WASHINGTON—Congress to California: Here’s bit of egg on your face.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers failed to kill a provision in the farm bill that blocks California from requiring that eggs imported into the state come from hens who have enough room to spread their wings.  

A group of lawmakers, led by Rep. Jeff Denham, a Republican from California’s agriculture-producing Central Valley, sought a vote by the full House to remove the prohibition and substitute national standards for hen housing.

But the Republican-led House Rules Committee late Tuesday rejected his request on a...

Alaskans scrambled for ways to keep cool as an unusual heat wave warmed Anchorage and other parts of the state this week, bringing temperatures to the Last Frontier that felt more like Southern California.

Residents headed to Goose Lake in Anchorage as temperatures hit 81 on Tuesday, breaking the previous record for the day of 80 degrees set in 1926. In June, temperatures in Anchorage usually range in the mid-60s.

Even higher temperatures were recorded in the interior of the state.

The small community of Talkeetna, 60 miles from Mt. McKinley, saw the thermometer hit 96 degrees on Tuesday, said David Kochevar, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Anchorage.

Warm, dry winds generated by a system similar to Southern California’s Santa Ana winds led to the record temperatures, Kochevar said. The heat wave started last week with a high of 68 on Thursday, and the temperature stayed above 70 for the next five days.

“We’re such babies,” said Greg...

Federal officials are weighing a request to reopen the investigation of the 1996 explosion and crash of TWA Flight 800 that went down off the coast of Long Island, killing all 230 people aboard.

A group of former investigators, interviewed in a documentary to be released next month, have petitioned the National Transportation Safety Board for the new probe. They argue that new evidence shows that an external force, from something such as a rocket or missile, may have brought down the Boeing 747 minutes after it left New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.

The petition claims “new analyses of the FAA radar evidence demonstrate that the explosion that caused the crash did not result from a low-velocity fuel-air explosion as the NTSB has determined. Rather, it was caused by a detonation or high-velocity explosion.”

The theory of such a strike was heavily investigated by the FBI and other agencies at the time and found to be unsupported. The NTSB eventually...

The FBI on Wednesday closed its latest search for the remains of former Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa, ending a dig in a rural field near Detroit where investigators failed to find a trace of the man who has been missing for almost 40 years.

The latest effort to locate some trace of Hoffa officially ended Wednesday morning, according to Robert Foley, head of the FBI office in Detroit. He made the announcement hours after officials had resumed digging in the field in Oakland Township, the Detroit area where the union boss had his power base and was last seen.

“We did not uncover any evidence relevant to the investigation on James Hoffa,” Foley told reporters at a news conference.

“I am very confident of our result here after two-days-plus of diligent effort,” he said of the operation that began on Monday. “As of this point, we'll be closing down the excavation operation.”

As it has in in the past, the FBI insisted that the case remained open.

Hoffa,...

NEW YORK -- Even by the standards of New York subway riders, this rumble was a doozy. Two cops, four women and a dog named Bear were involved, and while Bear suffered four broken teeth, a cut tongue and a scuffed snout, police say they and their canine partner came out on top.

It all began at about 11:15 a.m. Tuesday on the southbound platform of the No. 4 express train at 59th Street and Lexington Avenue, one of the busiest stations in Manhattan.

According to a statement from police spokesman Paul Browne, an officer on duty came upon a fight involving four women. One of them, age 19, was being choked by a second 19-year-old. Two other women, 22 and 31, were watching. When the officer, Rafael Diaz, tried to stop the assault, the older women turned on Diaz and pushed him, Browne said.

That's when Bear and his human partner, Officer Vincent Tieniber, arrived on the scene. As Tieniber was putting handcuffs on the 22-year-old, she began thrashing and kicking. Tieniber suffered a sprained...

New York Muslims have filed a federal lawsuit against the New York Police Department over the department's surveillance of Muslims, which they called invasive and unconstitutional.

The public debate over government surveillance has crescendoed over the last two weeks after a leaker revealed that the federal government had secretly collected detailed phone records, on a massive scale, for years.

The lawsuit filed Tuesday emerged from a narrower but similar channel of criticism over the growth of surveillance on citizens since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The suit also illustrated the power of the press to bring secret programs not just to light, but also to court.

Over a series of stories in 2011 and 2012, Associated Press reporters exposed a secret, long-running NYPD program to monitor Muslims across the Northeast using informants and databases in the hopes of spotting radicals.

