ST. LOUIS — Missouri healthcare advocate Leslie Ortbals and her husband want to start a family, but she worries they can’t afford it. The 27-year-old said she takes 10 medications daily to manage multiple chronic illnesses.

Now she worries the cost of those drugs could rise — not because of price increases, but because of a tax system ...Read more

Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker called on members of the state Legislative Ethics Commission to publicly release an inspector general’s investigative report of misconduct involving disgraced former state Rep. Harry Benton for participating in a “clear pattern of conduct” that included sexual harassment.

Pritzker’s call for the report’s ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Opposition is building to a sweeping government-wide crackdown on federal grant awards, with opponents threatening litigation over a proposed rule that would put the grant approval process into the hands of political appointees.

A request for public comment on the rule by the Office of Management and Budget triggered almost half ...Read more

Alice Thornton has spent more than two decades treating people living with HIV in Lexington, Kentucky.

Her team tends to “cringe” anytime they hear about patients having to fill out lots of paperwork, like when applying for Social Security Disability payments, because it can be a difficult, burdensome process.

Thornton tries to support her...Read more

UC San Diego's medical school illegally used race in choosing which students to admit, discriminating against white and Asian applicants in favor of Black and Latino ones, the U.S. Department of Justice alleged Monday.

The findings follow a roughly four-month investigation by the Justice Department and makes UC San Diego the latest medical ...Read more

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders believes discontent with the political establishment who he says hasn’t delivered for working class Americans will propel progressives into positions of power across the country — including Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan.

Sanders, an icon of the Democratic party’s progressive base, returned to Minneapolis on Monday to...Read more

The number of former servicemembers enrolled in the Department of Veterans Affairs system who have had traumatic brain injuries spiked considerably in the last four years on record, new data from the department shows.

The figures, which were posted on the VA website last week, demonstrate that the number of reported TBI instances in the VA’s ...Read more

The Diocese of Charlotte wants Catholics attending SSPX chapels to know two things: You’re welcome back, and you shouldn’t keep going.

Nearly three weeks after the Vatican declared the Society of Saint Pius X in schism following its unauthorized consecration of four bishops in Switzerland, Charlotte Bishop Michael Martin issued his first ...Read more

State and county health officials continued to hit roadblocks Monday in their attempts to gain access to the federal immigration detention center in Aurora to investigate a case of tuberculosis in the detainee population.

Jennifer Lucero-Alvarez, a spokeswoman for the Adams County Health Department, told The Denver Post in a statement that as ...Read more

The shooting of six young people outside a South Baltimore convenience store last weekend underscored a troubling divergence in the city’s historic decline in violence: Homicides have fallen sharply this year, but nonfatal shootings have increased.

The six victims, ranging in age from 17 to 21, were shot in the Mount Winans neighborhood. One ...Read more

Despite skepticism from some board members, Chicago Public Schools leaders said Monday that the district’s $9.88 billion budget must be passed this month or it risks missing payroll for its 45,000 employees.

If the budget isn’t approved, “the immediate consequence … is we wouldn’t be able to make payroll in September,” CPS CEO ...Read more

Two Philadelphia prosecutors have accused District Attorney Larry Krasner of instructing them to litigate a controversial appellate case in a manner that would “protect the office” — a highly unusual assertion that effectively accuses the city’s top law enforcement official of telling his staff to act in a way they now say was “...Read more

The Illinois AFL-CIO on Monday issued endorsements for the Nov. 3 general election, a month after saying it was deferring support for statewide and legislative candidates in a stinging rebuke to the state’s Democratic Party rule.

In June, Tim Drea, president of the state’s largest umbrella organization for organized labor, cited ...Read more

A California bill would prevent smoke shops, convenience stores and other businesses in the state from selling large, flavored canisters of nitrous oxide, a colorless gas that has several legal purposes but is used by many to get high.

State Sen. Catherine Blakespear, D-Encinitas, said she authored the measure, Senate Bill 936, after hearing ...Read more

Dozens of protesters joined a “die in” at the Centennial field office for Immigration and Customs Enforcement days after a contractor for the federal agency shot a protester outside one of its detention facilities.

The Monday-morning protest sought to highlight “demands for freedom, for humane conditions and to end all contracts with GEO ...Read more

Some of Congress’ federal delegation are criticizing President Donald Trump’s speech that doubled down on raising doubts about election integrity in the United States.

In a prime time address Thursday night, Trump announced he has declassified documents that reveal issues in America’s election system in the 2020 and 2018 elections, ...Read more

A Northwestern University professor filed a federal lawsuit alleging that, under pressure from federal officials, the school denied him tenure in retaliation for his pro-Palestinian activism and on-campus speech.

Steven Thrasher, an assistant professor and the Daniel H. Renberg Chair of social justice in reporting, accused the university of ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Big Bear bald eagle Jackie, one-half of the beloved avian pair featured in a longtime nest livestream, was rescued over the weekend after going missing from the aerie for several days, according to the wildlife nonprofit behind the cam.

The injured eagle was seen on the ground near Dana Point Park in the nearby community of ...Read more

GOP Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Pinellas County has led the charge against insider trading in Congress, pushing for a bill that would prevent members from trading stocks.

But a new Wall Street Journal report cites an anonymous source who says that Luna is under investigation by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates political ...Read more