An invasive mussel that poses a significant threat to other bivalves and the health of statewide water conveyances has been detected for the first time in North America in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Golden mussels were recently discovered in the Port of Stockton by wildlife ...Read more

SAN DIEGO — A rapidly growing brush fire chewed through canyons of thick brush and palm trees in the San Diego College Area and Talmadge neighborhoods Thursday afternoon, damaging homes and prompting widespread evacuations.

The fire was reported about 1:40 p.m. and was burning on both sides of Montezuma Road, just east of Fairmount Avenue, ...Read more

LAS VEGAS — A week after the Bureau of Land Management approved Nevada’s third lithium mine, environmentalists and a Western Shoshone group filed a lawsuit alleging that the agency rushed the environmental review process and violated federal laws.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court on Thursday, is the latest in a long line of ...Read more

CHICAGO — A sexual harassment scandal had erupted in Springfield in the summer of 2018 and Kevin Quinn, a longtime aide to House Speaker Michael Madigan, was toxic.

Quinn, the brother of Madigan’s handpicked 13th Ward alderman, had been dumped from the speaker’s organization after a campaign worker accused him of sending her a relentless ...Read more

Former Fox News pundit Tucker Carlson claims he had a violent demonic experience about 18 months ago.

The 55-year-old fabulist told his story in a YouTube clip posted on Halloween advertising an upcoming Christian documentary. He calls what allegedly happened “a direct experience” with evil.

“(It happened) in my bed at night and I got ...Read more

CHICAGO — Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s handpicked school board president resigned Thursday after coming under fire for social media posts from critics, including Gov. JB Pritzker and the mayor, deemed antisemitic, misogynistic and conspiratorial.

“Today, I asked Chicago School Board of Education (BOE) President Reverend Mitchell ...Read more

ATLANTA — After nearly two and a half years behind bars, Atlanta rapper Young Thug is set to be released from jail on Thursday after pleading guilty and being sentenced to 15 years on probation.

The stunning development upends the sweeping gang and racketeering case, which has become the longest trial in Georgia history.

Sheriff Pat Labat ...Read more

SAN JOSE, Calif. — San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan wants you to know that Proposition 36 is about more than just cracking down on retail crime.

Mahan — one of the statewide ballot measure’s most vocal supporters — argues passing the initiative to toughen penalties for low-level theft and drug crimes would also help solve California’s ...Read more

NEW YORK — New York City Department of Correction Commissioner Lynelle Maginley-Liddie on Thursday said she has “personally” asked for an outside investigation of “deadlocking” — extended lock-ins of mentally ill detainees on Rikers Island — after reading about it in The New York Daily News.

“Those are extremely disturbing ...Read more

The Maryland Attorney General’s Office said Thursday that it is sending a cease-and-desist letter to a pair of Washington D.C.-based nonprofits for threatening to expose individuals’ voting history.

The Center for Voter Information and the Voter Participation Center sent “voting report cards” to Marylanders that described whether they ...Read more

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Gov. Ron DeSantis’ use of state resources to campaign against two constitutional amendments has prompted a flurry of lawsuits, rebukes from politicians on both sides of the aisle and at least one state official’s abrupt resignation.

One of the few people who haven’t weighed in is a key Democrat in Florida’s capital...Read more

TAMPA, Fla. — A man arrested this week is accused of leaving two improvised explosive devices in restrooms at the Hard Rock Casino in Tampa, authorities said.

Bryan Robert Eckley, 46, of Tampa was arrested Wednesday on two counts of making and placing destructive devices with the intent to harm, officials announced Thursday. The charge is a ...Read more

ATLANTA — After nearly two and a half years behind bars, Atlanta rapper Young Thug has pleaded guilty in his sprawling gang and racketeering trial which has become the longest in state history.

But the musician’s legal team and Fulton County prosecutors “reached an impasse” over what his punishment should be, Judge Paige Reese Whitaker ...Read more

U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says private Republican polls reveal nearly the same picture that public polls do: The 2024 presidential race is tied in each of the seven battleground states.

“Everything that we find is a reflection of exactly what the independent polls are. I think we’ve got really tight races everywhere, and ...Read more

Days after a Catholic mission that treats up to 30,000 poor people a year became the latest target of armed gangs in a new wave of coordinated attacks, the Biden administration deported dozens of people back to Haiti in the midst of worsening humanitarian conditions and rampant violence.

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement charter flight ...Read more

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A Johnson County, Kansas, man filed new lawsuits against three Missouri state senators, alleging they shared posts falsely identifying him as being an illegal alien and a shooter in the February Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl rally shooting.

Denton Loudermill, an Olathe, Kansas, native, filed new lawsuits Thursday in the U.S...Read more

A Republican-led congressional panel on the COVID-19 pandemic has referred former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to the Department of Justice for possible prosecution for allegedly lying at a closed-door hearing.

The House of Representatives subcommittee sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland Wednesday accusing Cuomo of making “...Read more

LAS VEGAS — With Election Day less than a week away, Vice President Kamala Harris will make another push for Nevada’s vote by rallying supporters in North Las Vegas Thursday evening.

The Nevada Day — and Halloween night — event coincides with former President Donald Trump’s rally in Henderson earlier in the day.

Harris will headline ...Read more