SEATTLE — Starting this spring, the University of Washington will try a new approach to helping students and employees in mental health crises, based on a philosophy that's become increasingly mainstream: Mental health professionals are better equipped than police to respond to some emergencies.

In emergencies that don't involve a safety risk...Read more

SAN JOSE, Calif. — The beleaguered head of Santa Clara County’s child welfare agency announced his resignation Thursday, a year after damning investigations by the Bay Area News Group and the state of California found numerous child safety failures that led to the death of an infant and put other vulnerable children in harm’s way.

In a ...Read more

Fourteen former Baltimore Gas and Electric employees are petitioning to intervene in the utility company’s case with the Maryland Public Service Commission over proposed rate hikes, contending the company wastes money and pushes the costs onto consumers.

BGE, owned by utility conglomerate Exelon, must demonstrate to the PSC it used “good ...Read more

Elon Musk’s deputy Steve Davis has spent more than 20 years helping the billionaire cut costs at businesses like SpaceX, the Boring Company and Twitter — making the engineer by training a natural choice for his new role at Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE for short.

Davis is helping recruit staff at DOGE, Musk’s ...Read more

South Korea’s parliament is set to vote Friday on impeaching Acting President Han Duck-soo, potentially deepening a political crisis that has rattled financial markets and disrupted diplomacy efforts.

The vote is scheduled for Friday afternoon at the National Assembly. The main opposition Democratic Party filed the impeachment motion on ...Read more

A mystery seller is asking $200 million for an empty waterfront lot next door to the properties Jeff Bezos bought in South Florida.

The roughly 1.84 acre lot (0.74 hectare) is located at Indian Creek, a man-made barrier island that’s been dubbed “Billionaire Bunker.” Ilya Reznik, who’s brokering the transaction, declined to identify the...Read more

PHILADELPHIA — U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced Thursday that it recently had seized 22,000 counterfeit Pennsylvania vehicle inspection stickers that were shipped from Israel to Philadelphia with a total value — if they were real — of more than $1.4 million.

Customs and Border Protection officers encountered 10,000 suspected ...Read more

A statewide crackdown on retail crimes resulted in the arrest of at least 117 people in connection with the theft of nearly $40,000 in merchandise, according to authorities.

The California Highway Patrol and several other police departments carried out the operation on Dec. 20, resulting in the arrests of 117 people and recovering $38,000 in ...Read more

Manmohan Singh, the Gandhi family confidant who freed India’s economy from Soviet-inspired controls and was one of the country’s longest serving prime ministers, has died. He was 92.

Singh was admitted to AIIMS Delhi hospital on Thursday in a critical condition, local media reported earlier. He was one of India’s “most distinguished ...Read more

The price of gasoline in California should remain stable if President-elect Donald Trump imposes stiff tariffs on Canada and Mexico, experts say.

“The direct impact might be fairly small,” said Gary Hufbauer, senior fellow at the nonpartisan Peterson Institute for International Economics.

Gasoline prices in California are still expected to...Read more

BOSTON — Days after approval, Natick town administrators are taking the next steps to implement a sanctuary-like policy.

Town administrators in the Greater Boston community are set to “lead a series of educational efforts” to ensure staffers are aware of the recently adopted policy that the Select Board has stressed isn’t a true ...Read more

Habiba Mohamed was working at a restaurant that served government soldiers in Somalia when al-Shabab insurgents began threatening her to stop. The terrorist group attacked the establishment, killing some of her coworkers, and Mohamed fled to a refugee camp in Uganda in 2018.

Her mother went into hiding in another part of Somalia after the ...Read more

Israel struck multiple targets in Yemen it said were controlled by Houthis, the last of the Iran-backed groups still fully engaged in the regional war that began 14 months ago.

Targets hit Thursday included military infrastructure at the Sanaa International Airport and in the Hezyaz and Ras Kanatib power stations, according to the Israel ...Read more

WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin bucked his party in 2021 when he refused to support a $1.8 trillion bill on taxes, social programs and clean energy, thus dooming President Joe Biden's "Build Back Better" initiative.

Then this month, in one of his final actions as a member of Congress, he also bucked his party and voted against a nominee ...Read more

A woman was shot and killed by a Juneau, Alaska, police officer early Christmas morning after she approached officers with a hatchet and refused to put it down, police said.

The incident occurred outside the Breeze In grocery in the Mendenhall Valley, police said. According to a written account by the Juneau Police Department, someone called ...Read more

Alaska's law enforcement agencies this year intensified a campaign to intercept drugs coming into Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport in baggage as well as through the mail in response to the state's high number of fatal drug overdoses.

The result of that initiative was a major increase in drug seizures, according to figures released ...Read more

The make and brand of the sweater worn by murder suspect Luigi Mangione in court Monday, when he pleaded not guilty to federal charges, has sold out. Meanwhile, more merchandise centered on Mangione is appearing online, as he continues to draw support from fans worldwide.

Mangione has been arrested and charged with more than a dozen counts, ...Read more

Texas gained more new people than any other state between July 2023 and July 2024, according to Census data.

Texas’s population jumped by 562,941 people. Florida saw the second highest numeric growth with 467,347 new people and California the third with 232,570.

Washington, D.C., and Florida both topped Texas percentage growth, with D.C.’s...Read more