CHICAGO — Elizabeth, a Chicagoan in the U.S. without legal permission and mother of three, is used to being involved in her community on the Northwest Side through volunteering at her children’s school and helping students. But after this week, she no longer feels safe even going near the school doors.

A day after President Donald Trump ...Read more

A day after the Trump administration moved to vastly expand its powers to carry out fast-track deportations as part of a crackdown on undocumented immigrants, the American Civil Liberties Union has sued to try to stop it.

The new policy, known as “expedited removal,” empowers immigration officials to swiftly deport those who have entered ...Read more

NEW YORK — Seven people from New York City and Long Island have been busted in a massive COVID relief fraud scheme that netted $44 million — and one of the defendants was so brazen he rapped about his crime in a song named after the IRS, the feds alleged Wednesday.

The suspects scammed the money through thousands of bogus tax returns, ...Read more

BOSTON — Massachusetts Congressman Stephen Lynch has been tapped to serve on a subcommittee of the new Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, vowing to protect “hardworking federal workers from the threats of mass layoffs.”

House Democrats have named their members to serve on the DOGE Subcommittee on Oversight, with Lynch ...Read more

SEATTLE — A conservative think tank filed a lawsuit Wednesday against two Washington state agencies over delays in reporting the state's greenhouse gas emissions.

The Washington Policy Center said in a news release that it filed the lawsuit against the Washington State Department of Ecology and the Department of Commerce to force the agencies...Read more

A reportedly suicidal suspect and a 4-year-old girl were killed, and an officer was critically wounded, after the suspect opened fire Wednesday on two cops who tried to help him, Ohio authorities said.

The incident unfolded just after 2 p.m. when cops in St. Clair Township were called about a possibly suicidal man, police said in a statement. ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — A rapidly growing fire near the Castaic jail complex sparked alarm Wednesday morning, as attorneys urged the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to evacuate the nearly 5,000 inmates in the county’s northernmost jails.

By midafternoon, sheriff’s officials began moving several hundred inmates from a barracks-style ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — A new fire exploded Wednesday north of Castaic, quickly charring more than 9,400 acres and forcing thousands to flee their homes amid a month of extreme fire conditions that have plagued Southern California.

The Hughes fire started off Lake Hughes Road just before 11 a.m. and quickly prompted evacuations orders in and around ...Read more

PHILADELPHIA — More than a dozen migrants took sanctuary inside Philadelphia churches during President Donald Trump’s first administration, the most of any city in the country, blocking their deportations by putting themselves beyond the reach of ICE agents.

Agency policy deemed houses of worship off limits, except in extraordinary ...Read more

In his first days in office, President Donald Trump signed executive orders that sent many federal employees reeling: looming layoffs, a freeze on federal hiring and and new back-to-office expectations for many remote workers. On Wednesday, he announced that employees in diversity, equity and inclusion roles would be put on paid leave.

He’s ...Read more

Just two days after a shaky ceasefire took hold in the Gaza Strip, Israel on Jan. 21, 2025, launched a large-scale incursion of the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank.

Soldiers raided hundreds of homes in the West Bank city in what the Israeli military called a “counterterrorism” operation, aiming to reassert control there. Many ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Health and Human Services Department, will divest his interest from pending complaints he is involved in against the United States and the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program if confirmed, according to filings released Wednesday.

However, under the ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — After flames leveled nearly 500 homes in Bel-Air and Brentwood in 1961, Los Angeles had a reckoning over firefighting.

By 1964, city leaders had added 13 fire stations, mapped out fire hydrants, purchased helicopters and dispatched more crews to the Santa Monica Mountains. To accommodate growth in Pacific Palisades, they built a...Read more

WASHINGTON — The Department of Health and Human Services directed agency leaders to halt external communications, including press releases, guidance and social media, through Feb. 1, according to a memo from the acting secretary.

The memo, which was sent to agency leaders by acting HHS Secretary Dorothy Fink, outlines that the HHS agencies ...Read more

NEW YORK — A Brooklyn judge cut a Texas scammer a break, giving the man 18 months for trying to defraud George Santos — and blasted the former congressman’s “cowardice” for not showing up in person Wednesday to give a victim statement.

Hector Medina, 37, reached out to Santos in the summer of 2023, describing himself as a fixer who ...Read more

As part of a torrent of decisions he issued this week hours after taking office, President Donald Trump declared that the name of America’s tallest mountain be changed from Denali to Mount McKinley, and that the Gulf of Mexico be renamed “The Gulf of America.”

Trump’s executive order Monday directing the Department of Interior to make ...Read more

CHICAGO — Ex-House speaker Michael Madigan, formerly the most powerful man in Illinois politics, “conspired to enhance and preserve (his) power and line his pockets” for years, prosecutors said at the outset of marathon closing arguments in Madigan’s corruption trial.

“Time and again, Madigan abused the tremendous power he wielded,”...Read more

WASHINGTON — While ticket-splitting remained rare in 2024, it was enough for House Democrats to eat into Republicans’ majority. That will allow the minority party to influence key legislative votes, and keep control of the House within reach in the 2026 midterm elections.

For anyone who thinks 2025 is an “off-year,” past and future ...Read more

MIAMI — Walking out of the gate at Miami International Airport wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat with “Never Surrender” written on the side, Enrique Tarrio returned to Miami after President Donald Trump pardoned him for his role in orchestrating an attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

The chairman of the Proud Boys was ...Read more