RICHMOND, Va. — Among the three constitutional amendments the Virginia Senate advanced this week was one that would automatically restore the right to vote to people who have completed their felony sentence.

But lawmakers have also taken up several other bills that would makes changes to elections or how people vote. Experts say that’s in ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Once debris from the Los Angeles County wildfires is cleared and rebuilding begins, attention will likely shift to the financial health of a small but growing California fire insurance provider.

The California FAIR Plan has an outsized share of the state’s riskiest policies because it is the insurer of last resort for home and...Read more

Across the U.S. South, extreme weather usually means boarding up windows against hurricane winds and lining streets with sandbags to hold back floods. This week, freezing temperatures and record-breaking snowfall are instead sending residents from Florida to Texas rushing to warming centers, and causing chaos on roads and runways.

The region�...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump Wednesday demanded an apology from the Episcopal bishop who criticized his hardline policies on immigration and LGBTQ rights at the National Prayer Service on his first full day back in the White House.

A day after Trump was forced to grimly endure the tough-talking service by Bishop Mariann Budde, the ...Read more

NEW YORK — New York students may no longer have cellphones with them from “bell to bell” under Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposed ban, but public schools will still need to find a way to get messages from parents to kids as the governor released more details about her plan Wednesday.

Hochul has been advocating for some version of a ban since ...Read more

CHICAGO — Citing a “financial shortfall,” Planned Parenthood of Illinois announced Wednesday – on the 52nd anniversary of Roe v. Wade – that it will be closing four clinics across the state, including one on Chicago’s South Side.

The health center shutdowns come as Illinois is already grappling with a surge in patients traveling ...Read more

NEW YORK — More than 20,000 illegal guns have been seized by the NYPD during the Adams administration, the mayor and police commissioner said Wednesday.

The official tally — 20,137 since the start of 2022, including 377 so far this year — is updated daily on the NYPD website. More than 1,400 of the seized weapons were untraceable ghost ...Read more

Many Massachusetts parents have concerns with their students’ college and career readiness as they move through the state’s education system, according to a poll by the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education released Wednesday.

The “State of Educational Opportunity in Massachusetts” survey polled 410 parents of K-12 students in ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Rep. Barry Loudermilk, who has led the charge for House Republicans to reexamine the events of Jan. 6, 2021, is slated to continue his probe this Congress under the auspices of Jim Jordan and the House Judiciary Committee, according to Speaker Mike Johnson.

Johnson announced Wednesday his intent to create a new select ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — A rapidly growing fire near the Castaic jail complex sparked alarm on 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.

The Hughes fire broke out a little before 11 a.m., roughly 5 miles north of the Pitchess Detention Center...Read more

A rally in big tech fueled by optimism over artificial intelligence and a batch of earnings from corporate heavyweights sent stocks to the brink of their all-time highs.

Equities extended this year’s advance, with the S&P 500 briefly topping 6,100. Netflix Inc. surged almost 10% amid its biggest-ever subscriber gain. Nvidia Corp. led gains in...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 being convicted of seditious conspiracy for orchestrating an attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

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

LAS VEGAS — More than 39,000 Nevadans are among millions of other Americans who will see increases to their Social Security payments thanks to a law former President Joe Biden signed this month.

The Social Security Fairness Act — which became law Jan. 5. — eliminates the reduction of Social Security benefits for those who are entitled to ...Read more

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday dismissed a case against a January 6 defendant from the Chicago area, but refused to do so with prejudice in an angrily worded order days after President Donald Trump’s clemency decision.

“In hundreds of cases like this one over the past four years, judges in this district haveadministered ...Read more

WASHINGTON — A key Senate panel unanimously voted Wednesday to advance Sean Duffy's nomination to lead the U.S. Department of Transportation.

President Donald Trump tapped the former Republican Wisconsin congressman to lead the agency with wide-ranging responsibilities related to road safety, vehicle emissions, aviation and more.

Duffy ...Read more

DENVER — A longtime Colorado Bureau of Investigation scientist who mishandled DNA testing in hundreds of criminal cases was charged this week with 102 felonies, court records show.

Yvonne “Missy” Woods, 64, was charged Tuesday with 48 counts of attempting to influence a public servant, 52 counts of forgery of a government-issued document,...Read more

WASHINGTON — Republicans on the House Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday spoke out about the need for action against China’s threat to American infrastructure networks, even as some members of the party have soured on a primary agency that fights such cyberattacks.

“The Chinese Communist Party is ready to shut down our essential ...Read more

LANSING, Mich. — Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed into law Wednesday bills that would reclassify certain crimes as hate crimes, replacing Michigan’s 1988 ethnic intimidation law with expanded definitions of the categories of people who fall under the law’s protections.

The Democratic governor signed the hate crime legislation into law ...Read more