Budget cuts and financial woes forced San Francisco to cancel its annual 420 celebration at Golden Gate Park this year, but a self-described psychedelic church says it will step in to help support the thousands of people expected to still make the "religious pilgrimage."

"Anybody who is going out to Hippie Hill on 420 to smoke a joint, they're ...Read more

NEW YORK — Defiant students at Columbia University continued Friday to protest the war in Gaza, a day after university President Minouche Shafik tapped the NYPD to clear a campus encampment and arrest more than 100 demonstrators.

Dozens of students took over another campus lawn with blankets and Palestinian flags, waking up before the sun ...Read more

NEW YORK — Jury selection at Donald Trump’s historic hush money trial was completed Friday with the seating of five more alternates, clearing the way for prosecutors to begin making their case against the former president Monday.

Trump is accused of falsifying New York business records to cover up a hush-money scheme intended to hide ...Read more

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration is requiring air traffic controllers to take more time off between shifts to address fatigue risks flagged by a panel of experts.

FAA Administrator Michael Whitaker is directing controllers to take 10 hours off between shifts and a minimum of 12 consecutive hours off before a midnight shift, he said in ...Read more

NEW YORK — A Florida man set himself on fire in a park across from Manhattan Criminal Court Friday where former President Donald Trump’s hush money trial continues, according to a report.

Court officers and cops monitoring the press outside raced over to help put out the fire, which erupted in a penned-off section of Collect Pond Park ...Read more

The bribery trial of U.S. Senator Bob Menendez and two businessmen was pushed back a week to May 13 by a judge who cited negotiations on a statement that averts the need to disqualify a co-defendant’s lawyer.

U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein in New York moved the date at a hearing Friday, where the New Jersey Democrat is accused of accepting...Read more

As Barron Trump prepares for his high school graduation in Florida next month — which his dad, Donald Trump, might have to skip due to his criminal trial in New York — the youngest son of the former president has to decide where he’s going to college.

With the deadline for committing to a school weeks away, a report by the Daily Beast ...Read more

BOISE, Idaho — New polling released Friday indicates Idaho’s abortion laws are out of step with what residents prefer, imposing more restrictions than most survey respondents find necessary.

The poll was commissioned by Idahoans United for Women and Families, a fledgling nonprofit that announced Friday its intent to run a ballot measure to ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — The Murrieta Valley Board of Education has defied a state order — and countermanded its own staff — by holding on to a policy that requires parents to be notified when students change their gender identity at school.

By a 3-2 margin, the board voted Thursday night to keep its parent-notification policy, which requires ...Read more

NEW YORK — Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams celebrated Friday after securing tools in the state budget to crack down on unlicensed cannabis shops, and offered a blunt message to the illicit sellers: City and state authorities are coming after them.

“This is your warning,” declared Adams, carrying a padlock at a joint news conference...Read more

SPRINGFIELD, Il. — Gov. J.B. Pritzker called for an “evolution of the leadership” at the CTA, as embattled agency President Dorval Carter has looked to Springfield for solutions to a looming budget crisis.

Carter has found himself in the hot seat as the CTA struggled in recent years to provide frequent, reliable and safe service. At the ...Read more

Earlier this month, Kamleh Al-Yaseeni was supposed to accompany a friend to a hospice for the elderly in Damascus where they both volunteered, but she changed her mind to stay home with her disabled son, friends and neighbors said. It was a decision that would cost both their lives.

The Syrian family died in an airstrike on the three-story ...Read more

Ukraine said it shot down a Russian strategic bomber in combat for the first time since the Kremlin’s invasion began after the aircraft launched a missile strike that left at least seven people dead in the central Dnipro region.

The Tu-22M3 was downed some 300 kilometers (186 miles) from the Ukrainian border after launching missiles, Ukraine...Read more

NEW YORK — A man set himself on fire in a park across from Manhattan Criminal Court Friday where former President Donald Trump’s hush money trial continues, according to a report.

Firefighters and emergency medical technicians were called to the scene about 1:15 p.m. after the man burst into flames inside a barricaded area at the park.

“...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles County Sheriff's detectives investigating a series of strong-arm robberies during which thousands of California Lottery Scratchers games were stolen from convenience stores caught a break last week.

On April 11, detectives spotted a vehicle linked to 44 robberies over a nine-week stretch parked outside a 7-Eleven ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration on Friday finalized new rules designed to bolster legal protections at colleges and universities for LGBTQ+ and pregnant students and victims of sexual misconduct.

The new rules do not address the politically contentious issue of transgender athletes competing on women’s sports teams, however. Last year...Read more

PHILADELPHIA — The 2024 Atlantic hurricane season is likely to be destructive and costly and has the potential to be one of the busiest on record.

That's the consensus of several major forecasting services, all of which point to conditions in the tropical Pacific and in the Atlantic hurricane-formation zone that are ripe for a tropical-storm ...Read more

ATHENS – Gov. Brian Kemp said he opposes an effort to expand Medicaid next year, even as a growing number of Republicans say they’re open to a debate on allowing Georgia to join the 40 other states that have boosted their programs for low-income residents.

The governor told Politically Georgia during a live event Thursday that he’s ...Read more

CHICAGO — While legislators in Springfield consider a bill that would prevent Chicago Public Schools from closing schools or making changes to its admissions policies through 2027, district officials have begun finalizing a budget they claim will benefit all of the district’s schools – neighborhood and selective enrollment – in the ...Read more

From gestational diabetes to preeclampsia, pregnancy complications may be associated with a woman’s risk of early death — even decades later.

“Adverse pregnancy outcomes may lead to small physiologic changes that are initially hard to detect, such as inflammation or other abnormalities in small blood vessels,” Dr. Casey Crump, a ...Read more