WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump is poised to return to the Oval Office with more political power than he possessed entering his first term, according to allies and even some Democrats — despite some of his troublesome handpicked nominees and immediate lame-duck status.

Trump’s transition operation leading up to Inauguration Day ...Read more

NEW YORK — New York City has been placed under a drought warning, with city agencies now under water restrictions and repairs to the city’s main water aqueduct put on pause as the city’s dry spell continues, Mayor Eric Adams announced Monday.

The city’s water supplies are lower than normal and hundreds of fires have burned in recent ...Read more

ATLANTA — The Georgia Court of Appeals on Monday, without explanation, canceled the scheduled Dec. 5 oral arguments over whether Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis should be disqualified from the election interference case against former President Donald Trump and his allies.

The decision took many attorneys involved in the appeal by...Read more

The first atmospheric river storm of the season is forecast to slam into Northern California starting Wednesday, a powerful system expected to bring the rainiest weather to the Bay Area in nearly nine months.

Rain will continue throughout the week, forecasters said Monday, peaking with the highest amounts on Friday, and likely bringing wet ...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is seeking $98.6 billion in emergency disaster relief funding following a series of hurricanes this fall, most prominently Hurricane Helene that caused severe damage in North Carolina and across the region.

It’s a comprehensive package that extends back to unmet needs from prior disasters, encompassing ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A majority of UC Davis’ Jewish students do not feel safe expressing their identity and experienced antisemitism on campus, according to a newly released report card on antisemitism at U.S. colleges and universities.

University of California, Davis, isn’t spared. Its grade: F.

The report, “Antisemitism on U.S. ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Call him Fair Oaks Man no more: California Gov. Gavin Newsom has relocated to a home in Marin County.

The governor signaled that he would make the move back to the Bay Area this summer. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Newsom’s new digs are a $9.1 million six-bedroom home in the unincorporated community of ...Read more

A nonprofit presented a clear demand in a new lawsuit against Florida’s environmental regulators: Follow the law and make your own rules to save Florida’s struggling springs.

The lawsuit, filed this month in Hernando County, comes nearly nine years after Florida lawmakers passed a measure that requires the Florida Department of ...Read more

PHILADELPHIA — On Monday morning, Gordon Cliett took his mother to a doctor’s appointment — and came home with a gun safe.

Cliett, 50, had spotted the display in the lobby at Penn Medicine’s Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine in West Philadelphia, where staff had set up a table to give away safes and gun locks to promote gun safety. ...Read more

DETROIT — Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel says her office will launch a state-led probe into the 2021 Oxford High School attack but said she still lacks what she says is a necessary referral from the county prosecutor and sheriff to take over the case.

On Monday afternoon, Nessel held a press conference to respond to a public demand ...Read more

BALTIMORE — A special unit of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested five noncitizens on Oct. 18 for being unlawfully in Maryland.

“This targeted operation resulted in the arrest of five noncitizens with serious criminal histories including fentanyl distribution, gang activity, drug cartel association, assault, and sexual assault...Read more

LOS ANGELES — The number of international students enrolled in U.S. colleges and universities reached an all-time high last school year, with India surpassing China as the top sender and California maintaining its spot as the top destination, according to a new report.

The data from the Institute of International Education said that more than...Read more

NEW YORK — The Adams administration is relaxing part of its own policy to evict migrant families with children every 60 days from the emergency shelters where they are residing.

Under a new rule unveiled Monday, families with children in kindergarten through sixth grade that have already been forced to leave their temporary housing once can ...Read more

CHICAGO — Hundreds of law enforcement officers stood at attention on the north lawn of St. Rita of Cascia church Monday morning, rain sprinkling down on them, as pallbearers carried the casket of slain Chicago Police Officer Enrique Martinez inside the church.

The services came two weeks to the day after Martinez, 26, was fatally shot after ...Read more

COLUMBIA, S.C. — When Susan Smith walked into the courtroom in Union County to learn whether she would live or die for killing her young sons, it signified the end of nine months of a town split apart by an act so heinous people could not imagine it happened there.

The media was everywhere, restaurants to beauty shops, Main Street to John D. ...Read more

BOSTON — A former Winthrop police lieutenant pleaded guilty to raping and abusing an 11-year-old child over the course of a year in Suffolk Superior Court on Monday.

“I am pleading guilty for the very vile acts I committed,” James Feeley stated on the stand Monday, asked to tell the court why he was there in his own words.

Feeley, 57, ...Read more

MIAMI — Another daughter of former Broward County Mayor Dale Holness has pleaded guilty to a fraud charge stemming from a COVID-19 pandemic benefits program.

But as part of her federal plea deal, Richelle Holness will be spared from another charge accusing her of stealing from her father’s county commission campaign in 2020.

Holness, 41, ...Read more

Former President Donald Trump is the president-elect. He is also a convicted felon, thanks to a jury verdict after a trial in New York state court for a hush money conspiracy before he became president the first time.

Normally, a president-elect gets access to highly classified information, including a version of the President’s ...Read more

NEW YORK — An attempt to keep a schizophrenic man out of Rikers Island — where deplorable conditions for the mentally ill have been well documented — ran into a brick wall recently when a Manhattan Criminal Court judge said: “I don’t pick the jails that people go to when crimes are committed.”

Judge Pamela Goldsmith lit into public ...Read more