COVID’s rampage through the country’s nursing homes killed more than 172,000 residents and spurred the biggest industry reform in decades: a mandate that homes employ a minimum number of nurses.

But with President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House, the industry is ramping up pressure to kill that requirement before it takes ...Read more

WASHINGTON — When President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January, he will face a long-term care crisis marked by understaffed nursing homes, workforce shortages and care that is unaffordable and inaccessible for millions of people.

But he and the Republican-controlled Congress are likely to focus on relaxing regulations rather than ...Read more

On the campaign trail, Donald Trump tried mightily to reassure abortion rights supporters, vowing he would not sign into law a nationwide abortion ban even if Congress sent him one.

But once he returns to the White House in January, Trump can make abortions difficult — or illegal — across the United States without Congress taking action at ...Read more

PHILADELPHIA — As enrollment declines at its Commonwealth campuses, Pennsylvania State University is aiming to grow the first-year student body at University Park over the next few years.

Nearly 9,200 freshmen attend the main campus this fall. Eventually, the school would like to reach 10,000, said Matt Melvin, vice president for enrollment ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Timothy Colomey said his fellow Los Angeles police officers had a nickname for him after he transferred out of SWAT: “Top Rope.”

It was a reference to a professional wrestler flinging himself from the top rope of a ring and flooring his opponent, Colomey said. A former senior SWAT sergeant, Colomey had aggressively taken ...Read more

NEW YORK — Jurors weighing the manslaughter case against Daniel Penny for the May 2023 subway chokehold incident that ended in Jordan Neely’s death, in their deliberations Wednesday, asked to review videos of the encounter, plus the contentious cross-examination of the city medical examiner who ruled on Neely’s cause of death.

The panel ...Read more

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A Jackson County judge could pave the way for abortions to take place in Missouri as soon as Friday, even as state Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s office fought in court on Wednesday to preserve a series of restrictions on the procedure.

Missouri voters last month passed Amendment 3, which overturned the state’s ...Read more

FORT WORTH, Texas — A man who sliced the throats of five people over 4 1/2 years, cut three of the bodies into pieces, and sexually abused in a motel bathtub the dismembered corpse of one of his victims should be executed in the state’s death chamber, a jury in Fort Worth determined on Wednesday.

Jason Thornburg, who said he ate a piece of ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Somewhere out there is an oblivious multimillionaire.

In December of last year, they bought one of two winning Mega Millions tickets at a Chevron gas station in Encino, and now they are owed $197.5 million in lottery dough.

Until Saturday.

After that, ignorance will be bliss for the would-be moneybags.

"We would love to see ...Read more

Having access to clean, reliable water has never been a given on tribal lands that rely on the Colorado River.

“Community members turn on their faucets every day to have black, manganese-filled water come out,” said KeAloha Douma, attorney general of the White Mountain Apache Tribe in Arizona. “That should not be happening in America, but...Read more

TOKYO — The potential impeachment of South Korea’s president after an aborted attempt to impose martial law may complicate U.S. efforts to increase pressure on China under President-elect Donald Trump by undermining American-led alliances in East Asia.

Since taking office in 2022, President Yoon Suk Yeol has steered South Korea away from ...Read more

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump is nominating Frank Bisignano, the chief executive officer of fintech and payments company Fiserv Inc., to be the commissioner of the Social Security Administration.

“Frank is a business leader, with a tremendous track record of transforming large corporations. He will be responsible to deliver on ...Read more

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Worried that a drink of infected raw milk could cause the H5N1 bird flu virus to jump to people, state health officials have ordered that all raw milk and cream from a Fresno-based dairy farm be pulled from store shelves.

Consumers should return any purchased milk to the store where it was bought, they add.

“...Read more

BOISE, Idaho — A federal court has denied Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador’s appeal for another District Court judge to oversee an abortion lawsuit, kicking back a decision on whether doctors can refer patients out of state down to a lower court.

The federal court also upheld an injunction barring Labrador or Idaho prosecutors from ...Read more

SAN DIEGO — California state Sen. Steve Padilla announced Wednesday new legislation that would allow the San Diego Association of Governments to earmark a portion of anticipated toll revenue from the forthcoming Otay Mesa East border crossing to help fix the Tijuana River sewage crisis.

Existing law authorizes the regional planning agency to ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Former Rep. John Fleming, now the Louisiana state treasurer, on Wednesday launched a 2026 primary challenge to Sen. Bill Cassidy, a fellow Republican who voted to convict Donald Trump at his second impeachment trial.

Fleming, who served four terms in the House and later worked in the first Trump administration, cited his “deep...Read more

President-elect Donald Trump will nominate financial technology billionaire Jared Isaacman, a longtime SpaceX astronaut, to serve as the next NASA administrator.

If confirmed, Isaacman would oversee a U.S. agency with a roughly $24.8 billion budget and a suite of human and robotic space exploration programs, including the flagship Artemis moon ...Read more

New Jersey released its annual statewide standardized test scores Wednesday, with good and bad news on how public school students are performing in math, language arts, and science.

The state Department of Education presented the statewide results to the Board of Education for third through ninth graders who took the New Jersey Student Learning...Read more