BALTIMORE — Salvage crews have been preparing explosive charges that will be used in a controlled demolition of the section of the Key Bridge that landed atop the Dali container ship, officials said Thursday, which will allow the vessel to eventually return to the Port of Baltimore.

The Key Bridge Unified Command, which is heading recovery ...Read more

A business owner has pleaded guilty to dumping thousands of gallons of hazardous substances into an Ohio river, killing more than 40,000 fish, officials said.

“There’s a right way and a wrong way to do business,” Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said in a May 7 news release. “When your business pollutes Ohio’s natural resources, you ...Read more

JUNEAU, Alaska — The Alaska House adopted the capital budget in a 39-1 vote Wednesday, displaying a rare moment of cohesion between the Republican-controlled majority and the more progressive minority.

Rep. Bryce Edgmon, a Dillingham independent who oversaw the capital budget in the House as co-chair of the House Finance Committee, said the ...Read more

NEW YORK — Hui Qin, the Chinese billionaire who admitted in March to making straw donations to political campaigns — including Mayor Eric Adams’ — was sentenced Thursday to seven months in prison and removal from the U.S.

Brooklyn federal prosecutor Breon Peace, who handled the case, called the sentencing “a lesson in American civics ...Read more

The trickle of voters who kicked off early in-person voting last week seemed to continue Thursday as the last day to cast a ballot in person before Tuesday’s primary drew to a close.

By Thursday afternoon, almost 150,000 Marylanders had cast early in-person votes, compared to the 178,000 who voted early in the 2022 primary, according to Jared...Read more

BOSTON — The continued success of the Bay State’s legal weed business will need a “tough, strategic thinker” to oversee day-to-day administration of the agency in charge of the $7 billion pot industry, according to the Cannabis Control Commission.

The CCC has begun a nationwide job search for its second Executive Director, the person ...Read more

As a new virus takes center stage at the heart of a global outbreak, it’s easy to get flashbacks of March 2020.

Now more than four years after the world was rocked by a pandemic, H5N1, or avian or bird flu, has exploded in bird and livestock populations, and at least one human case has been confirmed by health officials.

This isn’t the ...Read more

NEW YORK — After two months of speaking their minds on social media, NYPD officials were tight-lipped about their controversial posts at a City Council hearing Thursday as two department executives responsible for most of the tweets were no-shows.

NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell and Commissioner of Operations Kaz Daughtry skipped the morning ...Read more

Ukraine will receive three HIMARS mobile rocket systems from U.S. stocks with Germany footing the bill, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said Thursday.

Pistorius, who revealed the plan after talks with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at the Pentagon, said the idea emerged during the extended wait for $61 billion in U.S. aid to ...Read more

Land management officials revealed new clues that will hopefully lead to a breakthrough in the killing of 19 burros along a California highway in 2019.

The Bureau of Land Management also offered another $10,000 on top of contributions from several animal rights groups, bringing the total to $36,000 for information that leads to justice in the ...Read more

BOSTON — The head of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce criticized the mayor’s decision to raise the city budget by 8% amid economic uncertainty while urging the City Council to practice “fiscal discipline” by making cuts to her spending proposal.

In a letter addressed to Councilors Brian Worrell and Enrique Pepén, chair and vice ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration intends to require hospitals to meet minimum cybersecurity standards after a single hack exposed the data of 100 million Americans, according to a senior U.S. cybersecurity official.

“We look to putting in place minimum cybersecurity standards for hospitals in the near term,” Anne Neuberger, deputy ...Read more

Prince Harry reportedly invited King Charles, Prince William and Kate Middleton to attend a milestone service for the 10th anniversary of his Invictus Games in London this week, though none of them attended.

The 39-year-old Duke of Sussex invited the trio to join him at Wednesday’s Service of Thanksgiving at St. Paul’s Cathedral, per People...Read more

LOS ANGELES — State officials reported the presence of deadly chronic wasting disease in two wild California deer earlier this week. This is the first time the disease, which has plagued other areas of the nation for years, has appeared in the state’s deer or elk population.

The positive samples came from a deer that died of unknown causes ...Read more

Pennsylvania has an insufficient number of public defenders in nearly every county, according to a new report from a University of Pennsylvania law professor, hampering the state’s ability to fulfill its Constitutional obligation to provide adequate representation for criminal defendants who can’t afford a lawyer.

Paul Heaton, the report’...Read more

Roads could be funded in a new way in Michigan under new pilot program proposed as part of the state budgeting process.

Democrats in the Legislature have allocated $5 million in the Michigan Department of Transportation's proposed budget for a "road usage charge study" that would evaluate what a "mileage-based revenue collection" might look ...Read more

DENVER — City leaders have zeroed in on a strategy they hope can break downtown Denver out of what Mayor Mike Johnston has described as the area’s post-COVID “doom loop.”

The key to that strategy: the expansion of an obscure special taxing authority that played a key part in downtown’s last big boom.

Johnston and other city and ...Read more

SAN JOSE, Calif. — A couple has been arrested and criminally charged after a police raid revealed a hoard of illegal drugs scattered throughout their home and within reach of their 1-year-old boy, including a backpack filled with 25,000 fentanyl pills kept underneath the baby’s crib, authorities said.

Octavian Moreno, 27, and Krystal ...Read more