BOSTON — If the governor has her way, Bay State renters will soon be off the hook for pricey broker fees, which will instead have to be paid by the renting landlords.

Offering a glimpse into her upcoming legislative priorities, Gov. Maura Healey on Monday said she plans to offer an outside section to the fiscal 2026 budget that would require ...Read more

For the first time since 2019, Illinois regulators have approved new medical conditions to qualify for medical cannabis, all centered around women’s health.

Endometriosis, ovarian cysts, uterine fibroids and female orgasmic disorder were approved by the Illinois Department of Public Health, at the recommendation of the Medical Cannabis ...Read more

Southern California faces another round of dangerous fire weather set to begin Monday night, even as crews struggle to contain wind-driven blazes that have paralyzed Los Angeles for nearly a week and killed at least 24 people.

Gusts as high as 50 miles per hour are already moving across the higher terrain and interior valleys of Ventura and Los...Read more

U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott said Monday he has not ruled out running for Virginia governor, even though a recent poll places him slightly behind Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears in a hypothetical match up.

Earle-Sears and former U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat, are the only declared candidates in the November 2025 gubernatorial race. ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Sen. Marco Rubio is Donald Trump’s nominee to be secretary of state, but in the weeks running up to Inauguration Day, the president-elect’s special envoys have been getting most of the attention.

Trump summoned Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff at a press conference last week to report on his push to get an Israel-Hamas ...Read more

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Missouri residents could receive a $1,000 payout if they turn in undocumented migrants to the state highway patrol under an initiative introduced Monday in the state Senate.

The so-called “bounty hunter” proposal, sponsored by Sen.-elect David Gregory, R-Sunset Hills, is among at least seven GOP-led bills introduced ...Read more

Minnesota’s Office of Cannabis Management on Monday published a draft of proposed rules for its upcoming cannabis industry, and the public is invited to submit its feedback.

Starting Monday, the public can submit comments online until 4:30 p.m. Feb. 12.

Instructions on how to submit feedback can be found here. The draft of the proposed rules...Read more

LOS ANGELES — The Altadena resident who won the largest ever Powerball jackpot and used some of his winnings to buy homes in exclusive Los Angeles County neighborhoods has lost at least one of those properties to the wildfires.

Edwin Castro won Powerball's $2 billion jackpot in 2023, which equated to about $1 billion in winnings after taxes, ...Read more

A prison guard sued the state Friday alleging the Corrections Department failed to protect her from being held hostage and sexually assaulted by an inmate.

The complaint lays out in horrific detail the ordeal Katie Jackson, a correctional officer who worked the Sierra Conservation Center, allegedly suffered after Robert Lawrence Ransom Jr. ...Read more

NEW YORK — Traffic in Midtown and lower Manhattan was down nearly 8% after the first full week of congestion tolling, according to preliminary traffic data released Monday by the MTA.

“It has been a very good week here in New York,” said Juliette Michaelson, MTA’s deputy chief of policy and external relations and a chief architect of ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Prosecutors charged nine people with looting Monday in areas wrecked by the devastating Palisades and Eaton fires, and accused another man of intentionally setting a blaze in an Azusa park during last week's firestorm.

One trio of men is accused of stealing $200,000 worth of valuables from a home in Mandeville Canyon early ...Read more

A former girlfriend of Matthew Livelsberger, the man authorities have blamed for a Tesla Cybertruck explosion at the Trump International on New Year’s Day, said his 2019 deployment to Afghanistan “absolutely broke him.”

Livelsberger, 37, a decorated military operations sergeant who served in the U.S. Army as a Green Beret, shot himself in...Read more

SEATTLE — A group of state lawmakers want to crack down on cellphones in schools.

Reps. Stephanie McClintock, Mari Leavitt and Liz Berry introduced a bill requiring school districts to adopt a policy restricting student cellphone use during instructional time by the start of the 2026-27 school year.

As educators across the state grapple with...Read more

More than 80% of poultry slaughterhouse workers and half of hog processing employees testing faster line speeds are at high risk of developing chronic conditions like arthritis and carpal tunnel syndrome, according to recent U.S. Department of Agriculture reports on line speeds and worker safety.

Current line speeds run up to 140 birds per ...Read more

A Mayo Clinic-led team of researchers is solving one of the most frustrating aspects of genetic cancer screening — results that give zero guidance to patients on whether they are at elevated risk.

While some mutations in the BRCA2 gene clearly indicate risks for breast and prostate cancer, thousands of less-common variations have confounded ...Read more

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Minnesota’s legislative session could be off to a bumpy start Tuesday as the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and Republicans continued to fight late Monday over a power-sharing agreement in a narrowly divided House.

Last year’s election delivered a tied House, but after a DFLer got disqualified over residency issues, ...Read more

DENVER — The Colorado Bureau of Investigation is taking 500-plus days on average to process kits used to preserve evidence of sexual assault — almost six times as long as the division’s stated goal.

The backlog of the exams, commonly referred to as rape kits, was exacerbated by a CBI scandal in which a lab analyst, Yvonne “Missy” ...Read more

Two students sued the University of Colorado on Monday, alleging school leaders violated their free speech and due process rights by temporarily barring them from the Boulder campus after they participated in a peaceful pro-Palestine protest at a university job fair.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Denver by attorney Dan Williams ...Read more

ATLANTA — Gov. Brian Kemp plans to give Georgia schools an additional $50 million this year to spend on school security, he announced Monday.

Kemp, speaking at a news conference at the Georgia Capitol on the first day of the 2025 legislative session, said school safety in Georgia will also be a top priority in next year’s budget and ...Read more

CHICAGO — The hotly anticipated cross-examination of ex-House Speaker Michael Madigan kicked off Monday with a sledgehammer of a wiretap: Audio of a 2018 phone call in which Madigan and his co-defendant Michael McClain chuckle about how some ComEd contractors “made out like bandits,” as Madigan put it, for doing very little work.

“That�...Read more