SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Several brush fires were burning in Southern California on Thursday evening, stoked by hot, windy weather that caused utility companies to shut off electricity for tens of thousands of people around the state. A rapidly spreading blaze in Malibu, a coastal town west of Los Angeles, prompted evacuation orders and warnings for a large swathe of the Santa Monica Mountains. A large cloud of black smoke over the hilltops could be seen on nearby cameras and miles away. The to...

BANGKOK (AP) — Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh said Friday he won’t prejudge what the U. S. central bank will do about interest rates at its upcoming meetings in October and December. The Fed increased its key interest rate by a quarter-point to about 3. 9% in September, its first increase in three years, and stubbornly elevated U. S. inflation will likely lead it to hike that rate again in coming months to slow spending and help cool price pressures. But Warsh offered no fresh during...

NEW YORK (AP) — Manhattan's Upper West Side has been reveling in the company of its latest celebrities: A family of barn owls nested in a water tower atop a building near Central Park. This is the first documented instance of barn owls nesting in Manhattan in modern history, according to one expert, and the owls have attracted nightly crowds of people in the street eager to get a glimpse of the elusive birds. “It was, like, totally shocking,” Andrew Farnsworth, a migration ecologist at a...