Before the successful, healthy birth of her son, recalls Germine Awad — an Egyptian American who is a psychologist at the University of Michigan — clinicians told her that her hormone levels were too high and that her pregnancy was in danger. “They don’t know us,” her mother reassured her.

Iyman Hamad, a Palestinian American public ...Read more

In Humphreys County, Mississippi — about 70 miles north of the state capital, in the heart of the fertile Delta region — a third of the residents live in poverty. In Belzoni, the county seat, there are just a handful of health care clinics. The town’s only major hospital closed more than a decade ago, around the same time its catfish ...Read more

COLUMBIA, S.C -- South Carolina schools are suffering from a shortage of hundreds of teachers, with the number of vacancies only growing. But that hasn’t stopped the state from barring scores of teachers who may want to return to the classroom.

Last year, South Carolina suspended the teaching certificates of 166 teachers for a period of ...Read more

Claudia Perez’s children could count on one hand the number of times they had seen their father cry.

The day their mother left was one of them.

Perez had worked her whole life for a dream that did not come true: Save enough money to take her family back to Mexico and live together in the town where they were all born.

Instead, on a cold ...Read more

For the past year, police Detective Tim Lillard has spent most of his waking hours unofficially investigating his wife’s death.

The question has never been exactly how Ann Picha-Lillard died on Nov. 19, 2022: She succumbed to respiratory failure after an infection put too much strain on her weakened lungs. She was 65.

For Tim Lillard, the ...Read more

MANTI, Utah — Garrett Clark estimates he has spent about six years in the Sanpete County Jail, a plain concrete building perched on a dusty hill just outside this small, rural town where he grew up.

He blames his addiction. He started using in middle school, and by the time he was an adult he was addicted to meth and heroin. At various points...Read more

Members of Haiti’s new transition government, who are readying to officially assume office on Thursday, were hoping to take the oath of office on the grounds of the presidential palace, the symbol of power even if the once ornate building hasn’t been rebuilt after collapsing in the 2010 earthquake.

But on Monday as a delegation visited the ...Read more

MIAMI — A man caught on video surveillance beating a transgender woman to death — smacking her on her head and face with a pipe as she slept Tuesday near the Miami City Ballet building in Miami Beach — has been arrested, police said.

Gregory Fitzgerald Gibert, 53, who was out on probation, is charged with the second-degree murder of 37-...Read more

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Republican Minnesota senators on Wednesday unsuccessfully pushed to speed up an ethics investigation and expulsion of a Democratic-Farmer-Labor senator facing a felony burglary charge. But for now, it appears the DFL will hold onto control of the chamber — at least for the rest of the session.

The GOP is asking for an ...Read more

A Wichita, Kansas, man who breached the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, wearing a patriotic face mask with an American flag painted on his head has pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanor.

Chad Dustin Suenram, a U.S. Marine veteran, pleaded guilty to entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, court records show. His hearing was ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Justice Department could decide by the first week of June whether to tear up its controversial deferred-prosecution agreement with Boeing Co., according to lawyers for the families of people killed in two crashes of 737 Max jets.

Prosecutors met with the families Wednesday in Washington to share information about the ...Read more

ARLINGTON, Texas — An 18-year-old student was killed in a shooting Wednesday afternoon on the campus of Bowie High School in Arlington, and the suspected shooter — a 17-year-old student — was arrested, police said.

Bowie High School was placed on lockdown and students were kept there for over two hours as authorities investigated the ...Read more

A former Connecticut city official was sentenced Wednesday to 10 days in jail for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol in support of former President Donald Trump.

Gene DiGiovanni Jr., 42, successfully ran for a spot on the Derby Board of Aldermen after the riot, but before his participation was revealed. He gave up his ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — More than 100 University of Southern California students and off-campus supporters erected tents, banners and signs in the center of campus Wednesday, joining a growing national sit-in movement across college campuses as pro-Palestinian activists demand that universities call for a permanent cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war and...Read more

NEW YORK — U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday called on Columbia University President Minouche Shafik to resign over her handling of the Gaza protests and said the national guard may be needed to restore order, as he met with Jewish students feeling unsafe and targeted amid the campus unrest.

“My intention is to call President ...Read more

HARTFORD, Conn. — Trying to regulate the fast-moving world of artificial intelligence, the Connecticut state Senate approved a sweeping bill Wednesday night that creates a framework designed to help consumers and avoid the downsides of AI.

Lawmakers have struggled for months in a balancing act to try to foster regulation at the same time as ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Outside the front steps of the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday morning, anti-abortion groups and abortion rights advocates battled to make their stances known, each wielding signs, stickers and blaring PA systems.

Inside the court’s cool marble walls, the tension over abortion access — specifically whether Idaho can enforce ...Read more

LANSING, Mich. — Former President Donald Trump and some of his top aides were co-conspirators in the plot to submit a certificate falsely claiming he won Michigan's 2020 election, an investigator for Attorney General Dana Nessel's office testified Wednesday, as new details of the effort to prosecute the alleged scheme took shape in two ...Read more

CHICAGO — The Archdiocese of Chicago is facing a lawsuit in connection with a former priest accused of sexually abusing and exploiting an altar boy at a now-closed elementary school and parish on the city’s Lower West Side.

The lawsuit, filed earlier this month in Cook County Circuit Court, alleges that the Rev. John Keehan repeatedly ...Read more

Secretary of State Antony Blinken has arrived in China on a mission to press Beijing on thorny issues including its support for Russia and industrial overcapacity, with the threat of new U.S. sanctions looming over his visit.

The top U.S. diplomat will hold talks with senior Communist Party officials in the economic hub of Shanghai on Thursday...Read more