WASHINGTON — Senate Democratic Whip Richard J. Durbin of Illinois announced Wednesday that he would not seek reelection next year, opening up a safely blue seat that’s likely to spark a competitive Democratic primary.

“The decision of whether to run for reelection has not been easy. I truly love the job of being a United States senator,�...Read more

Defense Secretary and former Fox News host Pete Hegseth reportedly ordered a makeup studio to be installed in the Pentagon so he can freshen up for TV appearances.

The vanity project was initially planned to cost taxpayers $40,000 before being scaled back, according to CBS News.

Hegseth’s powder area is reportedly located inside a green room...Read more

CHICAGO — Jurors on Wednesday told the judge overseeing the federal corruption trial of state Sen. Emil Jones III that they may be approaching a deadlock in their deliberations.

In a note late in its second full day of talks, the panel wrote to U.S. Judge Andrea Wood that it may not be able to agree on two counts, those alleging bribery and ...Read more

Bank of America and its Merrill Lynch investment company settled a lawsuit with two Black women employees who said they were excluded from opportunities because of their race and sex, according to New York federal court records reviewed by The Charlotte Observer.

Financial advisors Linda Davila and Cathy Bender had filed suit in November on ...Read more

Florida House members had an interesting Wednesday thanks to Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Around noon Eastern time, constituents of Republican lawmakers around the state started getting a text message.

“It’s Gov. DeSantis. Florida House leaders are working with Democrats to stop our agenda and sabotage Florida’s success,” it read. “Call your ...Read more

More than 320 university leaders united this week against the Trump administration, signing onto a statement decrying “unprecedented government overreach and political interference.”

Few institutions from Georgia and the South joined the resistance.

Universities in Republican-led states in the South have largely stayed silent amid the ...Read more

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Federal authorities launched a large-scale operation in Florida this week to find and detain some 800 undocumented immigrants, in the first coordinated immigration enforcement effort with state police since the Trump administration came into power.

The Department of Homeland Security-led effort — nicknamed Operation ...Read more

BOSTON — A group of Bay State lawmakers described “harrowing” conditions as they recounted a visit to a Louisiana immigration facility, and they warned that if university students can be detained there without a trial, so can anyone else.

“When the government can imprison people like them — who dissent — without due process in this ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — With state workers returning to offices four days a week this summer, more commuters can be expected on Sacramento-area highways during the week. Public employees who are being told to work in person want drivers sitting in that gridlock to blame one person: Gov. Gavin Newsom.

“Think traffic is bad now? Wait until July ...Read more

CHICAGO — Dick Durbin, whose tenure as one of Illinois’ longest-serving U.S. senators has also been a testament to the power of seniority in the chamber, announced Wednesday he would not seek a sixth term next year, setting up a scramble among potential successors vying for a politically coveted six-year term.

“The decision of whether to ...Read more

Efforts to quash what President Donald Trump’s administration perceives as “anti-Christian bias” were formally launched with a meeting among members of a task force established under a presidential executive order issued earlier this year.

The meeting, led by Attorney General Pam Bondi on April 22, invited Cabinet members and three ...Read more

WAUKEGAN, Ill. — Victims, survivors and relatives of those killed during the Highland Park July 4 parade shooting were among those who told their stories Wednesday in Lake County Court, either through the submission of victim-impact statements or by taking the witness stand, during the sentencing hearing for Robert Crimo III.

Crimo, who ...Read more

A forest wildfire in Ocean County, New Jersey, just miles from the Shore had ballooned to at least 12,500 acres as of Wednesday and was still spreading, according to state officials.

The fire could become New Jersey’s largest in 20 years, Shawn LaTourette, the commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Protection, said at a news ...Read more

LONDON — President Donald Trump ratcheted up pressure on Volodymyr Zelenskyy to accept a peace deal that critics fear will favor Moscow, accusing the Ukrainian president of prolonging the war that’s now in its fourth year.

Trump’s latest broadside against Zelenskyy, made on Truth Social, comes even as Ukraine and its European allies have ...Read more

DENVER — The Boulder Abortion Clinic, one of the relatively few options for third-trimester pregnancy terminations and a frequent target of anti-abortion demonstrators, has closed after 50 years.

Dr. Warren Hern, the clinic’s outspoken director, said Wednesday that he’d run the practice for 50 years as of January, and saw his final ...Read more

ATLANTA — Researchers and community workers in Georgia are speaking out against deep cuts to work on maternal and infant mortality that appear in a draft budget proposal for federal health funding.

The cuts, if enacted, would add significantly to the staff cuts at the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that the Trump ...Read more

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro wrote that there is a “shared responsibility to do better” in an opinion piece published Wednesday in the New York Times, continuing his call for society to reject political violence after an arsonist attacked the governor’s mansion last week.

Shapiro, a first-term Democratic governor, ...Read more

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration last year gave an extra $5 million to a network of anti-abortion crisis pregnancy clinics and asked it to run advertisements opposing a proposed abortion amendment, the group confirmed Wednesday.

But the Florida Pregnancy Care Network’s board chose not to run those types of ads, the ...Read more

A Colombian man being held in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody at a local jail in central Missouri died earlier this month, the agency said.

The man, Brayan Rayo-Garzon, died April 8 after he was found unresponsive at the Phelps County Jail, in Rolla — which is about 100 miles west of St. Louis — the agency said.

ICE said ...Read more