Once made aware of the program, Muslim groups and civil liberties advocates were outraged, though a...

HOUSTON -- After repeated delays, a military judge pushed forward with the trial of accused Ft. Hood shooter Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, scheduling jury selection in July for the case often stalled by Hasan’s legal maneuvering.

Hasan, 42, was most recently scheduled to stand trial in May, but jury selection was delayed after he fired his military lawyers and successfully petitioned the judge to represent himself, promising no further delays. He then requested a three-month delay to prepare.

On Tuesday, Hasan told the judge, Col. Tara Osborn, that he no longer needed extra time, and so instead of ruling on his original request, she set jury selection to start July 9, with opening statements expected no earlier than Aug. 6, according to a statement released by Ft. Hood.

TIMELINE: Ft. Hood shooting

Hasan, an Army psychiatrist who worked at the central Texas base, is charged with premeditated murder and attempted murder in connection with the 2009 shooting that left 13 dead and 32...

In the wake of deadly Superstorm Sandy, New York officials have added 600,000 residents to the city's storm evacuation zones, according to maps released Tuesday.

The new designation divides the most endangered areas into six zones with 2.9 million people.

“Over the past six months, we have made remarkable strides in the city’s recovery from Hurricane Sandy, and as part of our review of the administration’s efforts before and after the storm, we have updated and expanded the hurricane evacuation zones that are part of the city’s comprehensive Coastal Storm Plan,” Deputy Mayor Cas Holloway said in a prepared statement.

“The new zones incorporate the best-available data and will help the City to more effectively communicate to those most at risk depending on the characteristics of a particular storm. New Yorkers should go to www.nyc.govor call 311 to find out if their homes or businesses fall within the boundaries of a new city hurricane evacuation...

A disabled woman and her child were beaten and forced to work while in captivity for more than two years, during which they were threatened with pit bulls and large snakes, federal officials in Ohio said Tuesday. They announced three arrests in the case.

“This is a case of modern-day slavery,” Steven M. Dettelbach, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, said at a televised news conference.

Jordie L. Callahan, 26; Jessica L. Hunt, 31; and Daniel J. Brown, also known as D.J. Brown, 33; were arrested Tuesday. The trio are accused of participating in a conspiracy in 2011 and  2012 during which they held a woman and her child in a basement in Ashland, Ohio, about 65 miles from Cleveland. They are charged with forced labor, and Callahan faces an additional count of tampering with a witness, officials said.

The woman, identified only by the initials S.E., managed to free herself in October by stealing a candy bar so she would be taken into custody by authorities.

Accordi...

Imagine if the diggers really do find Jimmy Hoffa.

That's a mental leap some Michigan residents are not quite ready to make, as the Federal Bureau of Investigation goes back to digging on the second day of its search for former Teamsters boss Hoffa, who became labor's version of Amelia Earhart when he disappeared in 1975.

"You're not finding him," one resident tweeted a video of himself saying, as the latest dig site at an Oakland Township field north of Detroit has attracted an array of onlookers and TV crews checking out the search.

Los Angeles Times readers agree: 93% of poll respondents for Monday's story about the never-ending search for Hoffa think the newest search will be similarly fruitless.

Everyone could be wrong, of course, and the discovery of Hoffa's body -- it's always been assumed he was killed -- would prove a huge story and provide presumably a few more answers for one of America's most enduring mysteries: Who killed Jimmy Hoffa?

Previous searches over the years have...

A bicycle-riding bomber who attacked a Times Square military recruitment station may have been involved in two similar unsolved bombings in New York City, the FBI and police said Tuesday as they released video of the suspect and offered $65,000 for information leading to his capture.

The video runs for 7 minutes and 8 seconds and shows the bomber cycling down 7th Avenue through the heart of Times Square at 3:38 a.m. March 8, 2008. When he reaches the Armed Forces Recruiting Station at 43rd Street, he places the bomb near its entrance, lights a fuse, and pedals away.

Despite the hour, several people and cars pass by the station, which is at one of the city's busiest intersections. The bomb explodes about 3:40 a.m., sending a massive white cloud into the sky. Within one minute, a police car swerves into view and stops at the scene. 

Nobody was wounded in the bombing, which broke windows and damaged walls. But officials said the blast -- built using ammunition commonly found on the...