Current News

/

ArcaMax

Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group/TNS

Haunted by legacy of police misconduct, Oakland grapples for answers to street crime surge

Current News / News & Features /

OAKLAND, Calif. — Along gracious, leafy College Avenue, you can luxuriate with a traditional Thai massage, slip into an artisanal cocktail at an Italian spot or claim a grain-free treat for your canine companion at a charming Mediterranean cafe.

Privileged Rockridge hardly seems the sort of neighborhood that would generate grist for the crime...Read more

Orcas covered in scars left by 'cookiecutter sharks' may be new population, study says

Current News / News & Features /

A group of killer whales spotted hunting off the coast of California and Oregon over two decades may actually be their own unique population of animals, a new study says.

When the notorious black fin of an orca emerges from the waves, it is almost always followed by another, and then another.

The social, family-oriented animals travel in pods,...Read more

Los Angeles Times/TNS

A California politician was charged with voter fraud. Right-wing conspiracies took over

Current News / News & Features /

STOCKTON, Calif. — As the polls closed in California on Super Tuesday, Jim Hicks stood watch in the parking lot of a community center while election officials wearing red vests retrieved ballots from a drop-off box.

He jiggled the handle of the metal container when they were done to ensure it was locked and peeked his head into the white ...Read more

Joshua Boucher/The State/TNS

Have South Carolina's abortion numbers changed after heartbeat bill? Here's what the data says

Current News / News & Features /

COLUMBIA, S.C. — A state representative claimed during last week’s budget debate that South Carolina hasn’t seen a “significant change” in abortions since the heartbeat bill was upheld by the state’s Supreme Court.

But a review of provisional data from the Department of Health and Environmental Control, which keeps track of abortion...Read more

STAFF/Getty Images of North America/TNS

How explorers found Amelia Earhart's watery grave. Or did they?

Current News / News & Features /

After nearly 100 days at sea, the crew had given up. Since early September, they had logged nearly 12,000 miles aboard the Offshore Surveyor, crisscrossing the equator near the 180th meridian. Now a few days past Thanksgiving, the time had come to move on.

They had worked hard under a tropical sun, days becoming weeks, a familiar routine ...Read more

Mark Farley/Oregon State University/TNS

Blobby creatures washed up on West Coast beaches during marine warming, sucking up energy

Current News / News & Features /

During recent marine heat waves, millions of gelatinous, pickle-like filter feeders washed up on West Coast beaches.

Little has been understood about how the population explosion of the seemingly alien creatures, called pyrosomes, affected life in the Pacific Ocean.

But a new study shows the proliferation of the animals might have sucked up ...Read more

Alejandro Tamayo/The San Diego Union-Tribune/TNS

For a year, San Diego parents pushed to rename Henry Clay Elementary. But the new name, some say, is 'insulting'

Current News / News & Features /

SAN DIEGO — For more than a year, parents at Henry Clay Elementary in San Diego's Rolando neighborhood have been asking San Diego Unified to rename their children's school.

They don't want their school named after Henry Clay, the U.S. statesman during the decades leading up to the Civil War who kept at least 122 enslaved people and ...Read more

Taylor Sisk/KFF Health News/TNS

West Virginia city once battered by opioid overdoses confronts 'fourth wave'

Current News / News & Features /

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — From 2006 through 2014, more than 81 million painkiller pills were shipped to this city and surrounding rural Cabell County.

The arrival of prescription opioids onto seemingly every block of Huntington, a city of about 46,000 people, augured the first wave of an overdose crisis. Heroin followed, then fentanyl.

Residents ...Read more

Mirko Vitali/Dreamstime/TNS

If schools won't ban kids' cellphones, some lawmakers say, they will

Current News / News & Features /

At David H. Hickman High School in Columbia, Missouri, the rule is that students must keep their cellphones out of sight during class. In reality, the teachers tasked with enforcing the rule are no match for teenagers’ “almost compulsive” need to be on their phones all the time, said science teacher Noelle Gilzow.

Gilzow confiscates ...Read more

Alex Wong/Getty Images North America/TNS

Trump rules out Vivek Ramaswamy as running mate as he eyes new team

Current News / News & Features /

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump has ruled out Vivek Ramaswamy as his running mate and is instead eyeing the entrepreneur for a Cabinet job, according to people familiar with the matter, as the Republican presidential nominee sizes up a possible administration.

