A U.S. State Department official urged Cuba to strike a deal soon and release political prisoners, following a recent visit of senior agency officials to Havana to lay out key U.S. demands, the first visit of its kind since the Obama administration.

In a meeting on April 10, the U.S. officials told their Cuban counterparts that they have “a ...Read more

Venezuelan authorities said Monday they have freed 51 people described by human-rights groups as political prisoners, as the interim government continues a broader push to ease political tensions following the January apprehension of former strongman Nicolás Maduro.

In a statement, the government said the Attorney General’s Office requested ...Read more

Singer D4vd is facing the death penalty now that he’s officially been charged in the murder of Celeste Rivas Hernandez, the teenager whose dismembered remains were found decomposing in the trunk of his impounded Tesla this past September.

The Queens-born “Romantic Homicide” singer, 21, was charged Monday with first degree murder with ...Read more

Temple University is retaining fewer students from freshman to sophomore year than it did a decade ago, and the rate at which students progress from fall to spring semester has declined, too.

The retention issue — a problem for many schools nationwide — comes as the North Philadelphia-based university faces increased budget pressures. ...Read more

WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump said he’s not likely to extend the two-week ceasefire with Iran, increasing the urgency for negotiators to conclude a deal to end the war.

Trump said in a Monday phone interview that the truce, which he announced April 7, expires on “Wednesday evening Washington time” — possibly buying more ...Read more

NEW YORK — John Gotti’s grandson Carmine Agnello was sentenced to 15 months behind bars for a $1.1 million dollar COVID loan fraud, as court filings reveal his mother Victoria Gotti might not need him to donate a kidney to save her life after all.

Victoria Gotti submitted a lengthy letter to U.S. District Court Judge Nusrat Choudhury, ...Read more

PHILADELPHIA — The Pennsylvania arm of the American Civil Liberties Union has filed a federal lawsuit to obtain information from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on the agency’s efforts to unmask anonymous social media critics.

ICE has issued administrative subpoenas to tech companies to obtain information about accounts that track ...Read more

CHICAGO — Nearly seven months after federal troops were preparing to deploy to Chicago during Operation Midway Blitz, a federal judge on Monday granted a motion to dismiss the state’s lawsuit over the mobilization amid assurances that the presidential orders have been rescinded.

In making her ruling, U.S. District Judge April Perry said ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — David Anthony Burke — the 21-year-old music star better known as D4vd — repeatedly sexually abused a 14-year-old girl before murdering her and dismembering her body in order to protect his ascendant music career, prosecutors alleged Monday.

Burke was charged with murder, repeated sexual abuse of a minor and mutilation of ...Read more

Once again, the Space Force is turning to SpaceX to get its national security hardware into space with a GPS satellite launch planned in the overnight hours early Tuesday.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 is aiming to lift off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 during a 15-minute window that opens at 2:53 a.m. Eastern time on ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass released a budget bombshell last year, stunning the city workforce by proposing widespread layoffs and other cuts in a bid to erase a $1 billion spending gap.

On Monday, in the midst of a tough reelection fight, Bass unveiled a much rosier $14.9 billion spending plan for 2026-27 that — thanks in ...Read more

President Donald Trump on Monday shot down his own energy secretary’s prediction of stubbornly high gas prices through the end of the year.

Even thought the Iran war has sent prices at the pump way up, Trump said Energy Secretary Chris Wright was incorrect to say gas prices would not go back to $3 a gallon until 2027 at the earliest.

“No, ...Read more

Around the world, people plan to plant more than 1 trillion trees this decade in an ambitious effort to slow climate change and reduce biodiversity loss. But if the past is prologue, many of those planted trees won’t survive. And if they do, they could end up as biological deserts that lack the richness and resilience of healthy forests....Read more

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said he’s not likely to extend the two-week ceasefire with Iran, increasing the urgency for negotiators to conclude a deal to end the war.

Trump said in a Monday phone interview that the truce, which he announced April 7, expires “Wednesday evening Washington time” — possibly buying more time for ...Read more

FBI Director Kash Patel on Monday sued The Atlantic magazine for $250 million over an explosive article that detailed claims he regularly drinks too much and his binges have caused serious national security risks.

The article by author Sarah Fitzpatrick, which Patel calls a “malicious hit piece,” quoted two dozen colleagues and witnesses ...Read more

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — “Several people” were shot Monday morning at a city-owned park in Winston-Salem and at least two have died, according to the North Carolina State Bureau of investigation report

It happened just before 10 a.m. in Leinbach Park near Jefferson Middle School, and some of the people involved are juveniles, investigators say. ...Read more

ORLANDO, Fla. — An Orange County judge has denied a request by Tommy Zeigler — who has been on Florida’s death row for nearly 50 years — to throw out his convictions for the brutal murders of his wife, her parents and a customer at his furniture store and grant him a new hearing.

Zeigler, now 80, has long claimed his innocence in the ...Read more

DENVER — Xcel Energy is considering preemptively cutting power to parts of western Colorado on Wednesday as fire danger peaks in the state, utility officials announced Sunday evening.

A combination of strong winds, low humidity and “unseasonably warm and dry” conditions will create critical fire danger in Colorado’s Eastern Plains, ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles County prosecutors formally charged David Anthony Burke — the 21-year-old music star better known as D4vd — with murder on Monday in the killing of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez, whose badly decomposed body was found in the trunk of a car in Hollywood last summer.

District Attorney Nathan Hochman said D4vd ...Read more

PHILADELPHIA — Pennsylvania’s ban on public funding for abortion is unconstitutional, a divided Commonwealth Court ruled Monday.

In reaching that conclusion, the statewide court that oversees government-related matters recognized “a fundamental right to reproductive autonomy” in the Pennsylvania Constitution.

The finding likely sets up...Read more