SACRAMENTO, Calif. — High school students in the Davis Joint Unified School District could be required to keep their cellphones put away throughout the school day next year under a proposed new policy that district staff presented to the school board Thursday.

The “away for the day” policy extends the district’s cellphone ban to lunch ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS - People who own property near George Floyd Square are upset that the city notified them they are picking up part of the tab for an overhaul of streets and infrastructure in a part of Minneapolis drastically altered by what happened there in 2020.

City leaders have debated for the past six years how to manage, renovate and ...Read more

CHICAGO — A nearly $56 billion state spending plan is headed to Gov. JB Pritzker’s desk after the Democratic-controlled Illinois legislature approved it in the early-morning hours of another overtime spring session.

The Democratic governor called the budget package one that would make “people-first investments while maintaining our ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS – U.S. Sen. Tina Smith took to the Senate floor this week to take a final stand against additional funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol, even though she knew her opposition was likely to be in vain.

It had been months since the Department of Homeland Security shut down while Senate Democrats ...Read more

Texting while driving. Bullying people on social media. Buying into the latest conspiracy theory. Passing off AI-generated work as your own.

That may seem like a random list of 21st-century vices. But I’d argue they’re all examples of the loss of one particular virtue: sophrosyne.

An ancient Greek concept, sophrosyne – ...Read more

In May 2026, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration filed suit against Character Technologies Inc., the company behind the popular chatbot platform Character.AI. A state investigation found that a chatbot character named “Emilie” claimed to have a medical degree, seven years of practice and a Pennsylvania medical license – ...Read more

The state of New York could meet its goal of building 46 gigawatts of large-scale solar by midcentury, but not without making difficult choices in how land is used across the state.

That’s the overall finding of an analysis several colleagues and I have made in that state. It’s an issue that other states, and the U.S. as a whole, ...Read more

The U.S. and Iran have made little progress in talks over an interim peace deal this week, with the sides seeing their worst clashes since an April ceasefire began and fighting continuing in Lebanon.

Skirmishes continued overnight between Hezbollah and Israel in southern Lebanon after the Iran-backed group rejected a U.S.-brokered proposal ...Read more

Chinese President Xi Jinping will travel to North Korea next week, marking his inaugural overseas trip of the year after recently hosting Donald Trump and Russia’s Vladimir Putin in Beijing.

Xi will travel to Pyongyang for the first time since 2019 from June 8-9 at the invitation of Kim Jong Un, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Friday...Read more

CHICAGO — From most cookies dunked in milk at one time to most sweet corn kernels eaten in 3 minutes with a toothpick, the Chicago area has seen its fair share of attempts at setting niche food-related world records. The next comes in August, when Jeppson’s Malört hopes to gather hundreds of fans to set the world record for most people ...Read more

Roberto Sánchez campaigns wearing a traditional farmer’s hat from one of Peru’s poorest provinces, promising to slash the entrenched inequities in the copper-rich nation.

But the leftist candidate is nothing like the Andean farmers who have propelled him into what’s set to be a tight presidential runoff against right-winger Keiko ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — For the first time, Los Angeles County residents can see how many people are ending up in emergency rooms, their bodies pushed past the limit, during heat waves.

The county Department of Public Health says its new Heat-Related Illness and Mortality Dashboard will provide heat illness counts in “near real time,” which means ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — The LAPD internal investigation leveled a troubling allegation: Officers in a specialized unit tasked with combating street gangs had themselves behaved like a gang.

In 2023, officers in the San Fernando Valley were accused of making dozens of improper traffic stops and attempting to hide their actions from their supervisors by ...Read more

The Democratic mayor of Atlantic City, New Jersey, says the county prosecutor knew that he was innocent of allegations that he physically beat his daughter and that charges were pursued against him anyway as part of a conspiracy with other Republican officials to unseat him.

Mayor Marty Small Sr., who was acquitted by a jury in December, ...Read more

Gov. Jared Polis signed new laws Thursday that will require quarterly inspections of immigration detention facilities and help retrofit homes to protect against wind and hail damage.

Another bill signed by the governor aims to rein in the skyrocketing cost of Medicaid-like coverage for some immigrants without legal status in Colorado.

The ...Read more

President Donald Trump said he would headline a rally in Washington on June 24 to mark the 250th anniversary of the United States, a week after several artists pulled out of planned shows on the National Mall.

“We don’t want singers with no talent, but big fees to put you to sleep, we’ve told them all to stay home,” Trump said in a ...Read more

Chinese President Xi Jinping will visit North Korea this month, marking his first trip to the country in more than six years.

China’s top leader will visit North Korea from June 8-9, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

The trip to North Korea will allow Xi to cast China as one of the few world powers still able to engage all sides ...Read more

NEW YORK — The grandson of late mob boss John Gotti is accused of choking his girlfriend on Long Island.

Nassau County police confirmed Carmine Gotti Agnello was arraigned Thursday.

Charges against the 40-year-old include third-degree assault and property damage, according to a felony complaint.

The alleged incident occurred Tuesday in East...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles police are investigating the fatal stabbing of actor James Handy, who officials said was killed by his girlfriend’s son Wednesday at a home in Tarzana. The suspect was apprehended after he made a bizarre 911 call.

On Thursday, authorities identified the 81-year-old stabbing victim as the actor, who appeared in the ...Read more