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Trump's picks for top health jobs not just team of rivals but 'team of opponents'

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Many of President-elect Donald Trump’s candidates for federal health agencies have promoted policies and goals that put them at odds with one another or with Trump’s choice to run the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., setting the stage for internal friction over public health initiatives.

The picks hold ...Read more

Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune/TNS

University of Chicago researchers are building a 'bionic breast' to restore sense of touch for mastectomy patients

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The diagnosis shattered the young mother’s world.

At 36, Heather Tubigan of west suburban Chicago discovered an avocado seed-sized lump in her left breast. It was a malignant tumor. The cancer had already spread to her lymph nodes.

Terrified, the patient almost reflexively asked her surgeon to remove both of her breasts, even though the ...Read more

Dominick Reuter/AFP/GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/TNS

Philly schools' immigrant student population is booming. Advocates want the district to recommit to 'sanctuary schools'

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PHILADELPHIA — At Franklin Learning Center, Michelle Ferguson's students, all new arrivals to the U.S., are worried.

With President-elect Donald Trump promising stricter immigration laws and mass detention and deportation of immigrants, many students at the Philadelphia School District high school that draws English learners from around the ...Read more

Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune/TNS

Diligent, hardworking, powerful: Defense portrait of Michael Madigan emerges

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To hear David Ellis tell it, when ComEd came to Springfield in 2011 hoping to get some utility-friendly legislation passed, they ran into a brick wall named House Speaker Michael Madigan.

“They didn’t like anything I was doing,” Ellis, a state court appellate judge who used to work for the speaker’s office, told jurors Thursday in ...Read more

Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post/TNS

Colorado's landfills leak climate-warming methane into the air. What's the state going to do about it?

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Landfills in Colorado release millions of metric tons of greenhouse gasses each year as organic waste including food, paper and yard trimmings decomposes into the soil, contributing to global warming and harming human health.

Colorado, as part of its multipronged approach to eliminate 90% of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, is ...Read more

Kathy Hutchins/Zuma Press/TNS

She went to prison in Varsity Blues admissions scandal. Now she says she was a scapegoat

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LOS ANGELES -- When Donna Heinel arrived at the federal prison camp in Victorville last year to serve a six-month sentence for fraud stemming from the Varsity Blues admissions scandal, she resolved to spend the time productively. She walked two miles in the morning, ran three miles in the afternoon and tutored inmates studying for their high ...Read more

Dreamstime/TNS/Dreamstime/TNS

The IRS might be dropping $1,400 into your stocking this year

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Everyone's favorite Christmas gift giver, the Internal Revenue Service, has announced that it will be doling out more than $2 billion in checks to Americans this month as part of its effort to make sure everyone received their stimulus payments from 2021.

The federal tax agency has announced that an internal review showed many Americans had ...Read more

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images North America/TNS

Christmas Eve to be state holiday this year in Maryland

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Christmas came early for Maryland state employees as Gov. Wes Moore on Sunday declared Christmas Eve a state holiday.

In a news release, Moore said state agencies and offices will be closed Tuesday and workers will have the day off, with Dec. 24 being “treated like any other state employee holiday.”

“Our state employees have worked ...Read more

Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel/TNS

Emergency heart surgery for boy after drones fell from sky at Lake Eola on Saturday night

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Drones collided, fell from the sky and hit a little boy after “technical difficulties” during a holiday show at Lake Eola Saturday night left him fighting for his life during emergency heart surgery.

At approximately 6:48 p.m. the Orlando Fire Department responded to reports that a person was injured by a drone at the annual show at Lake ...Read more

New York Daily News/New York Daily News/TNS

Ouster of NYPD Internal Affairs chief is latest in whirlwind shakeup of police brass

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Top staff shakeups are par for the course under a new police commissioner, but the storm of resignations and reassignments at the NYPD over the past three days — including Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey stepping down amid bombshell sexual misconduct allegations — served as a shock to the system with the head of the Internal Affairs ...Read more

N.Y. colleges urge foreign students return to campus before Trump inauguration

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With the risk of a travel ban on the horizon, New York colleges and universities are urging international students to cut short their winter breaks and return to campus before President-elect Donald Trump takes office.

