WASHINGTON — California Attorney General Rob Bonta said he and his staff have been reviewing former President Donald Trump’s second-term agenda in detail to prepare a potential onslaught of environmental, immigration and civil rights lawsuits in the event Trump defeats President Joe Biden.

“We can’t be caught flat-footed,” Bonta said...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Minnesota could become the next state to ban police officer training on "excited delirium," a term that has been rejected by major medical associations in recent years as pseudoscience used to justify deaths in law enforcement custody.

Police officers invoking excited delirium during fatal interactions, such as the murder of ...Read more

The Illinois House on Thursday passed Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s initiative to consolidate early childhood services under a single agency, paving the way for the creation of a new state Department of Early Childhood.

“We can make early childhood simpler, better and fairer,” Democratic Rep. Mary Beth Canty of Arlington Heights, the bill’s main...Read more

The Metropolitan Oakland International Airport will be renamed to the San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport, following a unanimous vote by the Port of Oakland Board of Commissioners on Thursday.

The decision to rename the airport was based on the airport’s location on San Francisco Bay and its proximity to numerous notable locations...Read more

Citing increasing unlawfulness, Gov. Josh Shapiro on Thursday called on the University of Pennsylvania to disband a pro-Palestinian encampment that has spent two weeks on the Ivy League campus.

“Over the last 24 hours ... the situation has gotten even more unstable and out of control,” Shapiro said during an event in Westmoreland County. �...Read more

NEW YORK — The New York State prison system continues to send inmates with mental illness disabilities to solitary confinement, despite a 2022 state law banning them from doing so, according to a new class action lawsuit.

The suit, filed in Brooklyn Supreme Court, is accusing the state of placing inmates with myriad physical and mental ...Read more

For more than 150 years, visitors have taken hundreds of millions of photographs of Yosemite National Park.

But many of the park’s most iconic images — timeless, internationally famous shots of Half Dome, Tunnel View, Mirror Lake and other wonders that strikingly depict America’s natural heritage — were made by Bay Area native Ansel ...Read more

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