President Vladimir Putin said Russia is preparing to station tactical nuclear weapons in neighboring Belarus, escalating a confrontation with the U.S. and its allies over the war in Ukraine.

Moscow isn’t handing control of the weapons to Belarus, and won’t be in breach of its nonproliferation obligations under an agreement with Belarusian ...Read more

For the first time in 46 years, the United Nations convened a global conference on water, creating new impetus for wide-ranging efforts to manage water more sustainably, adapt to worsening droughts and floods with climate change, and accelerate solutions for the estimated 2 billion people around the world who live without access to clean ...Read more

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Plans to exhume Stephen Smith’s body are proceeding rapidly and will involve a team of state and national experts, one of the attorneys for Stephen Smith’s mother said Friday.

“As far as we’re concerned, his body is a crime scene,” attorney Ronnie Richter said.

Richter’s statements in an interview with The State ...Read more

President Joe Biden, who longs for the appearance of political harmony, found it in Canada — where he was feted with displays of cross-border unity that glossed over lingering disputes.

Biden’s whirlwind trip to Ottawa, the first one-on-one visit by a U.S. president since 2009, was a show of solidarity. Biden and Canadian Prime Minister ...Read more

WATSONVILLE, Calif. — The school buses arrived in quick succession, looping past the entrance of the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds and a parking lot packed with cars before stopping near Harvest Building, a low-slung yellow structure usually used for fundraisers.

Araceli Telles stood waiting near the gate for her daughters to arrive at the ...Read more

NEW YORK — Jesus O. was a skilled HVAC technician and business owner in Venezuela who thought his skills would easily secure him work when he came to New York last October amid a flood of migrants flowing into New York.

But now, each day, he wanders the streets looking for work.

“I have the experience. And I have the ability,” he said. ...Read more

Despite Missouri’s sweeping abortion ban, some Republicans are still attacking Planned Parenthood’s Medicaid reimbursements.

Multiple bills attempt to block funding to abortion-affiliated facilities, like Planned Parenthood, from different avenues.

One would prohibit Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid reimbursements and another ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank has united deeply divided lawmakers toward a singular goal: raising money off the news.

Members of Congress and presidential candidates have sent dozens of emails hitting up recipients for money and asking them to sign petitions since the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over the troubled ...Read more

PHILADELPHIA — Five weeks after Sen. John Fetterman's hospitalization for clinical depression, his staff says the stay is coming to an end soon, though no certain timeline was offered for his return.

"John will be out soon," spokesperson Joe Calvello said. "Over a week but soon. Recovery is going really well. We have an amazing team at Walter...Read more

A growing number of governments are banning TikTok from official phones, as concerns grow over security threats posed by the Chinese-owned social media platform.

On Thursday, TikTok Chief Executive Shou Chew faced hostile questioning during a hearing with U.S. lawmakers — who repeatedly cut off his attempts to answer. U.S. officials are ...Read more

CHICAGO — The Chicago Police Department is launching a new effort to win back retired CPD officers and hire sworn officers serving other law enforcement agencies.

The two programs seek to bolster the police force’s ranks by allowing retired Chicago officers and officers from outside the city to get salary credit for their experience and ...Read more

BOISE, Idaho — Idaho could begin executing death row inmates by firing squad as early as this summer after Gov. Brad Little joined a wave of Republican support to use the method when lethal injection drugs are unavailable.

Little signed House Bill 186 on Friday, tasking the Idaho Department of Correction with creating policies to implement ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — A tentative agreement has been reached to end the protracted contract dispute that shut down Los Angeles public schools for three days, officials announced Friday afternoon.

The tentative pact, reached after mediation with Mayor Karen Bass, could, if approved by union members, prevent campuses from being closed again to 420,000 ...Read more

The U.S. military carried out airstrikes in Syria after an American contractor was killed when an alleged Iranian-made drone crashed into a coalition base, sharpening already-fraught tensions between Washington and Tehran.

The U.S. said Friday that Iranian-backed groups later fired 10 rockets at a different coalition base in retaliation. ...Read more

NEW YORK — A top lawyer for former President Donald Trump on Friday testified about the classified documents he stashed at his Mar-a-Lago resort in a major legal breakthrough for prosecutors.

Attorney Evan Corcoran may have been forced to reveal what Trump told him about the scores of sensitive government documents he kept in defiance of a ...Read more

Donald Trump warned there could be violence if he’s indicted in New York in an escalation of verbal attacks on prosecutors as a Manhattan grand jury is expected next week to resume its investigation of him for potential crimes.

In a post after midnight on Friday on his Truth Social platform, Trump asked how a former president could be charged...Read more

LOS ANGELES — After years of extreme drought and dismal snowpack, California has had a remarkably wet winter and is now veering into record-setting territory for snowfall.

As of Friday, the snowpack in the southern Sierra was at 286% of normal — the highest figure ever, easily eclipsing the region’s benchmark of 263% set in 1969.

In a ...Read more