CHICAGO — Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration has quietly begun filing lawsuits over what it has described as “rogue buses” transporting migrants, an escalation the mayor has coupled with an attempt to further crack down on the transportation companies.

The stepped-up enforcement is the Johnson administration’s latest effort to ...Read more

SEATTLE — Seattle Parks and Recreation is canceling its proposal to build a new children's play area funded by an anonymous private donor at a beach park known as an unofficial nude hangout, a spokesperson said Friday morning.

The project faced growing opposition in recent weeks from people who have viewed the $550,000 plan as a ...Read more

LAS VEGAS — President Joe Biden on Friday hailed the promise of a long-awaited high-speed rail system between Las Vegas and Los Angeles and said $3 billion in federal funds awarded this week will ensure it gets built.

“At long last we’re building the first high-speed rail project in our nation’s history and it’s starting here,” ...Read more

A stabbing incident at the Newark Beth Israel Medical Center in New Jersey left two nurses and one medical resident wounded on Friday, following a domestic dispute with visitors in the hospital’s pediatric ICU.

Hospital officials said the three staff members suffered lacerations and were rushed to the onsite emergency department with minor ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The White House on Friday announced $8.2 billion for 10 passenger rail projects across the country, including more than $6 billion for high-speed rail projects in California and Nevada.

The money, authorized by the 2021 infrastructure law, comes from the Federal Railroad Administration’s Federal-State Partnership for Intercity ...Read more

Ryan O’Neal, who starred in “Love Story” and “Paper Moon,” cementing his status as a heartthrob in the ‘70s, died Friday. He was 82.

He emerged as a heartthrob on television’s “Peyton Place” in the 1960s and arrived as a movie star in the sentimental 1970 box-office hit “Love Story.” Yet O’Neal achieved his most enduring...Read more

LOS ANGELES — As President Joe Biden arrived in Los Angeles on Friday for a weekend of fundraising among Hollywood elite, his only living son was hit with his second grand jury indictment this year — with the special counsel accusing the younger Biden of various tax crimes.

Hunter Biden has long served as a political punching bag for his ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — The California Department of Fish and Wildlife will be returning more than 40 acres of Inyo County land to the Indigenous Paiute people in early in 2024, including a decades-old fish hatchery located along historic Route 395.

The transfer of the entire Mount Whitney Fish Hatchery property will be the department's first-ever ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Scores of demonstrators rallying in solidarity with Palestinians are expected to protest outside a Westwood fundraiser for President Joe Biden on Friday evening, drawing an ominous warning from the Los Angeles Police Department that "violence of any kind will not be tolerated."

The department said in a post on social media ...Read more

The European Union reached a hard-fought deal on what is poised to become the most comprehensive regulation of artificial intelligence in the western world.

Thierry Breton, the bloc’s internal market chief, said the deal strikes a balance between fostering innovation and protecting the rights of people and companies.

“We spent a lot of ...Read more

Guatemala’s political crisis deepened after prosecutors called for the invalidation of Bernardo Arevalo’s presidential election victory, only for the nation’s electoral authority to immediately reject their claims.

Prosecutors from the attorney general’s office said Friday that they had found a series of “irregularities” that demand...Read more

LEXINGTON, Ky. — A Kentucky woman Friday filed an emergency class-action lawsuit, asking a Jefferson County judge to allow her to terminate her pregnancy.

It’s the first lawsuit of its kind in Kentucky since the state banned nearly all abortions in 2022 and one of the only times nationwide since before Roe v. Wade in 1973 that an adult ...Read more

A bipartisan group of senators on Thursday introduced legislation that seeks to address flaws in the current live-event ticketing system in the U.S. and increase protections for customers.

The much-awaited bill, dubbed the Fans First Act, would increase transparency in ticket sales, protect concertgoers from “fake or dramatically overpriced ...Read more

LAS VEGAS — A memorial service honoring one of two Nevada Highway Patrol troopers killed by a hit-and-run driver on Interstate 15 was held Friday.

Sgt. Michael Abbate and trooper Alberto Felix had stopped to check on a driver who appeared to be asleep at the wheel in the early morning hours of Nov. 30 on Interstate 15, near D Street when a ...Read more

ATLANTA — Meeting a federal judge’s deadline, Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law new Republican-drawn political maps Friday that redistrict Georgia’s congressional and General Assembly seats before next year’s elections.

The redrawn district lines preserve Republican majorities after the judge ruled that Georgia’s previous boundaries ...Read more

LAS VEGAS — Lori Haas knows firsthand what it’s like to be the family member of someone injured in a shooting on a college campus.

Her daughter Emily — then a 19-year-old sophomore — sustained two graze wounds to the back of her head during the 2007 mass shooting at Virginia Tech that killed 32 people.

“I used to say that she was one...Read more

ORLANDO, Fla. — A Florida Republican has introduced a scaled-back version of a bill that aims to make it easier for prominent people to sue for libel, a proposal that died earlier this year in the state Legislature after receiving bipartisan criticism.

State Rep. Alex Andrade’s new proposal seeks to change long-standing legal standards ...Read more

Early this week, shortly after Nicolás Maduro held a sham referendum on whether Venezuela should annex the majority of neighboring Guyana, Presdient Biden’s top national security advisers ordered a classified assessment of Venezuelan troop movements on and around the border, a U.S. defense official said. Maduro seemed to be acting on what had...Read more