Hospital units dedicated to treating the nation’s sickest kids are disappearing nationwide. In the past year alone, hospitals have closed pediatric intensive care units for critically ill kids in Montana, Oregon, and Missouri. Overnight hospital wings for kids have also shuttered in Illinois and California.

Depending on the hospital, ...Read more

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — In a Florida county with a startling rate of child firearm injuries, a boarded-up elementary school named for famed educator and civil rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune sits in a 250-acre site once called “ Brown’s Dump.”

The dump emerged in an era of redlining, systematic racism that divided American cities large...Read more

California’s vintners, struggling with a precipitous drop in wine consumption, are experimenting with making an American version of tequila.

Facing state-imposed water restrictions and an oversupply of grapes, second-generation farmer Stuart Woolf is one of those betting on agave. He has planted about 550 acres over four years on his land in ...Read more

MIAMI — Mayumi Castro Fernandez voted for Donald Trump twice, but after high food and fuel prices, higher health insurance costs and the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, she switched her voter registration from Republican to no party affiliation and voted blue this election.

“If after all these years, they didn’t keep their...Read more

BOISE, Idaho — About once a year, in recent years, Dr. Becky Uranga has found herself in the same high-stakes situation: The Meridian OB-GYN sees a patient whose water has broken around 20 weeks into her pregnancy.

At that stage, the chances of the fetus surviving are low, “but not zero,” Uranga said. In a best-case scenario, she and her ...Read more

A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to not threaten California election officials with criminal prosecution over the handling of election ballots cast by people swept up in a crackdown on alleged noncitizen voting.

U.S. District Judge Trina Thompson in San Francisco on Friday granted a request from labor and civil rights groups to ...Read more

An Orange County, California, woman is facing federal criminal charges after being accused of luring a pit bull puppy underneath her minivan and running it over in an incident that was caught on video.

Animal services officers responding to a report of an injured dog in Santa Ana on Sept. 8 found 9-month-old pit bull, Blackey, dead on the ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — State workers at the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency moved to a new building this January. Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday announced he’s renaming the building after labor advocate Dolores Huerta, who died earlier this week.

“Dolores Huerta’s legacy is inseparable from the story of California’s labor...Read more

NEW YORK — A man arrested for injuring a cop responding to a giant snowball fight in Washington Square Park accepted a plea deal, officials said Friday.

Gusmane Coulibaly, 27, pleaded guilty to harassment and agreed to perform 20 hours of community service for the NYC Parks Department in exchange for prosecutors dropping the top charge of ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — A federal immigration agent pulled out a handgun and pointed it just inches from the face of a bystander during an apparent operation in North Hollywood on Friday morning, according to video obtained by the Los Angeles Times.

The bystander was not detained or taken into custody by federal officials during the incident, but a ...Read more

CHICAGO — On the deadline to turn over discovery in the “Broadview Six” case, the controversial No. 3 attorney in the U.S. Justice Department instead filed a defiant brief declaring the government “has not agreed to cooperate” with any investigation into wrongdoing and asking U.S. District Judge April Perry to provide justification for...Read more

Wall Street got a reality check as a bruising selloff in technology shares fueled concern the artificial-intelligence frenzy that has powered the equity bull market might be overblown.

Disappointing tech results spurred the worst drop for stocks since June, with the Nasdaq 100 falling 3.5% and briefly crossing the threshold of a technical ...Read more

Medicaid recipients who are disabled or have a chronic illness will not have to prove they are unable to work to be exempted from new work requirements that take effect next year, a federal judge ruled Thursday.

The decision by U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns in Boston grants a partial victory to the 25 Democratic-led states that sued the ...Read more

SAN JOSE, Calif. — For the seventh consecutive year, California officials are delaying the Bay Area’s commercial Dungeness crab season because of the high number of migrating humpback whales already getting ensnared by old crab-pot fishing lines and other gear.

And again this year, conservation groups are expressing frustration with what ...Read more

OAKLAND, Calif. — Federal prosecutors’ star witness took the stand Friday in the sweeping corruption trial of ex-Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, describing years of illicit payoffs by the city’s recycling contractor to Oakland city councilmembers, and how that habit culminated in a sprawling bribery scheme at the core of the federal government�...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Operation Metro Surge continues to scare crime victims from attending court, according to a new report by the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office, forcing prosecutors to dismiss some cases and allowing some defendants to evade accountability.

Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty’s office publicized the report Thursday after ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — A federal appeals court for the second time Friday denied a Trump administration request to block 20,000 ballots from California voters the administration alleges may be noncitizens — ruling that the administration had failed to show that “such extraordinary relief, during an ongoing election, is clearly required by law.”

...Read more

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department is actively working to secure a grand jury indictment against former FBI Director James Comey for allegedly directing the sharing of secret national defense information, a federal prosecutor said in court Friday.

“We are still going to the grand jury very diligently,” Special Assistant U.S. Attorney ...Read more