SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration recently agreed to pay nearly $1 million to settle a lawsuit brought by Chicago police Lt. Franklin Paz, who alleged he was dumped from a citywide unit after refusing to pressure subordinate officers to meet traffic stop and arrest quotas set by department higher-ups.

Eric Wilkins ...Read more

DENVER — A bipartisan pair of Colorado lawmakers have introduced a bill that would make it easier for residents and counties to declare a town abandoned, and for the state to assist dissolved municipalities with failing water systems.

Senate Bill 157 — sponsored by state Sens. Rod Pelton, a Cheyenne Wells Republican, and Nick Hinrichsen, a ...Read more

A year after being deported from the United States to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador, many of the 252 Venezuelans sent away are still dealing with stigma and uncertainty about their future, despite being back in their home country.

“People don’t trust us because of the way we were brought from El Salvador,” said Frengel Reyes, ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Rep. Eric Swalwell, a Democratic front-runner in the hotly contested California governor’s race, is facing mounting calls to drop out of the contest after he was accused of sexual assault and misconduct by a former staff member and other women in reports published on Friday.

A woman who worked for the Northern ...Read more

Records were set. History was made. All that was left was to get the four Artemis II astronauts home safe. That happened Friday night as they splashed down safe in the Pacific Ocean.

NASA’s Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch along with Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen made the final run of a nearly 700,000-mile trip ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — A Frontier passenger jet had a close call this week when it was cut off by a pair of trucks while taxiing at Los Angeles International Airport, but avoided contact when an alert pilot slammed on the brakes.

The near-miss, involving a Frontier Airlines flight bound for Atlanta, occurred about 11:25 p.m. on Wednesday. The Federal ...Read more

MIAMI — Six months after the Florida Department of Transportation ripped up the iconic rainbow crosswalk on South Beach, the city of Miami Beach unveiled a new walkway to commemorate its LGBTQ community Friday morning.

The U-shaped rainbow walkway that cuts into Lummus Park, made from more than 3,000 colorful pavers, is just feet away from ...Read more

Wall Street banks are starting to test Anthropic PBC’s Mythos model internally as Trump administration officials encourage them to use it to detect vulnerabilities.

While JPMorgan Chase & Co. was the only bank named as part of an initiative to test the Mythos model, other major financial institutions have also gained access or expect to in ...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump and top Senate Republicans agreed Friday to the outline of a partisan fast-track spending bill aimed at bypassing minority Democrats and focused on providing funding for immigration enforcement and the U.S. Border Patrol.

The president and party leaders are pushing back against efforts by some rank-and-file...Read more

WASHINGTON — After being out of sight for pivotal moments of the war against Iran, Vice President JD Vance is stepping onto center stage.

Vance is leading a U.S. delegation to Islamabad for the first face-to-face talks with Iranian officials since the beginning of the conflict, which has triggered a global energy crisis. The outcome could ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — The worker who burned down a warehouse full of Kimberly-Clark paper products in Ontario this week railed against corporations and compared himself to Luigi Mangione in messages to coworkers after starting the fire, authorities said at a news conference Friday.

Chamel Abdulkarim, 29, is facing state and federal charges in ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Rep. Eric Swalwell faced mounting calls to quit the governor’s race in California Friday, including from Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi, after The San Francisco Chronicle and CNN published reports that he sexually assaulted one woman and sent unsolicited nude photos and made unwanted advances on three others. Swalwell has...Read more

Records were set. History was made. All that was left was to get the four Artemis II astronauts home safe.

NASA’s Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch along with Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen made the final run of a nearly 700,000-mile trip that began April 1 when they launched from Kennedy Space Center on the first ...Read more

The Artemis II astronauts safely splashed down off the coast of San Diego at 5:07 p.m. Pacific time Friday after a historic 10-day mission around the moon, finally letting the crew and NASA officials breathe a sigh of relief.

NASA regarded the high-energy reentry — streaking through the atmosphere in a nearly 5,000-degree-Fahrenheit fireball ...Read more

Jeffrey Epstein survivors are split over first lady Melania Trump’s surprise White House speech in which she denied ties to the notorious sex trafficker and called for victims to be given a platform to speak out at fresh congressional hearings.

Some of the Epstein victims Friday cheered the first lady’s unexpected call for renewed attention...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Rep. Eric Swalwell, a leading candidate to succeed outgoing Gov. Gavin Newsom, allegedly sexually assaulted a staff member in 2019, according to a report published Friday by the San Francisco Chronicle.

A former staffer claims Swalwell, D-Calif.,sexually assaulted her twice while she was too intoxicated to consent, ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Rep. Eric Swalwell, a Democratic front-runner in the hotly contested California governor’s race, was accused of sexual assault by a former staff member and other women, according to reports published Friday.

The woman who worked for the Northern California congressman said she had a consensual relationship at times, but...Read more

WASHINGTON — Former Rep. Eliot L. Engel, who was a fixture in New York politics for decades until he lost his seat in the House in 2020, has died at the age of 79.

Westchester County Executive Ken Jenkins confirmed the news in a statement posted on social media.

“We are deeply saddened to learn of the passing of former Congressman Eliot ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Vice President JD Vance departed Friday for Islamabad, Pakistan, to open the first direct negotiations aimed at ending the war between the United States and Iran.

Together with a delegation of deeply mistrusting negotiators from Tehran, Vance is tasked with striking a lasting peace between rival nations that have failed to keep ...Read more