COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster denied any quid pro quo in calling a special session for redistricting in order to help Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette win President Donald Trump’s endorsement.

While speaking to news media in Summerville, McMaster responded to speculation that the White House pressured the governor into calling ...Read more

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Clavicular, the “looksmaxxing” influencer and streamer whose real name is Braden Eric Peters, has reached a resolution in the misdemeanor case filed after video posted online apparently showed him repeatedly shooting an alligator while on an airboat in the Everglades.

On March 26 in the Everglades and Francis S. ...Read more

DENVER — Gov. Jared Polis reduced Tina Peters’ sentence by half on Friday, ignoring months of pleas against such an action by many other Colorado elected officials and the prosecutor who won the former county clerk’s conviction in an election data-breach scheme.

In a letter to Peters, Polis wrote that she will “be released on parole ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday turned down an appeal from Virginia Democrats whose new voter-approved state election map was canceled by the state's Supreme Court.

The justices made no comment, and the legal outcome came as no surprise.

The U.S. Supreme Court has no authority to review or reverse rulings by state judges ...Read more

ORLANDO, Fla. — Mr. Ginger, one of the sloths transferred to the Central Florida Zoo for treatment following the closure of Sloth World, died Friday, bringing the number of deaths tied to the ill-fated attraction to 56.

The sloth, estimated to have been just four to six months old, was the youngest sloth to arrive at the zoo from ...Read more

WASHINGTON — When Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took the helm of the department in February 2025, he pledged to remove special interests from HHS and chart a new path focused on “gold-standard science.”

He made his core policy interests clear in November 2024, even before he was President Donald Trump’s ...Read more

FORTH WORTH, Texas — The human remains that were found this week in the backyard of the Everman home where missing 6-year-old Noel Rodriguez-Alvarez lived have been positively identified as belonging to the child, District Attorney Phil Sorrells said.

The Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office used dental records to identify Noel, who ...Read more

U.S. President Donald Trump said he made no commitment to Chinese President Xi Jinping over Taiwan, and would make a decision soon over a planned $14 billion arms deal with the island.

“On Taiwan he feels very strongly, I made no commitment either way,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday. The U.S. president said he would ...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s latest financial disclosures show that he or his investment advisers made more than 3,700 trades in the first quarter, a flurry totaling tens of millions of dollars and involving major companies that have dealings with his administration.

The transactions, spelled out in more than 100 pages of ...Read more

LONDON — Keir Starmer acknowledged the stakes if he and his Labour Party failed, in his first words as prime minister. Nodding to the political chaos that had gripped Britain in recent years, the former prosecutor pledged to end the “era of noisy performance” that was draining away people’s belief in a better future.

“One of the ...Read more

DENVER — Gov. Jared Polis will reduce Tina Peters’ sentence by half, he confirmed Friday, appearing to bend to demands from President Donald Trump — while ignoring the pleas of many other Colorado elected officials and the prosecutor who won the former county clerk’s conviction in an election data-breach scheme.

The commutation will ...Read more

Three people were recently hospitalized after eating poisonous wild mushrooms foraged in California wine country amid an unprecedented outbreak of illness and deaths linked to the practice statewide, health officials in Napa County announced.

The adults ate poisonous wild mushrooms foraged in the Napa Valley community of Deer Park over the ...Read more

NEW YORK — A Manhattan judge declared a mistrial Friday at Harvey Weinstein’s rape retrial after a jury became “hopelessly deadlocked” over whether the disgraced producer was guilty of an attack on Jessica Mann, less than a year after his last trial ended in the same result.

The eight men and four women on the jury, who got the case ...Read more

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Gov. JB Pritzker sought treatment at a Springfield hospital this week after experiencing a “minor complication” following an outpatient urology procedure he had earlier this month, though the governor was not admitted, his spokesman said Friday.

Matt Hill, the governor’s spokesman, said Pritzker went to the hospital ...Read more

FORT WORTH, Texas — The remains that were this week found in the backyard of the home where missing 6-year-old Noel Rodriguez Alvarez lived have been positively identified as belonging to the child, district attorney Phil Sorrells said.

The Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office used dental records to identify Noel, who hadn’t been seen...Read more

Disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein’s rape retrial ended in a mistrial Friday after the jury deadlocked. This is the third trial for the New York rape case.

Weinstein, whose decades-long history of alleged sexual assault upended the entertainment industry and inspired the #MeToo movement, has been convicted of other sex crimes in New ...Read more

BEIJING — A conciliatory President Donald Trump on Friday hailed success in his state visit to China, claiming a tonal reset with Xi Jinping despite departing Beijing with few concrete achievements.

The visual spectacle around Trump’s visit was itself considered a breakthrough by the two sides, who expressed an eagerness entering the talks...Read more

CHICAGO — There was a time, not so very long ago, when the most famous tavernkeeper in the history of this city could be found alone in the quiet, empty hours between last call and sunrise, placing chairs upside down on tables and sweeping the floor.

He was in one of the six taverns he owned, the oldest of the Billy Goat brood, on Hubbard ...Read more

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Days of tension over stalled gun safety legislation in the Minnesota House erupted into yelling matches, with Democrats taking over the chamber and demanding Speaker Lisa Demuth hold a vote.

Democrats are staging a House chamber sit-in until Saturday over the lack of movement on the issue, a shift in tone that came just ...Read more

NEW YORK — A Manhattan judge declared a mistrial Friday after a jury said it was unable to reach a unanimous decision on whether Harvey Weinstein was guilty of raping Jessica Mann, a year after his last case also ended in a mistrial.

The seven men and five women on the jury, who began deliberating Wednesday, had initially sent out a note at ...Read more