Piping plovers are continuing their comeback story.

Massachusetts beaches for the second straight year saw more nesting piping plovers than at any time in the last four decades, according to Mass Audubon and preliminary data from MassWildlife’s Natural Heritage & Endangered Species Program.

There were 1,196 nesting pairs counted — a 1.5% ...Read more

Ann Lewandowski knows all about pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, the companies that shape the U.S. drug market. Her job, as a policy advocate at drugmaker Johnson & Johnson, was to tell patient and physician groups about the PBMs’ role in high drug prices.

Armed with that knowledge, Lewandowski filed a potentially groundbreaking lawsuit in...Read more

ATLANTA — A new year means new resolutions, and people in the United States are seemingly on the same page going into 2025. According to recent surveys, above all else, Americans are looking to save their money.

A Statista consumer insights survey of 1,050 U.S. residents assessed what New Year’s resolutions are the most popular, and a fifth...Read more

Luis Cervantes chose to move home after recovering from a car accident that made him a quadriplegic.

But the 29-year-old found it uncomfortable to ask his mother and sister to help him with physical needs. He stopped going with them on outings from their Sylmar home because it was too much work. Cervantes ended up grappling with suicidal ...Read more

The nine-year-old boys wearing matching knapsacks walk down the street in the morning light, but they are not going to school. In their hands are loaded guns, and the boys know how to use them. One aims his pistol at the Haitian police officers engaging them in a firefight a few hundred yards away. The children are members of one of the gangs ...Read more

A Mega Millions lottery ticket sold at a Shasta County, California, gas station hit the whopping estimated $1.22-billion jackpot on Friday, officials said.

The ticket was sold at Sunshine Food and Gas, located at 3505 Rhonda Road in Cottonwood with the winning numbers 3-7-37-49-55 − 6 MegaBall, with 3x MegaPlier, the California Lottery ...Read more

Two senior Canadian Cabinet ministers flew to Florida to make the case to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s team that the northern border is secure and tariffs won’t be necessary.

Canada’s Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc and Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly met with Howard Lutnick, Trump’s pick for commerce secretary, and Doug ...Read more

BOSTON — A Trump-connected nonprofit has warned Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey and Mayor Michelle Wu that it has identified the Bay State and Boston as sanctuaries for illegal immigrants, urging them to undo the policies that it says “make a mockery of American democracy.”

America First Legal Foundation, a national nonprofit working to ...Read more

California officials, along with dozens of others across the country, received letters this week from Stephen Miller’s nonprofit, America First Legal, warning them of the consequences for interfering with or impeding illegal immigration enforcement.

Miller has been named President-elect Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy. In a ...Read more

Trump administration adviser Elon Musk angered MAGA supporters with his approval of a social media post sarcastically explaining that immigrants are needed for tech jobs because U.S. workers aren’t qualified enough.

Using the X social media platform owned by Musk, an account called Autism Capital summed up the debate over H-1B visas allowing ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — A new state law designed to combat copper theft will take effect Jan. 1, after a judge denied a request to suspend the law as part of an ongoing lawsuit.

The ruling by Ramsey County District Judge Sara Grewing was issued Dec. 18 in the suit filed by the Upper Midwest chapter of the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, Inc., ...Read more

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump thrust himself into the high-stakes fight over the fate of TikTok in the U.S. by urging the Supreme Court to pause a law that would ban the social media platform if it isn’t sold by its Chinese parent company.

Trump said the court should give him time after his Jan. 20 inauguration to “seek a ...Read more

NEW YORK — Gov. Kathy Hochul put the kibosh on the MTA’s plan to boost congestion pricing in Manhattan during times of extreme gridlock.

The MTA has floated plans to charge an additional 25% on top of the $9 it plans to tax drivers heading into the Big Apple’s congestion relief zone — an area that extends from 60th St. down to the ...Read more

LAS VEGAS — Las Vegas Hells Angels motorcycle club members accused of targeting a rival club in a Henderson highway shooting can be prosecuted as gang members under state law, the Nevada Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

The 2022 Memorial Day shooting on Interstate 11 — which Clark County prosecutors alleged targeted Vagos Motorcycle Club ...Read more

After dealing devastating blows to militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah, Israel is now directing its military prowess at another key force backed by Iran: the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

On Friday, Israel said it had attacked Yemen's international airport in the capital of Sanaa as well as several power plants and seaports, all under Houthi control....Read more

The deadly crash this week of an Azerbaijani passenger jet — with Russian air defenses as the suspected culprit — brings into focus a little-noticed aspect of the war in Ukraine: a battle zone that extends deep into Russia.

Ukraine for months has been using domestically tooled drones to strike Russian targets hundreds of miles from the ...Read more

Gov. Gavin Newsom doubled down Friday on his opposition to Proposition 36, the newly enacted statewide anti-crime initiative, and claimed that recent progress cracking down on retail theft can be attributed to his support for a statewide California Highway Patrol anti-organized retail theft task force.

At a press conference in Oakland, Newsom ...Read more

President-elect Donald Trump asked the U.S. Supreme Court to pause a law that would ban the TikTok social media platform on Jan. 19 if it isn’t sold by its Chinese parent company.

Trump said the court should give him time after his Jan. 20 inauguration to “pursue a political resolution” of the dispute. He didn’t take a position on the ...Read more

Pockets of land around Lake Minnetonka served for thousands of years as the sites of sacred burial for the Dakota people.

Now, some of that soil sits in giant piles outside Tonka Bay City Hall as local officials and tribal leaders try to figure out how to most respectfully handle material that was unearthed during a road construction project.

...Read more