Amy Klobuchar is set to leave the U.S. Senate and become Minnesota’s next governor in just two months, and transition preparations are already underway.

Speaking with reporters Wednesday after winning the Nov. 3 election, Klobuchar said she will focus on “transforming state government” after a series of major fraud scandals.

“We’re ...Read more

In the wake of Florida voters approving the sweeping property tax cuts in Amendment 3, Central Florida communities are bracing for shakeups to their municipal budgets.

A new Orlando Sentinel analysis quantifies the possible pain.

Tiny Howey-in-the-Hills, for example — nestled in mostly rural central Lake County and with a police department ...Read more

The mother of the public school substitute aide and former NYPD cop arrested for killing Brooklyn jogger Katie Suarez is defending her son — even as new details emerge on how police tied him to the slaying.

Suspect Sayed Mohassib made paranoid statements to investigators that “people were going to kill his family,” court filings reveal.

...Read more

When the seventh period bell sounds, teacher Tim Broderick slides into a desk outside the fourth-floor boys restroom at Allderdice High School, ready for bathroom duty.

Throughout the period, Broderick uses a scan gun to capture a barcode on student IDs, logging their bathroom visits and uploading the data into a spreadsheet. At times he steps ...Read more

Climate negotiators from almost 200 countries will spend the next two weeks at an annual United Nations summit under a dark cloud of waning ambition to tackle rapidly rising global temperatures.

The negotiating agenda at COP31, starting Monday in the resort city of Antalya, Turkey, is narrower than at any other major climate conference in the ...Read more

SAN DIEGO — A highly unusual combination of warm water and king tides is damaging animal habitats in Mission Bay and providing a stark preview of how the bay might look if sea levels rise as much as predicted in coming decades.

Four factors came together last month to create record water levels in Mission Bay: the king tide phenomenon that ...Read more

Israeli election challenger Gadi Eisenkot got the first attempt at forming a new government, putting him a step closer to ending Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s record tenure.

Eisenkot was formally handed the mandate on Sunday by President Isaac Herzog, who noted the “immense” challenges facing the country. Eisenkot will have up to ...Read more

Republicans’ midterm defeat is crushing any remaining hopes that Congress would approve President Donald Trump’s unprecedented $1.5 trillion defense budget request amid an unpopular war in the Middle East.

Democrats, who won solid majorities of both chambers of Congress on Tuesday, were already largely opposed to the 44% increase from the ...Read more

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries backed impeaching Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, saying he’s a “hard yes” on a measure that may be introduced as soon as this week.

“The so-called Secretary of Defense has abused his power, undermined our national security and engineered this reckless and costly war of choice in Iran, which ...Read more

U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche said any effort by Democratic lawmakers to investigate Donald Trump and his family is likely to fail, taking a defiant stance as the president’s political foes threaten a range of probes once they take control of Congress in January.

Blanche, who previously served as Trump’s personal defense lawyer, ...Read more

President Donald Trump’s incoming chief of staff, Stephen Miller, has long focused on Minnesota and the state’s Somali community.

Miller, who most recently was the White House’s deputy chief of staff for policy and the homeland security adviser, has blamed immigration for making Minneapolis unsafe, disparaged Somali refugees as pirates ...Read more

40 remains the typical age, partly because of cash purchases by older buyers.

The age of the typical first-time homebuyer last year remained stuck at a historic high of 40 years old as younger people continue to get the worst of brutally high prices and interest rates in much of the country.

That’s according to new data from the National ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Microscopic shards of plastic have been found everywhere scientists have looked, from the depths of the ocean to the clouds above.

Now a UC Riverside environmental scientist with a particular set of outdoor and laboratory skills has found them in remote mountain snows reachable only on skis. In a new paper, she and 13 colleagues...Read more

While running for California governor in 2018, Gavin Newsom declared that he would rather be bold and fail than retreat to the safety of mediocrity.

The two-term governor known for taking big political risks once again made good on that vow Thursday when he moved to offer clemency to every inmate sentenced to death in California.

Amid a hum of...Read more

WASHINGTON — After more than a decade of false starts, lawmakers in Washington are on the cusp of advancing a bill to reform the Byzantine system for approving projects needed to modernize power grids, build artificial intelligence data centers and revitalize clean energy development.

The Democrats’ sweeping victories in the midterm ...Read more

CHICAGO — Chicago’s first fully elected school board will take office without a decisive majority for either side, and it faces immediate decisions on some of the most contentious issues for the nation’s third-largest school district — including potential midyear cuts.

Voters on Tuesday elected 21 members to serve on the governing body ...Read more

DETROIT — About 125 members of the Michigan Army National Guard will be deployed to the southwest border of the U.S. for up to a year.

The soldiers belong to the 1432nd Engineer Company, which is based out of Kingsford and Gladstone.

The company will support U.S. Customs and Border Protection by providing border security, allowing federal ...Read more