MINNEAPOLIS — Mosquitos carrying the West Nile virus have been detected in three metro counties and are the first samples of the insects carrying the disease to be found this year.

Mosquitos in Hennepin, Ramsey and Dakota counties tested positive for West Nile, which in mild cases can bring on a fever, headache and body aches, and ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — You've decided to make a sandwich and reach for your loaf of bread, but the "sell-by date" on the bag has passed. You throw it in the trash to err on the side of caution, even though you're unsure whether it means the bread is past its expiration date.

A new California law will narrow the laundry list of food date labels on ...Read more

CHICAGO — Quite simply, Hatem describes the last 10 months as “hell.”

The Syrian citizen has temporary protected status, a legal protection from deportation that was put in jeopardy in September 2025 after the Trump administration moved to strip the status from Syrians. Although the courts postponed the program’s termination, he was ...Read more

MIAMI — Miami’s elected officials heard a tsunami of opposition to the city’s partnership with Immigration and Customs Enforcement during an emotionally charged meeting Thursday that left one city commissioner who fled political persecution in Cuba with tears in his eyes.

The tense commission meeting comes as Florida continues its push to...Read more

The earthquakes that struck Venezuela Wednesday have become the first major political test for acting President Delcy Rodríguez, with the disaster quickly evolving into a contest over competence.

By Friday morning, the official death toll had risen to nearly 600, and authorities reported 3,000 injured people. More than 200 aftershocks had ...Read more

For more than two decades, the Supreme Court has issued a long series of wins for plaintiffs seeking to protect their religious practices. On June 23, 2026, though, the majority delivered an uncommon defeat in this contentious area.

Landor v. Louisiana Department of Public Education and Safety, a 6-3 judgment, rejected the claim of ...Read more

Amid celebrations of America’s 250th anniversary, assertions of the country’s religious, and specifically Christian, character have grown louder in political discourse.

In May 2026, House Speaker Mike Johnson and other prominent officials participated in a prayer service in Washington, D.C. Johnson proclaimed, “We hereby ...Read more

Venezuela and its capital, Caracas, were rocked by two massive earthquake pulses on June 24, 2026, just seconds apart. The shaking from the magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 events caused buildings to collapse in cities across the northern part of the country, killing more than 500 people and trapping many more.

University of Southern California ...Read more

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on June 25, 2026, that the Trump administration may revoke the temporary protected status of 350,000 Haitians.

This is not the first time a legal challenge to TPS has held Haitians’ future in the balance: During his first administration, President Donald Trump attempted to terminate Haitian TPS but was ...Read more

The death toll from the devastating double earthquake that struck Venezuela’s Caribbean coast climbed to at least 589 people early Friday, with 2,980 injured, as rescue crews raced to locate survivors buried under rubble and humanitarian agencies warned the disaster’s full scale is still unfolding.

Authorities said at least 157 people ...Read more

Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine is rebounding on Russia in Crimea, amid escalating attacks on the Black Sea peninsula that he annexed in 2014.

Ukrainian drone and missile strikes are disrupting Russian logistics and supply routes to Crimea, plunging the region into crisis as officials resort to emergency measures. Electricity blackouts leave ...Read more

An attack on a container vessel sailing through the Strait of Hormuz has prompted some shipowners to review exit plans, but traffic continued to flow in both directions through the vital thoroughfare on Friday.

Two fully laden tankers are heading out of the Persian Gulf, while four empty, inbound, very large crude carriers are among the vessels...Read more

The earthquakes that struck Venezuela Wednesday have become the first major political test for acting President Delcy Rodríguez, with the disaster quickly evolving into a contest over competence.

As Rodríguez’s administration races to rescue victims, restore infrastructure and secure international assistance, the opposition is mounting its...Read more

Kate Dineen assumed she would always have access to reproductive healthcare because of where she lived. It came as a shock when she was denied an abortion in 2021 because of gestational limits to the procedure in Massachusetts law.

Dineen was 33 weeks into her pregnancy, the third trimester, when a routine ultrasound detected a problem with the...Read more

DULUTH, Minn. — Donn Branstrator and his team pulled up the traps just offshore of the Duluth-Superior Harbor. There, in the nets, were dozens of tiny wriggling red-spotted shrimp, both male and female, some pregnant, some juvenile.

It was the first evidence that Hemimysis anomala, commonly known as bloody red shrimp, which is native to the ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — An effort by California lawmakers to require transportation agencies to “consider alternatives” to widening highways was thwarted recently after special interest groups fought to preserve more freedom to build bigger freeways.

Assembly Bill 2560, authored by Assembly member Nick Schultz, D-Burbank, seeks to codify ...Read more

HUGHSON, Calif. — The sun beat down and wind chimes sounded quietly in the tiny Central Valley city of Hughson, where Tiffany Nolan Rodriguez had come to the local cemetery to talk with her husband.

She wanted to know: should she speak to a reporter about what it’s like to carry on without him, a year after he died in a Yolo County ...Read more

Proponents of a tax on California billionaires vowed on Thursday to move forward with their November ballot measure despite mounting opposition from many of the state's most powerful political forces.

A labor union spent $31 million gathering signatures to qualify the measure for the ballot in an effort to offset federal healthcare funding cuts...Read more

YORBA LINDA, Calif. — More than 400 people gathered at the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda on Thursday to hear Vice President JD Vance speak on current issues and his personal journey with his faith, the subject of his new memoir.

The Republican official’s talk turned political at times. Vance began the event by ...Read more