Karen Read’s attorneys have taken their argument to drop the murder charge against her to the state’s highest court.

The appeal filed Wednesday to the Supreme Judicial Court is impounded, at least for the time being. Read’s attorney Martin Weinberg filed the appeal and has been the lead counsel on petitions for dropping Read’s charges ...Read more

Delayed spending and a lack of oversight threaten to disrupt a $100 million grant program run by the Department of Cannabis Control intended to help businesses secure state licenses, a recent report by California State Auditor found.

The August report identified local governments that had spent some of the state funds on things unrelated to the...Read more

LAS VEGAS — The worst of Las Vegas’ record summer may be over. But the heat-related death toll continues to rise, with at least 224 deaths where heat was a factor.

Generally, experts say heat deaths are undercounted across the country, and the Clark County coroner’s office can take up to 90 days to declare heat a contributing factor in ...Read more

ATLANTA — The newly hired private defense attorneys for Colin Gray, the father of Apalachee High School shooting suspect Colt Gray, filed a motion Wednesday requesting that he be held separate from the general population in the Barrow County Detention Center.

Colin Gray, 54, is being held there without bond on multiple charges, including four...Read more

A judge sentenced a man to life in prison Wednesday for shooting and killing Chicago police Officer Ella French and injuring her partner, marking an emotional end to the case months after jurors viewed harrowing body camera footage throughout a weeklong trial.

Emonte Morgan, 24, was found guilty in March of killing French, seriously injuring ...Read more

NEW YORK — Lawyers for Daniel Penny, the former Marine charged with putting Jordan Neely in a fatal chokehold on a New York subway train, want to call experts at his manslaughter trial whose testimony will serve to smear the victim and “devalue his life,” prosecutors charged in new court filings.

Penny, who is out on $100,000 bond, is set...Read more

BILOXI, Miss. — Hurricane Francine strengthened Wednesday afternoon to a Category 2 storm just before it made landfall on the Louisiana coast, the National Hurricane Center said.

The storm struck 30 miles south of Morgan City, Louisiana with maximum winds of 100 miles per hour.

Francine strengthened to forecasters surprise. Forecasters ...Read more

New homes built in California starting in 2026 are more likely to use all-electric appliances after energy regulators approved new state building standards Wednesday that encourage adoption of heat pumps.

California Energy Commission leaders called the new state building code an important step on the path to removing carbon pollution from ...Read more

Senior South Carolina lawmakers were confident their plan to set aside tax dollars to help parents pay to send students to private schools would survive a legal challenge.

On Wednesday, a divided state Supreme Court said no.

The court ruled that portions of the 2023 Education Scholarship Trust Fund Act violate the state constitution’s ...Read more

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Hurricane Francine made landfall about 6 p.m. Wednesday in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana, as a Category 2 storm with maximum sustained wind speeds of 100 mph, said the National Hurricane Center in its 6 p.m. update.

Meanwhile, a new depression has formed in the eastern Atlantic and could become a tropical storm in the ...Read more

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said Wednesday she is closing her office's investigation into Larry Nassar's sexual assaults connected to Michigan State University after reviewing more than 6,000 documents linked to the Nassar scandal that the university refused to release under the claim of attorney-client privilege — and she plans to ...Read more

Two Republicans filed a lawsuit Wednesday to invalidate new Georgia election certification rules, alleging the unelected appointees on the State Election Board exceeded their authority.

The lawsuit takes aim at rules approved by Republican supporters of former President Donald Trump that critics say could be abused to dispute the results of the...Read more

SAN PABLO, Calif. — A local resident has been arrested and charged with possessing more than 2,000 child pornography files, after police here learned that he had secretly returned to the Bay Area after a 2015 sexual abuse conviction, court records show.

Luis Brizuela-Navas, 25, was charged with possessing child pornography and failing to ...Read more

Sean "Diddy" Combs has been hit with yet another lawsuit, this time by a singer from his Bad Boy-backed music groups Danity Kane and Diddy-Dirty Money who says she witnessed him beating ex-girlfriend Casandra "Cassie" Ventura.

Dawn Richard, who rose to fame through MTV and Diddy's 2004 reality competition "Making the Band 3," sued Combs Tuesday...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Three fast-moving wildfires that have burned homes, injured firefighters and civilians and scorched more than 100,000 acres combined across Southern California in a matter of days have stretched firefighting resources dangerously thin as crews attempt to assess damage and gain control over the blazes.

The largest of the three, ...Read more

Charter schools and families who will receive private school vouchers are some of the big winners in the mini-budget bill approved Wednesday by state lawmakers.

Much of the focus in the GOP budget deal has been on how it provides an additional $463 million in voucher funding to help 50,000 students attend private schools. But the bill also ...Read more

The Food and Drug Administration announced it has started a research project examining the possible effects of toxic metals in tampons, sparking concerns about products used by millions of women in the U.S.

A recent study found a variety of metals — including mercury, arsenic and lead — in more than a dozen brands of tampons.

The FDA said ...Read more