MIAMI — Just hours after a Surfside condo building collapsed and buried 98 people last summer, the first of many lawsuits that would turn into one of the biggest class-action cases in Florida was filed.

On Friday, less than a month before the one-year anniversary of the Champlain Towers South tragedy, a team of lawyers representing family ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Helios Dayspring had one goal: build a cannabis empire that, in his words, would be "too big to fail."

But as he acquired hundreds of acres of land to grow the product and opened storefronts along California's Central Coast to sell it, Dayspring's ambition led him to bribery.

His target was a county supervisor who, in exchange ...Read more

CHICAGO — A reputed leader of a notoriously violent Mexican cartel has been extradited to Chicago and arraigned on charges that he trafficked heroin in the Chicago area and sent hundreds of thousands of dollars in proceeds to Mexico.

Adan Casarrubias Salgado — also known by nicknames including “El Tomate” — was extradited to the U.S. ...Read more

BOSTON — A cold case murder over angel dust in Southie has resulted in the arrest of a 61-year-old in a slaying tied to serial killer James “Whitey” Bulger.

Michael Lewis was arrested in South Boston by Boston Police on Friday. He will be arraigned in Suffolk Superior Court on Tuesday for first-degree murder. He is charged with shooting ...Read more

UVALDE, Texas — As the nation struggles to comprehend the horrors that unfolded Tuesday inside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, one of the biggest unanswered questions is whether anyone could have been saved.

Authorities have left the public with more questions than answers about the mass shooting that left 21 dead, and their timeline...Read more

HOUSTON — Hundreds of people protested for gun control outside the annual National Rifle Assn. convention here Friday, days after the country’s latest mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, in which 21 people were killed, including 19 children.

The scene reflected the mood of a deeply divided country, with NRA opponents and supporters arrayed on ...Read more

Nations are spending too little to prevent disasters in the face of rising global calamities from the floods in South Africa to a record-breaking heat wave in India.

Of the $133 billion in available disaster-related financing in 2010 to 2019, only 4% went to reducing risks with the rest being spent on more costly postcalamity responses, Mami ...Read more

BALTIMORE — Gov. Larry Hogan, finalizing the Maryland legislative session for the year, allowed nearly 300 bills to go into effect without his signature while vetoing 18 others Friday — killing bills that included efforts to speed up mass transit projects in Baltimore and to improve voting and ballot-counting as early as the upcoming July 19...Read more

UVALDE, Texas — Children inside a Texas elementary school frantically called 911, begging for the police to save them, as a tactical decision by a commander kept 19 officers from storming a classroom in what a law enforcement official acknowledged on Friday was a mistake in judgment.

“Of course it wasn’t the right decision,” Texas ...Read more

HOUSTON — Former President Donald Trump read the name of each of the Uvalde school shooting victims at the start of a speech Friday at the NRA annual convention in Houston and called the shooting a “savage and barbaric atrocity that shocks the conscience of every single American.”

Meanwhile, outside the convention protesters gathered ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — The Minneapolis City Council this week approved a $600,000 payout to a freelance journalist who lost her eye to a police projectile while covering protests in the wake of George Floyd's murder in spring 2020.

Photojournalist Linda Tirado filed a federal lawsuit nearly two years ago accusing the city and police officials of ...Read more

DETROIT — A conservative group plans to hold a candidate event where an AR-15 will be given away, even after a Democratic lawmaker representing the area called for it to be canceled following a shooting at a Texas elementary school.

Ronald Matte, listed in state filings as president of the Michigan Leadership Group, told The Detroit News that...Read more

Move toward the gunfire and take out the shooter.

Today’s “active shooter” protocol, a lesson learned from the deadly Columbine shooting more than 20 years ago, did not happen at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High on Feb. 14, 2018. And it didn’t happen at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas on Tuesday, where 19 children and two teachers ...Read more

STANFORD, Calif. — In a live-streamed video address to Stanford students on Friday, embattled Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy offered his condolences to Americans following the deadly Uvalde, Texas elementary school shooting that left 19 students and two adults dead.

“This is impossible to understand at home,” Zelenskyy told the ...Read more

CHICAGO — As Friday marked the official start of summer beach season, the city continues to face a severe, widespread lifeguard shortage that could result in closed beaches and pools later this year.

Chicago Park District officials are hoping an added $500 bonus for new seasonal lifeguards will boost a recent recruitment push to fill the 587 ...Read more

WASHINGTON — There are many reasons to doubt Congress will send President Joe Biden any legislation to slow a spate of mass shootings, including two key words: “directly related.”

A teenage gunman this week turned a Texas elementary school into what Biden called a “battlefield.” He implored the entire country, but also lawmakers, to ...Read more

FORT WORTH, Texas — When Texas Gov. Greg Abbott shared inaccurate information on the timeline of events in the Tuesday attack on Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, he was reciting information given to him by law enforcement, he said at a Friday news conference.

“I was misled. I am livid about what happened,” Abbott said Friday in Uvalde. �...Read more