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If your degree doesn't pay enough, you can't borrow. Federal loans cut for low-wage programs

Current News / News & Features /

College students pursuing majors, advanced degrees or certifications in fields that consistently earn low incomes will no longer be able to take out federal loans to pay for their schooling under new Trump administration rules.

Many of the degree programs that educate social workers, artists, teacher aides and especially certification programs ...Read more

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Haitians express 'profound fear' as temporary protected status deadline nears

Current News / News & Features /

As the Friday expiration date for temporary protected status looms, members of Sacramento’s Haitian community have expressed fear and uncertainty.

The U.S. government grants TPS to immigrants who cannot safely return to their home countries for reasons such as political unrest or natural disaster. The Supreme Court’s June 25 ruling in ...Read more

Chris Leach/Lexington Herald-Leader/TNS

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear to tap $255 million in surplus funds to reverse Medicaid cuts

Current News / News & Features /

LEXINGTON, Ky. — Gov. Andy Beshear announced Wednesday the state will use $255 million generated from savings and surpluses to reverse a proposed cut to Medicaid, the state-federal healthcare program for the poor and disabled.

In addition, Beshear said the state will use $4 million to restore some funding to a senior meals program, which ...Read more

GoFundMe/TNS

A Black teen found hanged near Charlotte church was a suicide, police say. Questions linger

Current News / News & Features /

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — In early May, a man walking his dog through his north Charlotte neighborhood spotted what appeared to be someone standing still by a tree in a shady churchyard.

His dog tugged him closer. As he approached, he realized to his horror the figure was a lifeless Black girl, held up by a ratchet strap around her neck. Her feet, in...Read more

Shawn Inglima/New York Daily News/TNS

Landlords sue NYC Rent Guidelines Board to block Mayor Zohran Mamdani's rent freeze

Current News / News & Features /

NEW YORK — A group of landlords is suing the city’s Rent Guidelines Board, claiming the board, which is designed to operate independently, made a “sham” decision to implement a rent freeze.

The lawsuit, filed in Staten Island State Court, seeks to stop the freeze and force the board to reevaluate and vote for a rent increase.

The nine-...Read more

Hector Amezcua/The Sacramento Bee/TNS

California bill would make companies doing business in state disclose any slavery ties

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Major corporations that do business in California would be required to disclose any past connections to slavery under a measure that could pass the Legislature next month.

Assembly Bill 2599 would force companies that have more than $100 million in sales annually across the world to search through their records for ...Read more

Barry Williams/New York Daily News/TNS

Mayor Zohran Mamdani hits back at NYC Council Speaker Menin's charge of mishandling Legionnaires' outbreak

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NEW YORK — Mayor Zohran Mamdani hit back against City Council Speaker Menin’s attacks over his administration’s handling of the Legionnaires’ outbreak — saying he was putting public health over politics.

Menin has criticized the mayor for not ordering more proactive cleaning of cooling towers on the Upper East Side, where the outbreak...Read more

Theodore Parisienne/New York Daily News/TNS

Mayor Zohran Mamdani says New Yorkers outraged by Netanyahu visit can protest

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NEW YORK — Mayor Zohran Mamdani said that New Yorkers outraged by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s upcoming visit to New York City can take to the streets and protest.

The mayor announced Tuesday that the city would not legally be able to arrest Netanyahu on an International Criminal Court warrant as he’d hoped. He urged the ...Read more

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Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro to face trial next June in NYC on narco-terrorism charges

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NEW YORK — Deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro is tentatively set to go on trial before a jury of New Yorkers in about a year from now, a Manhattan judge ruled Wednesday.

Federal Judge Alvin Hellerstein put the court date — June 1, 2027 — on the calendar at a brief hearing attended by the ousted Latin American president and Cilia ...Read more

NOAA/NOAA/TNS

Tropical Storm Bertha makes landfall on Gulf Coast, NHC says

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Tropical Storm Bertha weakened Wednesday as it moved west along the Gulf Coast and made landfall in southeastern Louisiana, according to the National Hurricane Center.