Cornell University, The New School and the University of Rochester are among the schools in the Empire State set to kick off ...Read more

State proposes killing 100 wolves a year to benefit moose between Denali and Lake Clark parks

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State wildlife officials want permission to kill 100 wolves a year via aerial gunning in a massive game unit bounded by Denali National Park and Preserve and Lake Clark National Park and Preserve.

The request by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game is scheduled to be heard by the state Board of Game at a mid-January meeting in Wasilla, along ...Read more

Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group/TNS

Imprisoned Bay Area killer convicted of the 1986 murder of two Fremont women

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An imprisoned Bay Area killer has been found guilty of the 1986 murder of two young Northern California women after a DNA match connected him to the crime, authorities said.

An Alameda County jury last week found David Misch, 63, guilty of murdering best friends Jennifer Duey and Michelle Xavier, prosecutors said. The naked bodies of both women...Read more

Dave Chan/Getty Images of North America/TNS

Liberal push to oust Trudeau gains momentum in Ontario, CBC says

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More than 50 Liberal Party members of parliament from Ontario came to a “consensus” during a conference call Saturday that Justin Trudeau must step down as prime minister, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reported.

That would represent about a third of the Liberal caucus, which has 153 seats in Canada’s House of Commons. However, there’...Read more

Dan Kitwood/Getty Images North America/TNS

Trump upending politics globally a month before he takes office

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His second term doesn’t start for a month, but Donald Trump is already sending shock waves around the world.

His trade threats helped set off a cabinet crisis in Canada that has Prime Minister Justin Trudeau teetering. In Europe, tariff fears have weakened already-wobbling governments.

Allied leaders are racing to find ways to keep up ...Read more

AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post/TNS

Colorado's seismic budget gap has given key lawmakers a grim task: “What programs are we going to cut?”

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With the Denver Broncos playing well this season, the grimmest show in Colorado can be found in a small room near the state Capitol.

That is where the legislature’s Joint Budget Committee has been tasked with cutting hundreds of millions of dollars — even as much as $1 billion — from the state’s $16 billion general fund budget. State ...Read more

Mark Rightmire/The Orange County Register/TNS

Homeless deaths dropped dramatically in California's Orange County, but hundreds still met tragic ends

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The youngest homeless person to die in Orange County this year was Infant Female Radford. Stillborn. July 29. “No fixed abode.”

The oldest was Michelle Marie O’Neal, 88. Arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease. July 25. “No fixed abode.”

Their names echoed through the Lutheran Church of the Cross in Laguna Woods on Saturday — the ...Read more

Andrew Harnik/Getty Images North America/TNS

Trump picks Miran to head his Council of Economic Advisers

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President-elect Donald Trump is nominating Stephen Miran to lead his Council of Economic Advisers, enlisting a former Treasury official who served in Washington during his first administration.

“Steve will work with the rest of my economic team to deliver a great economic boom that lifts up all Americans,” Trump said in a statement Sunday ...Read more

Mikhail Klimentyev/Sputnik/AFP/Getty Images North America/TNS

Trump keeps door open to Putin offer for talks on war in Ukraine

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President-elect Donald Trump suggested he’s open to meeting Vladimir Putin to discuss ending the war in Ukraine sparked by Russia’s 2022 invasion.

The Russian president offered on Thursday to hold talks with Trump, saying, “I’ll be ready to meet if he wants.” Speaking at his annual news conference, Putin said he doesn’t know when ...Read more

Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune/TNS

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson's difficult 2025 budget fight portends even harder financial situation for 2026

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One issue loomed in aldermen’s anxious speeches last week in the lead-up to a vote on Mayor Brandon Johnson’s budget for next year: 2026.

Though the mayor ultimately eked out a 27-23 win on his $17.1 billion 2025 spending plan, City Council members both for and against it warned the chaos and delays that punctuated the past few months may ...Read more