The creation of an “Anti-Weaponization Fund” at the Department of Justice may have shocked a lot of people, but not Paul Figley, a legal scholar and former DOJ staffer who has spent years warning that taxpayer money could be used by an administration for political ends in just this way.

The fund, the result of a settlement of ...Read more

At Marine Corps Base Quantico in September 2025, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth promised assembled generals “maximum lethality” and no “stupid rules of engagement.” Under his leadership, the newly rebranded Department of War would “untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt, and kill.” Troops would be held ...Read more

Headlines on long COVID have become much more rare than during the first few years of the COVID-19 pandemic.

But that doesn’t mean the more than 44 million Americans who have at some point reported long COVID symptoms – a number that continues to grow – are no longer suffering, or that the U.S. isn’t paying for it.

...Read more

In recent years, at least two dozen local and state governments have sued petroleum companies to recover the billions in costs they have incurred responding to and rebuilding after flooding, storms and wildfires – all of which have been worsened by changes to the climate resulting from burning fossil fuels.

Most of these lawsuits, ...Read more

URUAPAN, Mexico — Grecia Quiroz sometimes felt like she was married to a superhero.

Most nights, after her husband, Carlos Manzo, tucked their small sons into bed, he donned a bullet-resistant vest, made the sign of the cross and strode out into the night.

The mayor of Uruapan, the capital of Mexico's rich but violent avocado country, Manzo...Read more

MANCHESTER, England — Alison Starkie spends her days tracking down people who need testing or treatment for hepatitis C, especially those who are unhoused or actively using drugs.

Starkie, an intervention worker for a drug treatment service, recalled the difficulty of treating a man living in a tent in northwest England. Each time he started ...Read more

NEW YORK — The lawyer for a white New York Police Department sergeant sued by a Black detective for creating a hostile work environment told an appeals court panel the accused has a “constitutional right not to like different people of different races.”

The argument, by lawyer Lalit Loomba, who represents now-retired Sgt. Martin Toczek, ...Read more

Conversations with survivors of sexual abuse left Missouri state Sen. Tracy McCreery wondering what could have prevented the harm, leading her to sponsor a bill that would require clergy and religious workers to report suspected child abuse or neglect.

Her bill would have forced ministers to report even if they learned of abuse during ...Read more

Overwhelmed by the demands of caregiving, Quette dialed 911 when she found her teenage son downstairs in their kitchen struggling to breathe.

He had rolled his wheelchair to the oven to keep himself warm as he tried to regulate his temperature, she recalled, and was drenched in sweat from an apparent infection.

In that moment, Quette knew that...Read more

LOS ANGELES — It's the biggest slate of democratic socialists Los Angeles has ever seen.

The L.A. chapter of Democratic Socialists of America is looking to push City Hall further left by backing candidates for city attorney and four City Council seats in the June 2 primary. Their aim, DSA leaders say, is to see the adoption of progressive ...Read more

NEW YORK — Even with its Pride flag restored, New York City’s iconic Stonewall National Monument has been put on an endangered list of historic national places.

Not even its designation as the first U.S. national monument — and the only unit of the National Park Service — dedicated to LGBTQ history is enough to spare it from the list, ...Read more

Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche and Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., will be in Minneapolis on Thursday to announce a “significant” law enforcement action involving fraud in Minnesota.

A release Wednesday did not provide any other details about the coming announcement. Blanche and Kennedy will be ...Read more

A Democratic state lawmaker was removed from her House committee assignments Wednesday for what Republican leadership maintained was disrespectful behavior on the committee, but what the lawmaker believed to be retaliation.

State Rep. Penelope Tsernoglou, D-East Lansing, said she was informed Wednesday afternoon of her removal from the House ...Read more

Barnes & Noble was turning a page on the chain's history of declining sales, but recent comments have stirred bad blood for the bookseller.

James Daunt, the chief executive credited with breathing new life into the retailer, is clarifying the store's stance on stocking its shelves with AI-generated books, saying its not true that he's embracing...Read more

MIAMI — In a watershed moment for the Cuban American community, the U.S. Justice Department announced Wednesday in Miami that a federal grand jury has indicted Cuba’s longtime ruler Raúl Castro, charging him with the murders of four people in the 1996 shoot-down of two civilian planes belonging to the Cuban exile organization Brothers to ...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is poised to issue an executive order as soon as Thursday aimed at bolstering artificial intelligence cybersecurity and has asked tech industry leaders to join for the event, according to people familiar with the matter.

The order that Trump is expected to sign would revamp existing cybersecurity ...Read more