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SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. (AP) — The wildfire threatening communities around Lake Tahoe has drawn what officials call an aggressive response to try to stop it from reaching areas, including the town of South Lake Tahoe, home to more than 20,000 people. The fire is named the Caldor Fire, after the road where it started

By JACQUES BILLEAUD Associated Press PHOENIX (AP) — The founders of the classified site Backpage.com are scheduled to go on trial Wednesday on charges of facilitating prostitution and laundering money in what authorities say was a scheme to sell ads for sex. Michael Lacey and James Larkin also are accused of using cryptocurrency and wiring

By MIKE SCHNEIDER Associated Press Older adults who are childless in the U.S. are more likely to be college educated, working and white than those with children. And their numbers are growing. A new Census Bureau report released Tuesday shows that 1 in 6 adults age 55 and older are childless. Childless older women appear

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) — A Brazilian bull rider has died after a bull stepped on his chest in California. The Professional Bull Riders touring group says Amadeu Campos Silva, 22, was competing at a bull-riding Velocity Tour event at the Save Mart Center in Fresno on Sunday. Campos Silva lost his balance and his spur

By GENE JOHNSON Associated Press SEATTLE (AP) — The backers of a measure that would change Seattle’s approach to homelessness are appealing a judge’s decision that blocked it from the November ballot. The Compassion Seattle campaign initially said it would not appeal the decision Friday from King County Superior Court Judge Catherine Shaffer, who said

By MATTHEW BARAKAT Associated Press FALLS CHURCH, Va. (AP) — The full panel of 15 appellate judges in Richmond has narrowly upheld a former Virginia high school student’s appeal to have her lawsuit against the school system reinstated after an alleged sexual assault. The narrow 9-6 decision prompted a pair of rare, written dissents from

By MICHAEL R. SISAK Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — A new documentary chronicles the life and 42-year career of Bill Feehan, the highest-ranking and oldest New York City fire official killed at the World Trade Center. “Chief” is airing on public television stations and in-person screenings around the 20th anniversary of the attack. It

NEW YORK (AP) — Authorities say a New Jersey woman with the Instagram handle AntiVaxMomma sold several hundred fake COVID-19 vaccination cards at $200 a pop to New York City-area jab dodgers, including people working in hospitals and nursing homes. Prosecutors say Jasmine Clifford, of Lyndhurst, New Jersey, sold about 250 fake vaccine cards in

By KATHY GANNON Associated Press KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghanistan’s new Taliban rulers face tough economic and security challenges as they return to power in a country that is vastly different from the one they left 20 years ago. When they last ruled in the late 1990s, Afghanistan was a poor, agricultural nation, and the

By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR and MARTIN CRUTSINGER Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The sharp shock of the coronavirus recession pushed Social Security a year closer to insolvency but left Medicare’s exhaustion date unchanged, the government reported Tuesday. It’s a counterintuitive assessment that deepens the uncertainty around the nation’s bedrock retirement programs. Social Security’s massive trust fund