Trump personally told Ramaswamy he won’t be his vice presidential pick, according to ...Read more

Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune/TNS

Illinois Supreme Court makes changes amid 'staggering' increase in pretrial appeals over detention

Current News / News & Features /

The Illinois Supreme Court has changed rules for appealing pretrial detention decisions after appellate courts saw an “unprecedented and unsustainable” influx of such appeals following implementation of the Pretrial Fairness Act.

The changes, which take effect April 15, were recommended by a task force that prepared a report after ...Read more

JIM WATSON/Getty Images North America/TNS

Alaska lawmakers fail to override Gov. Mike Dunleavy's education bill veto

Current News / News & Features /

JUNEAU, Alaska — Alaska lawmakers were one vote short Monday of overriding Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s veto of $200 million in education funding.

Dunleavy vetoed the bill Thursday night, two weeks after lawmakers passed it with 56 out 60 lawmakers voting in favor of the package, which was broadly seen as a compromise.

The bill included $175 ...Read more

Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images North America/TNS

Hunter Biden refuses to appear at public House hearing this week

Current News / News & Features /

WASHINGTON — Hunter Biden has rejected an invitation to testify at a public congressional hearing into business activities that are the focus of a faltering GOP impeachment inquiry of his father, President Joe Biden.

The younger Biden’s decision not to appear as one of four invited witnesses before the Oversight and Accountability Committee...Read more

Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post/TNS

Judge orders competency evaluation for alleged CU Colorado Springs dorm shooter

Current News / News & Features /

DENVER — The 25-year-old man accused of fatally shooting two people in a University of Colorado’s Colorado Springs campus dorm room in February will undergo a competency evaluation, an El Paso County district court judge ordered Monday.

Nicholas Trevon Jordan is charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the Feb. 16 deaths of his ...Read more

Spencer Platt/Getty Images North America/TNS

US and Japan team up to warn against nuclear weapons in space

Current News / News & Features /

The U.S. and Japan proposed a United Nations Security Council resolution that would warn countries against placing nuclear weapons in orbit, as it ramps up pressure on Russia to abandon potential plans to put warheads in space.

The resolution underscores that countries “should not develop nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass ...Read more

BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images North America/TNS

Biden and Bibi back off their feud but suspicion lingers at home

Current News / News & Features /

U.S. President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought to turn down the heat in their unusually public feud over Israel’s war in Gaza Monday, but there was little sign the domestic political pressures that have pushed them apart are easing.

After weeks of growing vitriol between the two leaders over Israel’s punishing...Read more

Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times/TNS

DA accuses LA woman who killed 2 boys in crosswalk of 'illegal conduct' from jail, her legal team of jury tampering

Current News / News & Features /

LOS ANGELES — Prosecutors want Rebecca Grossman’s access to jailhouse phones cut off after they say she encouraged illegal conduct and her team attempted to tamper with jurors who convicted her of double murder.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Ryan Gould and his colleague Jamie Castro filed a motion Monday that detailed several jailhouse calls Grossman ...Read more

STEPHEN MATUREN/AFP/Getty Images North America/TNS

MN Court of Appeals sends transgender powerlifter's case back to Ramsey County District Court

Current News / News & Features /

The Minnesota Court of Appeals has sent the case of a transgender powerlifter back to Ramsey County District to determine whether she was barred from participating in women’s competitions because of her sexual orientation.

A year ago, Ramsey County District Judge Patrick Diamond sided with JayCee Cooper, then 35, of Minneapolis, finding that ...Read more

Dreamstime/Dreamstime/TNS

Child's body found inside duffel bag in Philly could be that of 4-year-old Damari Carter, police say

Current News / News & Features /

PHILADELPHIA — Tucked in a small West Philadelphia alleyway, covered by trash and overgrown brush, a duffel bag holding the badly decomposed remains of a toddler was discovered by a sanitation worker on Monday, police said.

The worker came across the black Puma bag just before 10 a.m. while cleaning out the alleyway behind the 600 block of ...Read more

Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune/TNS

First day of migrant evictions in Chicago leads to confusion; only 3 removed from shelters

Current News / News & Features /

CHICAGO — After months of postponing shelter evictions for migrants, Mayor Brandon Johnson doubled down last week on Sunday’s deadline to remove migrants who had surpassed the 60-day limit.

The result? Just three of the 11,000 shelter residents were evicted Sunday.

Outside of shelters, migrants and volunteers who had set up tables to help ...Read more