answer. Someone wrote on X that they saw a guy get out of his car to urinate on the highway. A…

By JEFF AMY and KATE BRUMBACK ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia’s State Election Board on Wednesday rejected a proposal defining when hand-marked paper ballots could be used in place of the state’s touchscreen voting machines. Opponents said the rule would have overstepped the board’s legal authority and could have created an escape hatch for widespread use of paper ballots when state lawmakers mandated the use of the ballot-marking devices. Janice Johnston, the board’s vice chair, seemed to agree, saying, “This really is the duty and the job of the legislators.” The proposed rule failed on a 2-2 vote after a debate…

The recent death of West Virginia National Guard member Sarah Beckstrom and the grievous wounding of her colleague, Andrew Wolfe, in Washington, D.C., should have united this country in shared grief. It should have been a moment to honor their service and reaffirm our commitment to preventing tragedies like this from ever happening again. Instead, the Trump administration has seized on their suffering to smear entire communities and advance an agenda untethered from reality, morality or the values Americans claim to hold. There is nothing more cynical than using the worst day of someone else’s life as political fuel. Yet…

Author and philanthropist MacKenzie Scott has donated $63 million to Cal State Northridge. The gift, announced Tuesday marks Scott’s second donation to CSUN, following the $40 million she gave in 2021, bringing her total support to more than $103 million and placing her investment in CSUN among the largest provided to any university, according to CSUN. “We are deeply honored by MacKenzie Scott’s continued and increased confidence in our work,” CSUN President Erika Beck said in a statement. “This extraordinary support enables us to strengthen the systems and resources that help our students thrive. Our outcomes demonstrate what’s possible when…

Electricity prices have been on a roller coaster in the last few years, and at the moment they’re climbing — just in time for the start of winter. Nationally, residential electricity prices rose 10.5% between January and August of this year, according to the National Energy Assistance Directors Association (NEADA). That’s more than three times the annual rate of overall inflation. But the national average hides a lot of regional variation. While three states actually saw electricity prices drop in that nine-month period, nine states saw an increase of more than 20% — topped by Missouri at 37.4% and North…

Rep. Young Kim has amended congressional financial reports after a complaint alleged she failed to disclose five sponsored trips since 2022. The complaint from End Citizens United, a left-leaning campaign finance reform group, said Kim, an Anaheim Hills Republican, had taken five sponsored trips totalling nearly $50,000 that were not included on personal financial disclosure statements. Records with the House Clerk show Kim has already filed amendments to disclose the five trips highlighted in the complaint. “All trips Rep. Kim attends are part of her official duties as a member of Congress and are approved by the House Ethics Committee…

As a general rule, babies born in the United States of America are citizens of the United States of America. There isn’t any question about that. It’s in the Constitution, 14th Amendment: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” After his election to his second term in November 2024, Trump said to NBC News of the 14th Amendment: “We’re going to have to get it changed. We’re going to end that because it’s ridiculous.” If the president, as with…

By MORIAH BALINGIT, Associated Press Education Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — Not long after President Donald Trump took office in January, staff at CentroNía bilingual preschool began rehearsing what to do if Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials came to the door. As ICE became a regular presence in their historically Latino neighborhood this summer, teachers stopped taking children to nearby parks, libraries and playgrounds that had once been considered an extension of the classroom. And in October, the school scrapped its beloved Hispanic Heritage Month parade, when immigrant parents typically dressed their children in costumes and soccer jerseys from their home…