First Run News

LOS ANGELES — The flames raced across brittle hillsides like advancing armies. Up and down Southern California’s canyons and coastlines, they stormed into neighborhoods and engulfed homes where people were using sprinklers and garden hoses as a last, desperate defense against the wind-driven wildfires. On Thursday, the hot, dry winds sparked new fires in San Diego and Riverside Counties and up the coast.

BUENOS AIRES — A federal judge asked Argentina’s Senate on Thursday to allow the arrest of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the former president, on treason and other charges relating to Iran’s possible involvement in the unsolved 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people. The request — made as part of a criminal case — added drama and uncertai

James Levine, the famed conductor and former music director of the Metropolitan Opera, issued his first response Thursday evening to accusations that he sexually abused several men decades ago when they were teenagers or his students, calling them “unfounded.” “As understandably troubling as the accusations noted in recent press accounts are, they are unfounded,” he said in a written statement.

Michael T. Slager, the white police officer whose video-recorded killing of an unarmed black motorist in North Charleston, S.C., starkly illustrated the turmoil over racial bias in American policing, was sentenced on Thursday to 20 years in prison, after the judge in the case said he viewed the shooting as a murder. The sentence, which was within the range of federal guidelines, was pronounced in Federal District Court in Charleston about seven months after Mr.

Britain and the European Union on Friday cleared the way to start a crucial new round of talks on British withdrawal from the bloc, announcing a breakthrough after months of deadlock, an internal political standoff in London and a dispute over the future of the Irish border. Prime Minister Theresa M

WASHINGTON — Days after Donald J. Trump launched his presidential campaign in June 2015, James O’Keefe, the conservative disrupter famous for trying to use secret recordings to embarrass liberals and journalists, visited Trump Tower and gave Mr.