WASHINGTON — In politics, as in life, a lot comes down to luck. In fact, every two years in November, it’s pure luck that decides whether dozens of congressional freshmen will get a coveted Capitol Hill office … or one that’s really far from the elevators.

On Thursday, House members-elect gathered in a cramped meeting room under the ...Read more

Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley isn’t on board with several of Trump’s Cabinet picks, she told listeners on her recent podcast episode of Nikki Haley Live.

The former 2024 presidential candidate is concerned about some of Trump’s picks, but said she is looking at the policies for these nominations instead of personalities.

She...Read more

MEXICO CITY — Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said immigrants shouldn't be viewed as "criminals," but declared that Mexico has a plan for an influx of returnees should President-elect Donald Trump proceed with threatened mass deportations of immigrants, many of them Mexican nationals.

"We don't agree that migrants be treated as criminals,...Read more

WASHINGTON — The specter of the incoming Trump administration loomed large Thursday as Democratic support evaporated for a House bill that would give the IRS greater authority to revoke the tax-exempt status of nonprofits supporting terrorist organizations.

Only 15 Democrats voted for the bill, which passed 219-184, a drop from the 52 who ...Read more

MIAMI — Doral real estate developer George Pino surrendered in open court Thursday and was booked into jail on a felony vessel homicide charge, more than two years after he crashed his boat into a concrete channel marker in Biscayne Bay, killing a teenage girl and severely injuring her Lourdes classmate.

Pino, 54, who lives in Kendall, ...Read more

After former U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz withdrew his name from consideration for the attorney general spot, he immediately got support from someone close to home.

On Instagram, wife Ginger Luckey posted a picture of the couple on the steps of Capitol Hill, writing, “The end of an era. No one loves America more than this guy.”

Gaetz’s ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Percival Everett has won the National Book Award for Fiction for his novel "James," a retelling of Mark Twain's classic "Huckleberry Finn."

Published in March to widespread critical acclaim,"James" is told from the perspective of Jim, the escaped slave who joins Twain's protagonist Huckleberry Finn on his journey down the ...Read more

MIAMI — A search for a missing 15-year-old girl led to the unraveling of a man’s human trafficking operation out of a Brickell apartment complex, according to police.

On Wednesday, Miami Police officers were searching for a missing teen from Brevard County at 485 Brickell Ave. after security footage showed a girl resembling her with a man. ...Read more

WEST LIBERTY, Ky. — A grand jury returned a murder charge Thursday against a former Eastern Kentucky sheriff accused of shooting and killing a district judge in the judge’s courthouse office.

The indictment accuses Shawn “Mickey” Stines, then-sheriff of Letcher County, of shooting and killing Judge Kevin Mullins inside Mullins’ office...Read more

BOSTON — Boston Mayor Michelle Wu continues to be in the national spotlight after she vowed and doubled down that the city will not cooperate with federal immigration enforcement when President-elect Trump regains office.

“The Five” on Fox News spoke at length Wednesday about Wu and other elected officials who have said they will continue...Read more

PHILADELPHIA — Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said he was “shocked” by President-elect Donald Trump’s choice of anti-vaccine activist and former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to run the Department of Health and Human Services.

Calling Kennedy an “agent of ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas and FBI Director Christoper Wray declined to testify publicly at a Senate committee hearing Thursday on threats to the nation, drawing a rare bipartisan rebuke from members who had to cancel it at the last minute.

It was the second scuttled congressional hearing in as many days ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A federal grand jury in Los Angeles voted to indict Texas-based oil refiner Phillips 66 for allegedly dumped hundreds of thousands of gallons of industrial wastewater from its Carson refinery into the Los Angeles County sewer system and then failing to report it, according to a Thursday statement from the U.S. Department ...Read more

DETROIT — It's a good thing not just the early bird gets the worm.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at Detroit Metro Airport found live larvae of a rare fruit fly in a traveler's things earlier this year, officials said Thursday.

They said the grubs were among some fresh caper flowers found in the belongings of a traveler from ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Former Rep. Matt Gaetz dropped his bid to become President-elect Donald Trump’s next attorney general on Thursday, closing out a campaign that was dogged by sexual misconduct allegations and the specter of an unreleased ethics report.

With the Florida Republican’s withdrawal, the Senate will avoid what was shaping up to be a ...Read more

MIAMI — A 35-year-old man arrested Saturday while boarding a Chicago-to-Miami Amtrak train carried a Lankybox plushie toy, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figure — and a plan to kidnap a child from a Fort Lauderdale school, federal agents say.

Homeland Security Investigations agents say they had something, too — text messages as ...Read more

NEW YORK — A thorny thief swiped a gold-plated rose that was part of a 9/11 memorial display at a Midtown Manhattan church, cops said Thursday.

The rose was part of a commemorative display at the Church of St. Francis of Assisi on W. 31st St. near Seventh Ave. and down the block from Penn Station.

The crook entered the church around 2:30 p.m...Read more

The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants on Nov. 21, 2024, for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defense minister and one leading Hamas official. Those named in the action are accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity relating to the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by the Palestinian militant group and the ...Read more

Imagine you are a blue whale swimming up the California coast, as you do every spring. You are searching for krill in the Santa Barbara Channel, a zone that teems with fish, kelp forests, seagrass beds and other undersea life, but also vibrates with noise from ship traffic. Suddenly, the noise gets louder.

You start to make a slow, ...Read more

CHICAGO — In a stunning move, the Illinois Supreme Court on Thursday overturned the convictions of former “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett, finding that a special prosecutor’s decision to retry him for allegedly staging a hate crime against himself violated his rights after the Cook County state’s attorney’s office previously dropped ...Read more