The system moved ashore in St. Bernard Parish near the Biloxi Wildlife Management Area, according to a special 3 p.m. EDT update, still with 45 mph sustained winds and higher ...Read more

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Trump's personnel agency says it will remove some identifying info as it sweeps up medical records

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The Trump administration is forging ahead with a controversial plan to collect the medical records of millions of federal workers and retirees, as well as their family members.

The Office of Personnel Management said in a notice posted last month that it will begin routinely collecting identifiable, personal health information on more than 8 ...Read more

Robin Buckson, The Detroit News/The Detroit News/TNS

'Canadian celebration' of Howe bridge planned after event with US nixed

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Canadian leaders are planning their own event Friday without any American officials to celebrate the construction of the $4.7 billion Gordie Howe International Bridge over the Detroit River amid trade tensions with the United States.

On Tuesday, Canadian leaders told Michigan officials they planned to cancel a joint U.S.-Canada event planned ...Read more

U.S. Coast Guard/U.S. Coast Guard/TNS

Sex offender, a fugitive for 21 years, hid in plain sight as a yacht-owning LA biopharma exec

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LOS ANGELES — Richard Graydon spent years cultivating an enviable life.

He worked for a biotech pharma company in Los Angeles. He owned a 56-foot yacht he named Silver Lining, and authorities said he was known as a master yachtsman and a world traveler.

But the U.S. Marshals Service and federal prosecutors say it was all built on a false ...Read more

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American scientists see prosecutions as part of federal campaign against them

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HAMILTON, Mont. — The Trump administration has stepped up arrests and public condemnation of federal scientists studying viruses as the world faces one of its worst Ebola epidemics.

In June, Vincent Munster, an infectious disease researcher at the National Institutes of Health, was charged with bringing biological specimens into the U.S. ...Read more

Pedro Portal/Miami Herald/TNS

Miami-Dade leaders say state's anti-DEI law is so confusing they may have to sue

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MIAMI — Miami-Dade County may go to court over Florida’s new anti-DEI law, which bars local funding of groups or services tied to gender, race or sexual orientation.

County leaders say the legislation is sweeping enough to make Miami-Dade rethink countless spending decisions, from staffing the current Hispanic Affairs Advisory Board to ...Read more

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El Dorado County school, one of California's smallest, changes name following state law

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California’s ban on certain Native American names in public schools has reached one of the state’s smallest school districts.

Indian Diggings Elementary School District will now be known as the Omo Ranch Elementary School District to comply with California’s Racial Mascots Act.

The district’s only school, Indian ...Read more

Roberto Schmidt/Getty Images North America/TNS

More bodies recovered as Guyana intensifies search efforts in ferry tragedy

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At least 53 bodies have been recovered from a ferry that capsized off the coast of Guyana on Saturday, as officials on Wednesday continued a search for additional victims and any possible survivors and the country began three days of national mourning.

The search entered its fourth day after the vessel, the MV Barima, issued a distress signal ...Read more

Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Times/TNS

Some birds defy overall plunge in bird numbers

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LOS ANGELES — Bird multitudes are slipping away on a global scale, but a new study offers hope for how we can be better neighbors to feathered friends.

Researchers at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo knew, like everyone else in the bird world, that 3 billion birds have been lost in the last half century, but they ...Read more

NOAA/NOAA/TNS

Tropical Storm Bertha slogs along just south of Gulf Coast, NHC says

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ORLANDO, Fla. — Tropical Storm Bertha weakened Wednesday as it moved west along the Gulf Coast, but still with portions of Florida under tropical storm warnings, according to the National Hurricane Center.

As of the NHC’s 11 a.m. EDT advisory, the center of Bertha was located about 40 miles south of Pascagoula, Mississippi and 55 miles ...Read more

Martin County Sheriff's Office/TNS

Florida officials rescue nearly 100 cats, dogs hoarded by postal worker

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ORLANDO, Fla. — A 77-year-old Florida woman and U.S. Postal Service employee has been arrested after officials found nearly 100 cats and dogs being hoarded in her home.

Gail Giustino is facing misdemeanor charges for animal cruelty and confinement of animals without sufficient exercise, according to a Facebook post Tuesday from the Martin ...Read more