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Renée C. Byer/rbyer@sacbee.com/The Sacramento Bee/TNS

Sacramento's homeless rally against state senator's proposed agency

Current News / News & Features /

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — After overcoming homelessness, Kristy Smith became an advocate for others, designing tools to help Sacramento residents get off the street and into permanent shelter. A new bill would shut down her work.

Smith, along with 16 homeless and 15 formerly homeless people, signed a letter from the Sacramento Homeless Union last ...Read more

Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune/TNS

Long after the fuss over Pope Leo XIV, the village of Dolton will still be here

Current News / News & Features /

DOLTON, Ill. -- The village of Dolton, which is where you may find yourself if you’re traveling south through Chicago and run out of Chicago to travel through, which we have heard more about in the past 30 days or so than since it was established 130-odd years ago, which is now best known to the world as the hometown of Pope Leo XIV, is like a...Read more

Jan Sonnenmair/Getty Images North America/TNS

RFK Jr. is scaring parents into asking doctors for early shots

Current News / News & Features /

After Robert F. Kennedy Jr. became the nation’s top health official in February, pediatrician Jeff Couchman started getting a lot of questions from worried parents.

“They’d ask: ‘Are vaccines going to be available? Can we give my kid every possible shot today just to make sure?’” said Couchman, who practices at Mesquite Pediatrics ...Read more

Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times/TNS

Foreign, feral honeybees are crowding out native bee species in southern California

Current News / News & Features /

LOS ANGELES — You've probably heard the phrase: "Save the bees." But new research suggests we may need to be more specific about which bees we're saving.

Europeans introduced western honeybees (Apis mellifera L.) to the Americas in the early 1600s. They play an essential role in pollinating crops and flowering plants, and are often hailed as ...Read more

Carlos Flores/Getty Images North America/TNS

How 'El Diablo,' a corrupt Mexican lawman, helped create a narco-state

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MEXICO CITY — By his own admission, the Mexican lawman known as El Diablo — The Devil — supervised a scourge of torture, murder, kidnappings, land grabs and other abuses while amassing a fortune in cartel bribes that bankrolled purchases of homes, cattle and a fleet of buses.

Edgar Veytia's transgressions came while he was the top cop in ...Read more

STEPHEN DUNN/Hartford Courant/TNS

Connecticut wants to be a 'climate leader' by 2050. It's not going to be easy as temperatures rise

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Gov. Ned Lamont signed two landmark climate bills recently that set a goal for Connecticut to be carbon neutral by 2050 and to fortify the state’s infrastructure against severe weather, despite recent federal rollbacks that seek to dismantle nationwide carbon standards that have been in place for years, according to officials.

The new laws ...Read more

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images North America/TNS

Trump tariff 'blank check' must be curbed, appeals court told

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A group of small businesses that won an order finding President Donald Trump’s sweeping global tariffs illegal urged a federal appeals court to uphold that decision and block the trade levies.

The U.S. Court of International Trade ruled on May 28 that Trump exceeded his authority by imposing broad tariffs, a power granted to Congress in the ...Read more

Mehmet Eser/Middle East Images/AFP/Getty Images North America/TNS

Supreme Court OKs Trump's mass layoffs of federal employees across more than a dozen agencies

Current News / News & Features /

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court cleared the way Tuesday for the Trump administration to lay off tens of thousands of federal employees and downsize their agencies without seeking the approval of Congress.

In an 8-1 vote, the justices lifted an order from a federal judge in San Francisco who blocked mass layoffs at more than 20 departments and...Read more

Rescues underway amid New Mexico flash flooding emergency

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The National Weather Service declared a flash flooding emergency in New Mexico on Tuesday after rapid rainfall caused the waters of the Rio Ruidoso to surge over its banks, creating life-threatening conditions.

