Pollsters approach this year’s midterm elections dogged by high-profile misfires in recent elections while facing challenges from brash rivals intent on reshaping the landscape of political forecasts.

There are no guarantees that polling’s troubles – and persistent popular skepticism about the dependability of election polls –...Read more

President Donald Trump loves a good pardon. His generosity is so well known, in fact, that an industry of lobbyists, lawyers and other insiders has reportedly sprung up to facilitate clemency for wealthy criminals. Clemency, meaning mercy or leniency, lets the president reduce the punishment for, or even forgive, federal crimes.

For ...Read more

Taxi and ambulance drivers are less likely than workers in almost any other job to die of Alzheimer’s disease. That was the surprising result of a 2024 study examining the death certificates of nearly 9 million people in the U.S.

These findings stopped me in my tracks because those two jobs rely on the same thing as my own work: ...Read more

A growing number of states are making an equal split between parents the default child custody option in divorce cases.

Louisiana and Mississippi this year joined at least five other states that have adopted the so-called 50-50 standard — four of them since 2021, as more legislators rework divorce-related laws that remained mostly unchanged...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — For more than two decades, Omar Jamal has cultivated influence as a high-profile go-between — connecting politicians, regulators and law enforcement officials with members of Minnesota’s Somali community. Since 2020, he has also held a civilian job with the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office.

That public standing and private ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — With the deadline for mailing out millions of California ballots nearing, Los Angeles County's top election official welcomed the U.S. Postal Service's recent assurance that it will process those ballots as normal — not under the untested new vetting system backed by President Donald Trump and rejected as unworkable by the U.S....Read more

SEATTLE — Even as fewer Washington parents chose to have their kindergartners vaccinated last year, the overall percentage of K-12 students receiving required shots held steady.

According to recent data from the state Department of Health, about 90% of all students met vaccine requirements during the 2025-2026 year, less than 1% higher than ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — In the heart of Skid Row on a hot summer afternoon, Amber Willard pushed a skinny brown and white pit bull named Athena on a rolling office chair.

Victoriah Bech Parker, founder of the Starts With One Today animal rescue group, offered the dog a bowl of wet food.

“You don’t look too good,” Bech Parker cooed as she bent ...Read more

The California High-Speed Rail Authority wants early access to the $20 billion state lawmakers have committed, as the project faces a potential cash shortage by the end of next year.

It’s not yet clear how early access to the money would work, but the rail authority has submitted a request to the California Department of Finance to start the ...Read more

Famed comedian Carrot Top is accused of giving alcohol to a 19-year-old at his Winter Park home and engaging in sexual conduct with him when the young man was too drunk to consent, according to a court filing.

The allegation against the comedian, whose real name is Scott Thompson, was recently mentioned in a lawsuit filed against him by a ...Read more

The United Kingdom has agreed to support Saudi Arabia’s military in countering the Houthis, as the kingdom comes under frequent attack from the Iran-backed militants.

“We have received a request from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for military support, and on the advice of the defense secretary and the foreign secretary, last night I agreed to...Read more

Lindsay Clancy’s attorney is asking the court to take a closer look at the one juror who held out for a conviction in her triple murder trial deliberations.

The motion filed by Clancy’s lawyer Kevin Reddington asked the court to preserve certain records and conduct a “limited inquiry into Juror Doe.”

Reddington refers to the holdout by...Read more

WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court on Monday reinstated a Republican-preferred congressional map for Missouri, setting up a likely third Supreme Court fight over the district lines for the “Show-me State.”

The ruling from a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit found that, because the state used a map drawn ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed on Sunday a Republican lawmaker’s bill to make theft by a police officer in the line of duty a career-ending ethical offense, saying it was duplicative to existing law.

Assembly Bill 2337 was authored by outgoing lawmaker and former California highway patrolman Assemblymember Tom Lackey, R-...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Monday headed into a week full of high-stake meetings with world leaders after spending a 72-hour period banning reporters from the White House, mulling whether it was time to “blow ... up” Iran, and proposing to house military drones and snipers in his triumphal arch in the nation’s capital.

The ...Read more