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The NBA announced that the Lakers’ home game against the Charlotte Hornets scheduled for 7:30 p.m. on Thursday at Crypto.com Arena was postponed because of the ongoing fires in the Los Angeles area.The league said its statement released Thursday morning that the date for the rescheduled game will be announced at a later time.“The entire NBA family sends its thoughts and support to the community of Los Angeles during this challenging time,” part of the league’s statement read. “We are grateful for the thousands of local firefighters and first responders who have demonstrated enormous bravery. Our prayers remain with those…

By HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH and JOCELYN GECKER of The Associated Press, WILLIESHA MORRIS of AL.com, and KEVIN RICHERT of Idaho Education NewsNearly a decade ago, intense protests over racial injustice rocked the University of Missouri’s flagship campus, leading to the resignation of two top administrators. The university then hired its first-ever vice chancellor for inclusion, diversity and equity. Tensions were so high that football players were threatening a boycott and a graduate student went on hunger strike.Today, the entire diversity office is gone, an example of changes sweeping universities in states led by conservatives, and a possible harbinger of things to…

Just about every time a benefactor provides gift funds for a home purchase, two questions come up.Do I have to report the gift to the Internal Revenue Service?Do I have to pay tax on the gift?The short answer for Question 1 is yes, in most cases you are supposed to report the gift. For Question 2, contributors likely don’t have to pay tax unless they are very, very wealthy.Also see: How and how much homeowners can transfer tax base to their next homeFirst, let’s dig into the details of exactly what a gift is and who can provide it, as it…

The Eaton fire that killed five people and destroyed or damaged more than 1,000 homes, businesses and other structures in several foothill communities has slowed, but remained at 10,600 acres and zero containment Thursday morning, Jan. 9.The fire’s growth has been significantly stopped, Los Angeles County Fire Capt. Anthony Marrone said.Firefighters were able to use aircraft starting Wednesday, Jan. 8.Four firefighters are among those injured in the fire. But authorities have not released the number of injured or released details about the five people who died. Information about fatalities will be handled by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.The Bank…

By MICHAEL HILL, MICHAEL R. SISAK and LINDSAY WHITEHURST, Associated PressALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York’s highest court on Thursday declined to block Donald Trump’s upcoming sentencing in his hush money case, leaving the U.S. Supreme Court as the president-elect’s likely last option to prevent the hearing from taking place Friday.One judge of the New York Court of Appeals issued a brief order declining to grant a hearing to Trump’s legal team.Trump has asked the Supreme Court to call off Friday’s sentencing. His lawyers turned to the nation’s highest court Wednesday after New York courts refused to postpone the sentencing by Judge Juan M. Merchan. Merchan presided over…

By MARK SHERMAN, Associated PressWASHINGTON (AP) — In one of the most important cases of the social media age, free speech and national security collide at the Supreme Court on Friday in arguments over the fate of TikTok, a wildly popular digital platform that roughly half the people in the United States use for entertainment and information.TikTok says it plans to shut down the social media site in the U.S. by Jan. 19 unless the Supreme Court strikes down or otherwise delays the effective date of a law aimed at forcing TikTok’s sale by its Chinese parent company.Working on a…

By ZEKE MILLERWASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden canceled the final overseas trip of his presidency just hours before he was set to depart for Rome and the Vatican, choosing to remain in Washington to monitor the response to devastating fires raging in California.Biden was scheduled to leave Thursday, after eulogizing former President Jimmy Carter at a memorial service in Washington, for the three-day trip to meet with Pope Francis and Italian President Sergio Mattarella and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni as well as a final face-to-face meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.The trip was meant as a coda to the…

President-elect Donald Trump declared this week that U.S. control of Greenland and the Panama Canal are crucial to American interests and reaffirmed his interest in making Canada the 51st state. In his Mar-a-Lago press conference, Trump declined to rule out using military force to secure Greenland and the canal but assured everyone that he would only use “economic force” on Canada. Threatening to violate the sovereignty of two independent nations by force is certainly an interesting way to lead up to your inauguration. Even worse than all of this talk of military-aided expansion, Trump has also claimed that he will rename…

“Swift swings” takes a quick peek at one economic trend.The number: California’s inability to attract other Americans is reinforced by statistics showing 2024 was the second worst for van relocations to the state since 2004.The source: My trusty spreadsheet looked at my curious collection of annual migration data from three moving van lines — Allied, Atlas, and United — over two-plus decades. Let’s remember that these interstate relocations are expensive. So, these tallies can be best viewed as a yardstick of where people with fat checkbooks or generous employers are moving.The curveAn average 41.1% of California-linked moves by the three…

Jimmy Carter, the 39th U.S. President, was honored with a state funeral Thursday at the Washington National Cathedral before a family service in his tiny Georgia hometown of Plains. Here are some of the images from the day’s proceedings: The remains of former US President Jimmy Carter arrive at the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, DC, for a State Funeral Service on January 9, 2025. (Photo by Mandel NGAN / AFP) (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images) The remains of former US President Jimmy Carter arrive at the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, DC, for a State Funeral Service…