CHICAGO — As Chicago launches into months of winter weather, few items are more valuable than a warm coat.

Yet nonprofits and community organizations that run winter coat drives say they are facing a serious shortage of donations this year as they try to help homeless and low-income Chicagoans weather the cold.

Charities across Chicagoland ...Read more

BALTIMORE — Business leaders praised an executive order signed by Gov. Wes Moore last week in an effort to bump Maryland’s economic growth while state officials face a $3 billion budget shortfall.

Moore signed the order, which establishes multiple initiatives seeking to make the state more friendly to business development, at a Friday ...Read more

NEW YORK — Luigi Mangione pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and terror offenses in Manhattan Supreme Court Monday stemming from the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

Wearing a burgundy sweater, white collared shirt, and khaki pants, a handcuffed Mangione, 26, entered his first formal plea to charges linked to the ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Ex-Rep. Matt Gaetz allegedly paid for sex with a 17-year-old girl and bought and used illegal drugs during more than 20 parties with female escorts, a congressional report said Monday.

A final report from the House Ethics Committee accuses the former Florida lawmaker, who was briefly nominated to be President-elect Trump’s ...Read more

ORLANDO, Fla. — Lauren Korniyenko was devastated when her 70-year-old mother died in a Brevard County hospital two days after hip surgery. Her anguish worsened with a subsequent discovery: Florida law essentially blocked her from suing doctors and the hospital alleging shoddy medical care.

Now, she’s part of a network of families pushing to...Read more

DETROIT — The Fitzgerald Public Schools superintendent and food services director were allegedly smoking marijuana in a car near Fitzgerald High School and both were arrested for driving under the influence and processing marijuana on school grounds, according to Macomb County prosecutors.

Superintendent Hollie Stange, 38, and Food Services ...Read more

Three years ago, on Dec. 30, 2021, a wind-driven wildfire raced through two communities just outside Boulder, Colorado. In the span of about eight hours, more than 1,000 homes and businesses burned.

The fire left entire blocks in ash, but among them, pockets of houses survived, seemingly untouched. The owners of these homes may have ...Read more

BALTIMORE — The state is staring down a $3 billion budget deficit, which is likely to overtake the majority of conversations when the Maryland General Assembly convenes on Jan. 8 for the 2025 legislative session.

Lawmakers will hunker down for 90 days of tough conversations to decide where to make cuts, collect revenue or find other solutions...Read more

DENVER — Two new short-term safehouses set to open in metro Denver in early 2025 will be the only facilities in the state to offer emergency shelter beds reserved for survivors of sex trafficking.

One of those safehouses, operated by HER Campaign, is expected to open in January, while a second, run by Covered Colorado, plans to open in March....Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Hundreds of thousands of Californians could get additional benefits from Social Security under legislation passed by the Senate last week.

Among those who could get help are teachers, firefighters, state, county, city and district employees. They’re people who paid into the Social Security system when working in ...Read more

NEW YORK — Luigi Mangione pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and terror offenses in Manhattan Supreme Court Monday stemming from the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

Wearing a burgundy sweater, white collared shirt, and khaki pants, a handcuffed Mangione, 26, entered his first formal plea to charges linked to the ...Read more

Donald Trump hinted he still wants to buy Greenland, a self-ruling territory of Denmark, saying that U.S. ownership and control of the island is an “absolute necessity” for national security.

The U.S. President-elect reopened a debate from 2019, when he offered to buy what is the world’s biggest island, a proposal that was quickly ...Read more

French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou is running out of time to meet his self-imposed deadline to name a new cabinet that won’t be quickly toppled by a no-confidence vote in parliament.

A new team was widely expected to be unveiled over the weekend after Bayrou said last week he and President Emmanuel Macron would finalize their choice ...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden announced early Monday that he was commuting the death sentences of 37 federal inmates, preventing incoming President Donald Trump from carrying out their executions. The list includes two men sentenced to death for murders committed in Georgia.

Anthony George Battle was convicted by an Atlanta jury of the Dec...Read more

Donald Trump hinted he still wants to buy Greenland, a self-ruling territory of Denmark, saying that U.S. ownership and control of the island is an “absolute necessity” for national security.

The U.S. President-elect reopened a debate from 2019, when he offered to buy what is the world’s biggest island, a proposal that was quickly ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — After several years of decline, California's population grew by almost a quarter of a million residents in 2024, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, a rebound that brings the Golden State almost back to its pre-pandemic numbers.

The numbers are not all rosy. California experienced a slower growth rate than the country as a ...Read more

NEW YORK — Police arrested a man who allegedly lit a sleeping homeless woman on fire in a Brooklyn subway car Sunday morning, then watched calmly as she burned to death, NYPD officials said.

Chilling video obtained by the Daily News shows the woman standing near the door of a stopped subway car at the Coney-Island-Stillwell Ave. station, her ...Read more

Many of President-elect Donald Trump’s candidates for federal health agencies have promoted policies and goals that put them at odds with one another or with Trump’s choice to run the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., setting the stage for internal friction over public health initiatives.

The picks hold ...Read more