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By BILL BARROW, Associated PressWASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly 44 years after Jimmy Carter left the nation’s capital in humbling defeat, the 39th president returns to Washington for three days of state funeral rites starting Tuesday.Carter’s remains, which had been lying in repose at the Carter Presidential Center since Saturday, left the Atlanta campus Tuesday morning, accompanied by his children and extended family. Special Air Mission 39 departed Dobbins Air Reserve Base north of Atlanta and will arrive at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, with a motorcade into Washington and the Capitol, where members of Congress will pay their respects at a service scheduled for 4:30…

The Legislature is back in session after the holiday break and lawmakers are busy developing their 2025 legislative agendas. Before we look at incoming ideas, it’s best to review their handiwork from last year. As CalMatters reports, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed 1,000 bills into law. Most “are technical, fix previous laws or are narrow in scope,” it noted, but a few could affect our lives, wallets and sanity.Perhaps the most significant change involves crime policy. In the face of public frustration over a retail theft wave, Newsom OK’d 10 anti-crime measures that create stricter penalties for smash-and-grab robberies, combine the…

By PAUL WISEMAN, AP Economics WriterWASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. job openings rose unexpectedly in November, showing companies are still looking for workers even as the labor market has cooled overall.Openings rose to 8.1 million in November, the most since February and up from 7.8 million in October, the Labor Department reported Tuesday. They were down from 8.9 million a year earlier and a peak of 12.2 million in March 2022 as the economy was roaring back from COVID-19 lockdowns. But they still exceed pre-pandemic levels.Economists had expected job openings to fall slightly in November.Layoffs rose slightly in November, and the…

Strong winds — with gusts as high as 79 mph in the San Gabriel Mountains — began blowing their way through Southern California on Tuesday morning, Jan. 7, leading to the possibility of downed trees and wires, power outages and dangerous fire weather.Southern California Edison was considering power shutoffs throughout Southern California, with the potential of affecting more than 320,000 customers in Orange and Los Angeles counties and the Inland Empire, according to the utility’s website. Such purposeful outages are meant to keep electrical equipment from malfunctioning in high winds and causing wildfires.As of Tuesday morning, no customer had power…

By MICHAEL R. SISAK and JENNIFER PELTZNEW YORK (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump tried again Tuesday to delay this week’s sentencing in his hush money case, asking a New York appeals court to intervene as he fights to avoid the finality of his conviction before he returns to the White House.Trump turned to the Appellate Division of the state’s trial court a day after the trial judge, Judge Juan M. Merchan, rebuffed his bid to indefinitely postpone sentencing and ordered it to go ahead as scheduled on Friday.Trump is seeking an emergency order that would spare him from being sentenced while he appeals Merchan’s…

“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 track one-year price swings, it also slices markets into three price groupings – the costliest luxury houses, more-affordable starter homes and mid-range-priced residences.The pinchNot only was Orange County’s 7.7% overall gain No. 1 nationally, it also had the highest mid-range price gains (10.2%) and luxury gains (8.1%).The…

By ERIC TUCKER, Associated PressWASHINGTON (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 request by defense lawyers, filed in court and in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, to preemptively block the report from being made public.The report is expected to describe charging decisions made in separate investigations by Smith into Trump’s hoarding of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago…

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 the United States. The tech sector is among the biggest beneficiaries of this program, which enables American companies to benefit from global talent.The H-1B program has recently been the subject of much debate among supporters of President-elect Donald Trump, with some demonizing the program for allegedly…

OK, so the competition was what it was, which wasn’t elite, but the Chargers’ offense sizzled during their three-game winning streak to end the regular season. They scored 34 points in a victory over the Denver Broncos, dropped 40 on the New England Patriots and another 34 on the Las Vegas Raiders.That’s – let’s see here – 108 total points for an average of 36 points per game during the most important stretch of the season to date. It’s quite a departure from the middling offense the Charger put on the field for the first 14 games of the season,…

By JIM VERTUNO AP Sports WriterAUSTIN, Texas — The expanded College Football Playoff has a decidedly old-school feel: Smothering defenses have carried the last four teams still in the hunt for the national championship.If you want offense, look elsewhere this weekend. The defenses, with All-Americans spread throughout the lineups, are the story of the semifinals. Ohio State, Texas, Penn State and Notre Dame all rank among the top eight defenses nationally this season.The eighth-seeded Buckeyes (12-2) meet the No. 5 Longhorns (13-2) in the Cotton Bowl on Friday night. The Buckeyes are No. 1 in total defense and scoring defense. Texas…