Unauthorized switching of Affordable Care Act plans appears to have tapered off in recent weeks based on an almost one-third drop in casework associated with consumer complaints, say federal regulators. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which oversees the ACA, credits steps taken to thwart enrollment and switching problems that ...Read more

California is making so much solar energy that large commercial operators are increasingly forced to stop production, raising questions about the state’s costly plan to shift entirely to carbon-free sources of electricity.

In the last 12 months, California’s solar farms have curtailed production of more than 3 million megawatt hours of ...Read more

Hardly a week goes by without a Philadelphia developer announcing a new apartment building with a modern look and some cool urban amenities. So who would have thought the most innovative residential project in the city right now would be going up on a Philadelphia Housing Authority site where a trio of graffiti-scarred towers now stand?

Known ...Read more

He had written more than 20 books, drew healthy audiences speaking across America and attracted coverage from the country's top newspapers and magazines. Still, by the height of the pandemic, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he felt muzzled.

Facebook and Instagram had banned posts by Children's Health Defense, the Kennedy-founded organization that ...Read more

Had you sat by Alizé Satberry a few years ago at Kearny High School or Herbert Hoover High School or one of several charters she attended, you might have noticed that her dresses were a few years out of style.

Maybe you flagged that she never seemed to come on a field trip.

But the fact that she, her mom and three siblings were bouncing from ...Read more

Every Christmas, a relatively small town in the Palestinian West Bank comes center stage: Bethlehem. Jesus, according to some biblical sources, was born in this town some two millennia ago.

Yet the New Testament Gospels do not agree about the details of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem. Some do not mention Bethlehem or Jesus’ birth at ...Read more

A disturbing video showing American-Israeli hostage Edan Alexander was released Saturday night by Hamas.

In the heavily edited propaganda video, Alexander, 20, pleads for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President-elect Donald Trump to free him and the other 100 hostages held by Hamas.

“The fear is at its peak, and we are dying ...Read more

President Joe Biden on Sunday pardoned his son Hunter, who was convicted of illegally purchasing a handgun in Delaware and pleaded guilty to tax charges in Los Angeles.

In explaining his controversial action — which came weeks before the president's son was to be sentenced by federal judges on both coasts — Biden claimed his son was the ...Read more

The change from the Biden to the Trump administration is primed to alter the trajectory of salmon recovery in the Snake and Columbia river basins.

The effort to save the threatened and endangered fish through breaching one or more of the four dams on the lower Snake River was elevated to unprecedented levels during Joe Biden’s time in the ...Read more

The biggest challenge to Bashar al-Assad’s regime seemingly came out of nowhere, and as Aleppo fell to Turkish-backed rebels in a matter of days, the Syrian president reportedly flew to Moscow.

Russia’s intervention in Syria’s civil war almost a decade ago turned the tide in Assad’s favor, but this time around his two biggest backers ...Read more

U.K. defense companies will be prioritized for government contracts to ensure Britain has a resilient domestic supply chain that can “innovate at a wartime pace” under a strategy that creates jobs and boosts growth, the government will announce on Monday.

Defense Secretary John Healey will launch a new Defense Industrial Strategy in London,...Read more

As a year of travel that was marked largely by overtourism protests in Barcelona, Oaxaca and Venice draws to a close, the appeal of offbeat vacations continues to grow.

To wit, consider these spots you’ve likely never heard of: secluded Graciosa Island on the Azores, the remote fishing village Roches Noires in northeastern Mauritius, or ...Read more

A nearly year-old U.S. Senate GOP inquiry into Chicago’s housing of migrants at O’Hare and Midway airports may become more than a political annoyance for Mayor Brandon Johnson next year as Republicans take control of the federal government with an eye on tightening rules about public spending for noncitizens.

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, ...Read more

Donald Trump announced his intention to cut short the term of FBI Director Christopher Wray and select Kash Patel to lead an agency the president-elect often criticized on the campaign trail.

The pick would be another high-profile test for Senate Republicans, who would be tasked with deciding whether to confirm Patel, a former Trump ...Read more

The squawking usually begins just past 4:30 p.m. this time of year, when the sun begins to hang low in the sky.

Just a few at first, announcing themselves with loud calls from above. Another flock soon appears from the south, then a larger one from the east, and even more soon fly in from the north and west.

Like clockwork, hundreds of parrot ...Read more

With the dawn of a second Trump administration and a looming deadline for interstate negotiations, Las Vegas will turn its focus to the Colorado River this week.

Scientists, nonprofit advocates, tribal leaders and negotiators from all seven states that rely on the river will attend the Colorado River Water Users Association conference at Paris ...Read more

In a case that could affect thousands of property owners and beaches visited by millions of people along California’s 1,100-mile coastline, a state appeals court has indicated it will uphold rules limiting the construction of sea walls along the coast.

The case, centered on the California Coastal Commission’s decision to deny a sea wall for...Read more

Ireland is heading for a return of the coalition government led by Prime Minister Simon Harris’s Fine Gael party and Fianna Fail, as voters bucked a recent international trend of ousting incumbent parties.

With more than two thirds of the results announced, Fianna Fail and Fine Gael were together on track to get more than 80 seats. They need ...Read more

Migrants living in city-run shelters have made up a relatively small number of Illinois Department of Child and Family Services investigations in Chicago.

At the peak of migrant shelter operations, thousands of people were crammed into dozens of shelters across the city. Despite the large influx of new arrivals, the number of DCFS ...Read more