Companies with ties to President Donald Trump and his family are staffing up with lawyers and lobbyists, as Democrats threaten sweeping probes if they flip either chamber of Congress in the midterm elections.

With polls and prediction markets favoring a change in power, firms with connections to the Trumps — from cryptocurrency businesses, to...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — The Minnesota Court of Appeals has reinstated a jury’s guilty verdict in a $7.2 million Medicaid fraud case after a Hennepin County judge threw out the conviction last year before sentencing.

In a unanimous decision, three appellate court judges found there was sufficient evidence to convict Abdifatah Yusuf of six counts of ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison is suing two businesses and related individuals, claiming they defrauded the state out of millions of dollars in federal child nutrition funds during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ellison filed two civil lawsuits. One of the suits filed Monday in Hennepin County District Court names Nasib Bakery...Read more

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday that the Trump administration obtained assurances from Venezuela’s interim government weeks before María Corina Machado’s surprise return that the opposition leader could enter the country safely and move freely, providing the clearest account yet of Washington’s role in her homecoming after ...Read more

Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee issued a 53-page report Monday alleging that five women have accused President Donald Trump of rape or sexual assault while in the company of sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, or shortly after meeting the men together, decades before his presidency.

The Committee presented at least one new ...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s threat to veto everything that a possibly Democratic-run Congress might send him next year is igniting a debate in the opposition party as it contemplates a legislative agenda in a divided Washington.

The Republican president, who has spent his 11 years in national politics touting deal-making chops he ...Read more

NEW YORK — New Yorkers came out in force on the first weekend of early voting, with over 165,000 people in the five boroughs casting ballots on Saturday and Sunday — nearly 70,000 more than the last midterm elections four years ago.

Statewide, about 435,000 people cast their ballots over the weekend. Early voting runs until Nov. 1.

The ...Read more

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro went to Bucks County on Monday to sign a law banning cell phones in all K-12 schools, starting in the 2027-2028 year.

At Lenape Middle School in the Central Bucks School District, the Democratic governor touted the new law — which requires schools to enact policies prohibiting the use of cell phones from the ...Read more

NEW YORK — The Trump administration’s unceremonious firing of veteran Manhattan prosecutor Maurene Comey was unconstitutional and flew in the face of “nearly two centuries of Supreme Court precedent,” a federal judge ruled Monday.

The decision came in a September 2025 suit that Comey, a highly respected former fed, brought against Trump...Read more

SAN JOSE, Calif. — The U.S. Department of Education opened investigations into Palo Alto, San Francisco and North Monterey County school districts Monday for allegedly violating parental rights laws by requiring students to participate in “Wheel of Power/Privilege” and “Mapping my Identities” activities.

The districts did not ...Read more

LEXINGTON, Ky. — A Louisville judge has been suspended without pay after the state’s Judicial Conduct Commission found she had committed a long list of misconduct and other violations.

Lauren Adams Ogden was suspended from the Jefferson County Family Court bench in an order issued Monday in which the JCC said she was guilty of bias, due ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — A group of 174 former federal and state judges is urging the dismissal of the Justice Department’s judicial misconduct complaint against Minnesota federal judges, which alleges their remarks to the media violated ethical rules.

The group of ex-judges from across the United States described the Justice Department’s complaint ...Read more

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. — Ulises Hernandez has had health coverage through Medicaid for as long as he can remember. But he had never waited as long for care as he did in September after a dental crown slipped down his throat during a procedure. He spent eight hours in an emergency room waiting for care and more than two days without food.

Sitting...Read more

Rising healthcare costs aren’t a problem just for those who buy their own health insurance. Increases hit employers and their workers this year, too, and more are expected for 2027 plans — adding to growing concerns about affordability heading into the midterm elections.

Polls show that healthcare costs— and affordability, in general — ...Read more

Days before it was to go into effect, the Trump administration pushed back a U.S. customs rule threatening the supply of vital prescription drugs imported by millions of Americans.

Under the rule, Customs and Border Protection and the FDA will require coding on packages that makes it easier to know what’s in them. It is aimed at collecting ...Read more

Along with the pumpkins and costumes, the candles and cobwebs, Halloween is all about storytelling. From tales of haunted houses to accounts of demonic possession, ghost stories are part of the holiday’s appeal.

As a professor at the University of Maine who specializes in ghost stories, I’ve thought a lot about what makes one ...Read more

SAO PAULO, Brazil — Brazilian markets cratered, with the currency and the benchmark stock index quickly racking up losses of more than 10%, as the surprise reelection of leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva blew up the bullish wagers that investors had made on the country in recent weeks.

The speed and magnitude of the rout — ...Read more

FORT WORTH, Texas — A woman who smothered an 8-month-old boy with a pillow in an apartment in southwest Fort Worth pleaded guilty on Monday to murder.

Dulce Gomez was babysitting Fabian Arjon when she killed the baby in November 2024, law enforcement authorities have said.

In a plea negotiated by a prosecutor and Gomez’s defense attorneys,...Read more

A record number of women are running for state legislative seats this November, more than two-thirds of whom are Democrats.

Across the 46 states with legislative seats on the ballot, a total of 3,824 women are running — up from 2022’s previous record of 3,621 women candidates, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at ...Read more