CHICAGO — Illinois had at least 103 outbreaks of the stomach bug norovirus in November and December — a dramatic increase from previous years, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.

During the same time last winter, there were 22 reported outbreaks. This year’s numbers are also significantly higher than in winters before ...Read more

CHICAGO — Promising a “fight” to protect all Chicagoans, Mayor Brandon Johnson said Thursday he has not reached out to the White House in the face of Republican President Donald Trump’s ongoing threats against immigrants — and Democratic officials such as Johnson himself.

In an interview with the Tribune, Johnson said “no” when ...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump called for boosting U.S. dominance in artificial intelligence with an executive order that demands a new policy direction for a rapidly evolving technology that’s the focus of intense competition with China.

Under the order signed at the White House on Thursday, Trump called for an interagency group to ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Republican senators are scrambling to get President Donald Trump’s cabinet appointees confirmed, promising to vote through the weekend if necessary.

It’s been slow going in the procedure-heavy Senate since Monday’s inauguration, with only two of Trump’s top picks — Secretary of State Marco Rubio and CIA Director John ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth cleared a crucial Senate procedural hurdle despite new allegations of abusing a former wife, signaling likely support for his confirmation.

Hegseth denies the steady stream of allegations, ranging from domestic abuse to excessive drinking, that have surfaced against him since Trump tapped ...Read more

BOISE, Idaho — Police investigating the Moscow college student homicides did not obtain search warrants in their handling of DNA from the crime scene — the critical, and perhaps only, piece of evidence that ties suspect Bryan Kohberger to the victims — and efforts to block it from his trial hinge on the novel argument they were legally ...Read more

BOSTON — A top House Democrat demanded Gov. Maura Healey’s administration cough up more information about the state-run emergency shelter system before the chamber moves forward with a series of restrictive policies that could block out newly arrived migrants to Massachusetts.

In a letter sent Wednesday to Healey’s chief budget writer and...Read more

SAN JOSE, Calif. — On a chilly, clear morning by the railroad tracks south of downtown San Jose, a team of case managers in gray hoodies approached Raul Flores, who’d spent the night before on the street a few blocks away.

“Are you hungry?” one of them asked.

In exchange for answering a few questions — did he have any health ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a pair of bills Thursday providing $2.5 billion in state aid in response to the wildfires that have decimated neighborhoods, destroyed schools and damaged public infrastructure across Los Angeles County.

“This money will be made available immediately,” Newsom said Thursday afternoon, standing ...Read more

In Japan, a prepared dish costs up to $90 a plate, while in the northeastern United States they are worth thousands of dollars a pound, fresh out of the water.

But the gross-looking, wriggly fish that has become both a delicacy — and a currency — known as "zangi" in Haitian-Creole, is also fueling a new kind of illicit trafficking in the ...Read more

The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. is getting a fresh look after President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at declassifying the remaining federal records relating to his 1968 murder.

The order, among a flurry of executive actions Trump has quickly taken the first week of his second term, will also look at the ...Read more

NEW YORK — New York’s top education officials are raising concerns about a potential school cellphone ban as President Trump’s mass deportation plans threaten to separate undocumented children from their families.

At a Brooklyn town hall Thursday night, State Education Department Commissioner Betty Rosa and Board of Regents Chancellor ...Read more

Colombian President Gustavo Petro is asking Haitians to forgive a group of Colombian mercenaries accused of being guns-for-hire in the still unsolved 2021 assassination of their president, Jovenel Moïse.

The men, 17 of whom are currently jailed in Haiti and another one who is serving a life sentence in the United States after pleading guilty ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Some policyholders who lost their homes in the Los Angeles fires are not getting claims advances that are due to them, Insurance Commissioner Richard Lara alleged Thursday.

In response, Lara issued a bulletin reminding all California insurers that the law requires victims who have suffered total losses to get advance payments ...Read more

BOISE, Idaho — The Idaho House Republican leader previewed a slate of large tax cuts Idahoans could see this year, beginning with a potentially historic cut to individual and corporate income taxes.

The cut would bring Idaho’s flat income tax rate to 5.3%, down from the 5.695% that it is currently, which the state estimates would amount to ...Read more

House Speaker Mike Johnson reportedly warned Republican lawmakers against subpoenaing the phone records of key Jan. 6 witness Cassidy Hutchinson, saying doing so could reveal “sexual texts” that might embarrass some of his colleagues.

Hutchinson served as a whistleblower in the bipartisan House Committee on the Jan. 6 Attack that concluded ...Read more

President Donald Trump is expected to travel to Southern California on Friday to see firsthand the devastation caused by wildfires that have rippled through Los Angeles County over the past two-and-a-half weeks.

As of Thursday afternoon, details of the president’s visit remain scant. What we do know is that the trip will come during Trump’s...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The Sacramento Police Department vowed not to engage in any immigration enforcement in accordance with California law two days after the Trump Administration threatened to prosecute local officials who don’t cooperate with federal immigration agents.

In a Jan. 10 community bulletin posted on the Police Department’s ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Although President Donald Trump issued sweeping pardons for defendants who faced charges related to events that occurred at or near the Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021, the cases aren’t fully going away just yet.

Amid an effort to dismiss hundreds of cases following Trump’s proclamation Monday for more than 1,500 defendants,...Read more