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At Zuma Beach, the Pacific Ocean was obscured by smoke. Horses, dogs and Southern Californians displaced by raging wildfires Friday sought refuge on the sand. The dress code called for protective face masks, not wetsuits. In Thousand Oaks, many of those still reeling from Wednesday’s mass shooting at Borderline Bar and Grill fled their homes with whatever they could grab on their way to safety. Crowded shelters turned away panicky evacuees for lack of space. Freeways were closed. Pepperdine University students awoke to texts ordering them to shelter in place. People like Shirley Hertel turned on television sets in horror and watched the homes they’d fled catch fire. “It was so surreal,” the Thousand Oaks resident said, shaken. “I left thinking everything would be OK. You don’t think your house will burn down.” Fire officials said that more than 150 homes had been destroyed in Southern California, casualties of the Hill and Woolsey fires, blazes that barreled into Malibu an...

In honor of Native American Heritage Month, Google’s doodle team put together a video showcasing the legacy of Eastern Band  Cherokee Indian artist Amanda Crowe, beloved for her smooth, intricate animal woodcarvings. According to the Cherokee Encyclopedia, Crowe was born in 1928 in North Carolina’s Qualla Cherokee community and began learning to “draw and to carve” before she turned five years old. “I was barely big enough to handle a knife, but I knew what I wanted to do—I guess it was part of my heritage,” Crowe once said, according to the encyclopedia. By the time she turned eight, she was selling her woodwork. Both of Crowe’s parents died when she was young, and she was raised by a foster mother for much of her childhood. She’d study woodcarving with her uncle and eventually earned a scholarship to study at the Art Institute of Chicago. At the institute, Crowe experimented with more materials, but always came back to wood. “The grain challenges me to create objects...

One of two wind-driven brush fires that erupted in Ventura County Thursday exploded to 8,000 acres amid even stronger winds early Friday. Approximately 75,000 homes are under evacuation orders along the Ventura-Los Angeles border. The blaze, dubbed the Woolsey Fire, started in Simi Valley near the Rocketdyne facility in the Santa Susana Pass. The fast-moving fire jumped the 101 Freeway at Chesebro Road at about 5:15 a.m. and is established on the south side of freeway, according to the Ventura County Fire Department. The jump forced the freeway to close again in both directions at Liberty Canyon Road as approximately 3 acres is burning and moving uphill, according to the California Highway Patrol. By early Friday morning, the fire had grown to 8,000 acres with 0 percent containment. Multiple structures are damaged and destroyed, according to Los Angeles Fire Department Public Information Officer Erik Scott. Among the homes ruined in the blaze, several were in the Oak Pa...

With his margin of victory in Florida’s Senate race narrowing, Gov. Rick Scott phoned in the lawyers. Addressing reporters in Tallahassee, on Thursday night, Scott charged he was suing to stop Democrats from stealing away his midterm victory over incumbent Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson. His ire in particular zeroed in on two South Florida counties. “Every Floridian should be concerned there may be rampant fraud happening in Palm Beach and Broward counties,” Scott said. “I will not sit idly by while unethical liberals try to steal this election from the people of Florida.” Back in Washington, President Trump echoed the allegation. “Law Enforcement is looking into another big corruption scandal having to do with Election Fraud in #Broward and Palm Beach. Florida voted for Rick Scott!” the president blasted out on Twitter. Republicans have since piled on about ballot box shenanigans and dirty tricks, layering the aftermath of a contentious election with new drama. But the whole situ...

Sunny Southern California weather has a way of making all neighborhoods look idyllic. But in one such Los Angeles-area home, a ranch-style house in a pleasant, leafy enclave, lurked a profound darkness. Inside 804 Fowler Ave. lived a troubled man whose rages created booming noises and summoned local police. Marine Corps veteran Ian David Long, 28, the man accused of killing 12 at a nearby country bar late Wednesday before shooting himself, was a former machine gunner and decorated combat veteran of the war in Afghanistan who, authorities said, had an episode of erratic behavior last spring that suggested post-traumatic stress disorder. Long's various interactions with police over the years pointed to a man who needed professional help. None came. Neighbor Richard Berge said everyone on the block was aware when the police came to the Long home earlier this year after an incident. “Police were here, and they finally get (Long) to come out of the house," Berge told USA ...

Fox News host Tucker Carlson was at his desk Wednesday evening, less than two hours before his 8 p.m. live show, when he suddenly started receiving multiple text messages. There was some sort of commotion happening outside his home in Northwest D.C. “I called my wife,” Carlson told The Washington Post in a phone interview. “She had been in the kitchen alone getting ready to go to dinner and she heard pounding on the front door and screaming. ... Someone started throwing himself against the front door and actually cracked the front door.” His wife, thinking it was a home invasion, locked herself in the pantry and called 911, Carlson said. The couple have four children, but none were home at the time. But it wasn’t a home invasion. It was a protest. According to now-deleted social media posts shared by Smash Racism D.C., a local anti-fascist organization whose members have been tied to other demonstrations against prominent Republican figures, activists showed up outside Carlso...

A gunman's rampage claimed the lives of 11 victims and a sheriff's sergeant late Wednesday in Thousand Oaks in a mass shooting that also left the gunman dead. The gunman was identified as Ian David Long, 28. The Ventura County Sheriff's Office said authorities had had past encounters with him. They said he used a Glock 21 .45-caliber handgun. Authorities got a report at about 11:20 p.m. that a man had opened fire at the Borderline Bar & Grill, a country-western dance bar at 99 Rolling Oaks Drive. Officers at the scene said the gunman might have used smoke bombs in the incident, but authorities later said they could not confirm that. Officers indicated that approximately 30 shots had been fired and that victims were fleeing from the bar into the surrounding neighborhood. Among the first officers at the scene were sheriff's Sgt. Ron Helus and a California Highway Patrol officer, according to Ventura County Sheriff Geoff Dean. Dean said Helus was stuck multi...