CHICAGO — Earlier this month, a man walked into a West Side grocery store, according to a police report, and tried to walk out of the shop with two concealed cans of an alcoholic beverage.

Even though the cost of the alleged theft was around $13, the 29-year-old man, who the report notes is a U.S. veteran, is facing a felony retail theft ...Read more

SAN DIEGO — When Tropical Storm Rachel slammed the region last weekend, brown, sewage-tainted water once again flowed across the U.S.-Mexico border into southern San Diego.

Such scenes are not new. Cross-border pollution has long impacted the Tijuana River Valley and beyond. So, when it became apparent that the region was in for a potentially...Read more

AUSTIN, Texas — It was a good day for the defense.

Standing in front of a judge in Austin’s Blackwell-Thurman Criminal Justice Center, attorney Matthew Shrum secured a ruling that spared his client from serious punishment on a shoplifting charge.

In the hallway immediately afterward, the defendant thanked Shrum with an appreciative hug.

�...Read more

What started as a disjointed speech in Greenville from President Donald Trump ended as a rallying cry from the president to elect struggling Republican candidates on North Carolina’s ballot.

Trump went as far as to promise $5,000 to every adult citizen if Republicans take back the House and Senate — a promise he’s made in the past — ...Read more

Seven missing women have been linked to the house that was shared by 44-year-old Eugene Horsch and his late father, Raymond “R.C.” Horsch, in the Olney section of Philadelphia.

With five of the seven women feared dead, Philadelphia police and the FBI are conducting a massive investigation of the home. Law enforcement has said ...Read more

Relatively few transgender athletes participate in high school and collegiate sports. Still, since 2020, 27 states have passed laws banning them from participating in sports based on their gender identity.

Just weeks after his second inauguration in 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order prohibiting transgender women ...Read more

With the midterms fast approaching, communicating just the right message has been top of mind on all sides of the political aisle.

Whether that message drives home a lack of affordability as gas, food and home prices surge or stokes fears about the rise of communism in the American heartland, Democrats and Republicans are spending a ...Read more

Proponents of an environmental permitting reform ballot measure say state attorneys have cleared Proposition 45 of its association with data centers.

On Tuesday, the campaign published a memo from the Office of Legislative Counsel, whose attorneys advise state lawmakers, which found a statutory definition used by the measure does not apply to ...Read more

The group working to bring a statue of former Detroit Mayor Coleman A. Young to the U.S. Capitol unveiled a working model of the statue Tuesday, Oct. 20, and announced that a "companion statue" will be erected in the city.

During an Oct. 20 ceremony at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit-based sculptor Austen ...Read more

Rain is anticipated for Southern California on Wednesday into Thursday as the National Weather Service cautioned about potential beach hazards and thunderstorms from Oxnard to the Mexico border.

The weather service's Los Angeles-Oxnard office is estimating a 30% to 40% chance of thunderstorms, with widespread minor flooding and debris flow ...Read more

As Gov. Gavin Newsom mulls whether to commute the sentences of more than 500 people on California’s death row, he faces support — although not completely full-throated — from leaders in the Legislature.

One of his firm backers is Assemblymember Nick Schultz, D-Burbank, who chairs the body’s public safety committee.

“He’s sitting in...Read more

U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was in Texas on Tuesday to announce a new national kidney care plan.

Kennedy launched the national plan with a focus on three priorities: Preventing kidney failure, improving dialysis care and reforming kidney transplantation.

“(The) organ transplant program had a monopoly that ended up corrupting...Read more

The Tulare County elections office in California's Central Valley was suddenly getting peppered with questions from baffled voters.

On the afternoon of Oct. 13, residents began calling and showing up in person at the registrar of voters’ office in Visalia, worried they would be accused of committing fraud by trying to vote twice.

That’s ...Read more

WASHINGTON — A recent slowdown of SpaceX's Starlink satellite system that enables Ukraine to fend off deadly Russian aerial assaults came from an order by Elon Musk, the company’s chief executive officer, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

Musk restricted the speed of Ukraine’s access to the satellite system, which hampered the ...Read more

BOSTON — A two-month suspension of the 24-cents-per-gallon state gas tax proposed by Gov. Maura Healey last month has been stripped by lawmakers from a supplemental budget bill now moving through the House.

Healey made her pitch just days after her Republican challenger in the general election, Mike Minogue, announced a similar proposal, ...Read more

An ICE officers’s accusation against an assistant federal defender has added fresh scrutiny to the case against 15 Minnesotans accused of coordinating with each other to impede federal immigration officers, leading to blistering rebukes by a judge against an attorney for the government.

The allegation, detailed in a memo written by ICE ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Federal authorities this week teased a "separate batch" of 17,000 potential noncitizen voters in their federal court challenge to California's handling of alleged voter fraud.

In response, Los Angeles County officials questioned the accuracy of the government's earlier list of 20,000 alleged noncitizen voters — saying a ...Read more

A deepening childcare crisis is costing Washington parents, businesses and taxpayers billions of dollars each year.

Washington’s economy is projected to lose $6.3 billion annually because parents can’t find affordable, accessible, high-quality childcare, according to an April study.

In March, researchers with ReadyNation — a nonprofit ...Read more

LEXINGTON, Ky. — An upcoming amendment on the general election ballot could limit when Kentucky’s governor is able to pardon people convicted of crimes.

Voters will see a constitutional amendment on the Nov. 3 ballot that would prevent the state’s governor from issuing pardons for roughly three months — 60 days before an election and ...Read more

BOISE, Idaho — A University of Idaho professor has detailed the mental toll caused by a TikTok tarot reader who accused her of being responsible for the 2022 high-profile murders of four students in Moscow, Idaho. She now wants people to reconsider how they consume social media.

History professor Rebecca Scofield wrote a New York Times ...Read more