WASHINGTON — House and Senate appropriators have added into their two fiscal 2024 Defense spending bills a combined $25.7 billion the Pentagon did not formally seek for more than 1,200 research and procurement projects, according to a CQ Roll Call analysis of a watchdog group’s previously undisclosed database.

The House-passed Defense ...Read more

One of Elon Musk’s rockets carried a South Korean spy satellite into orbit as the rivalry between the two Koreas expands beyond Earth.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 carrying Seoul’s first domestically made reconnaissance satellite launched from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 10:19 a.m. PST Friday, according to South Korea’s defense...Read more

BOISE, Idaho — St. Luke’s has won significant battles recently in its fight against far-right activist Ammon Bundy.

The health system, which won a defamation case against Bundy and one of his associates this year, has taken ownership of his Emmett property and house — after a judge voided a sale Bundy made to another associate — and ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump is not entitled to absolute presidential immunity against criminal charges over his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, a federal judge ruled.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan on Friday rejected Trump’s early efforts to get the federal indictment in Washington tossed out, including his contention ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The U.S. and two of its closest partners are set to test a new way to track Chinese submarines using artificial intelligence.

Crews flying Pacific missions on the U.S. Navy’s top maritime surveillance and attack aircraft will be using AI algorithms to rapidly process sonar data gathered by underwater devices of the U.S., U.K. ...Read more

ATLANTA — Two co-defendants pleaded guilty to arson charges for burning down a southwest Atlanta Wendy’s during the protests following Rayshard Brooks’ shooting death in June 2020, while a third defendant is scheduled to go on trial next week despite being in federal prison.

Chisom Kingston and Natalie Hanna White each entered negotiated ...Read more

Former Congressman George Santos was expelled from the House of Representatives Friday in a bipartisan vote that followed a House Committee on Ethics report claiming the Queens native deceived donors and “ blatantly stole from his campaign.”

Allegations about the 35-year-old Republican’s checkered past were brought to light by a damning ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The New Jersey attorney general’s office is reviewing the conduct of two law enforcement officials as part of a probe sparked by the federal bribery case against U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez.

Gurbir Grewal, the enforcement chief at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and Andrew Bruck, a top official at the Department of ...Read more

ATLANTA — A protester set themselves on fire Friday afternoon outside a Midtown Atlanta building, suffering critical injuries and also injuring a security guard, police and fire officials said.

Atlanta police Chief Darin Schierbaum called the incident outside the Israeli Consulate building at 1100 Spring Street an “extreme act of political ...Read more

NEW YORK — Cheerful constituents of ex-Rep. George Santos celebrated his expulsion from Congress on Friday, letting out a collective sigh of relief after 11 months of being represented by the truth-challenged 35-year-old Republican.

Around the corner from Santos’ darkened district office in the rain-slicked Douglaston section of Queens, ...Read more

ORLANDO, Fla. — A search warrant affidavit released Friday sheds more light on the sexual battery accusations Christian Ziegler is facing amid growing bipartisan calls that he should quit his job as Florida’s Republican Party chair.

The allegations are being brought by a woman who says she had a previous consensual sexual encounter that ...Read more

ST. LOUIS — State officials are warning of two alarming trends in the deaths of Missouri children: increasing numbers of infants suffocated during sleep, and children accidentally poisoned by fentanyl.

The findings from 2022 were released this week in the annual Missouri Child Fatality Review Program report compiled by the Missouri Department...Read more

History-making Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who became the first woman on the nation’s highest court in 1981 and spent the next quarter-century as a pivotal figure in an oft-divided panel, has died. She was 93.

The jurist’s cause of death was listed as “complications related to advanced dementia, probably Alzheimer’s, ...Read more

ORLANDO, Fla. — Public school teachers in Orange County will be able to use transgender students’ preferred pronouns if parents provide written permission, despite the state’s refusal to clarify whether such a policy is legal.

Orange County Public Schools’ new guidance comes after months of discussion and debate and will be shared with ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Israel acknowledged the need to be careful about protecting civilians in its discussions with the U.S., National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said, as fighting resumed in Gaza.

Kirby said the U.S. continues to support Israel, and Hamas remains a “legitimate target,” but the U.S. wants to ensure the offensive against ...Read more

A federal judge on Friday sentenced a retired Chicago firefighter to two months in prison, more than two years on house arrest and probation for his role in the attempted Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Federal prosecutors had asked for more than a year behind bars for Joseph Pavlik, 66, a 2013 Chicago Fire Department retiree who ...Read more

A federal inmate in Arizona was charged Friday with attempted murder on allegations that he stabbed nearly two dozen times fellow prisoner Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer who murdered George Floyd 3 1/2 years ago.

John Turscak, 52, was charged in U.S. District Court with attempted murder, assault with intent to commit ...Read more

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — The University of Michigan canceled a school-wide student vote on two resolutions related to its response to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war on Thursday. The university said the vote was canceled to preserve the integrity of the election after an "unauthorized email" was sent to the entire undergraduate student body in support...Read more