The NWS said multiple water rescues were underway in Ruidoso, saying that a father and two children had been swept away by rushing ...Read more

Ana Ramirez/The San Diego Union-Tribune/TNS

Another survey spotlights how the sewage crisis has affected the Tijuana River Valley's quality of life

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People who live, work or visit communities near the Tijuana River Valley, where untreated wastewater spills over from Mexico, attribute their worsening physical and mental health issues to the cross-border pollution, a federal survey about the sewage crisis found.

County public health officials on Tuesday released the findings on behalf of the ...Read more

TNS

Voter ID bills have the backing of both Mass. GOP gubernatorial candidates

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Identifying all voters at the ballot box with photo ID is a commonsense way to restore faith in the integrity of our electoral system, according to both of the leading GOP candidates for governor.

The Joint Committee on Election Laws heard a pair of bills Tuesday by State Sen. Peter Durant and state Rep. Donald Berthiaume, Jr., each of which ...Read more

Rebecca Villagracia/Minnesota Star Tribune/TNS

Shootings of Minnesota lawmakers lead to calls for metal detectors in Capitol building

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The targeted shootings of two Minnesota lawmakers have sparked discussion about whether more security is necessary to ensure safety in the relatively open State Capitol building, one of the few in the country that does not use metal detectors or X-rays.

Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark Hortman were killed and Sen. John Hoffman and his ...Read more

Karen Ducey/The Seattle Times/TNS

Seattle asks court to end 13 years of federal oversight of police

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The city of Seattle filed motions in U.S. District Court on Tuesday asking for the end of more than 13 years of federal oversight of the Seattle Police Department.

The Seattle Police Department "has achieved and sustained compliance with all requirements of the consent decree," the city wrote in motions filed with U.S. District Judge James ...Read more

Washington state drought deepens and the summer forecast offers no respite

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There’s more to these pleasant, sunny days in Seattle than meets the eye.

Yes, this is summer and it’s supposed to be hot and dry. But this year we’re much drier than normal and, fresh off major droughts in 2024 and 2023, the effects of these lingering dry spells is compounding.

You’re not in danger of losing food, water or electricity...Read more

Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images North America/TNS

Supreme Court OKs Trump's mass layoffs of federal employees across more than a dozen agencies

Current News / News & Features /

The Supreme Court cleared the way Tuesday for the Trump administration to lay off tens of thousands of federal employees and downsize their agencies without seeking the approval of Congress.

In an 8-1 vote, the justices lifted an order from a federal judge in San Francisco who blocked mass layoffs at more than 20 departments and agencies.

The ...Read more

Brandon Bell/Getty Images North America/TNS

No alerts heard in deadly Texas flash flood as over 160 still missing

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In the early hours of July 4, the only sound many of the vacationers along the banks of the Guadalupe River would have heard was pounding rain and thunder. They didn’t get any official warning of the rapidly rising waters that ultimately proved deadly to dozens of people swept away in central Texas flash floods.

Investigators sorting through ...Read more

Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/AFP/TNS

Trump says he's weighing a federal takeover of Washington, DC

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WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said his administration is weighing whether to take control of the city of Washington, D.C., to help combat crime, in a move that would represent a dramatic upheaval to the capital’s half-century of home rule.

“We could run D.C. I mean, we’re looking at D.C.,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting ...Read more

Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images North America/TNS

Lawmakers applaud resumption of US military aid to Ukraine

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Defense-minded lawmakers from both parties on Tuesday welcomed the news that the U.S. is resuming the delivery of military aid to Ukraine, following a pause that dismayed Kyiv and its Hill advocates alike.

The reactions came a day after President Donald Trump announced at the White House that the United States would send more “defensive ...Read more

Mark David Smith/Fort Worth Star-Telegram/TNS

What we know about Prairieland, the Texas ICE detention center where officers were ambushed on July 4

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Tensions over the federal government’s immigration agenda erupted into violence 25 miles from downtown Fort Worth, Texas, last week.

A group of 10 to 12 people ambushed corrections and police officers outside the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, on July 4, creating a distraction with fireworks and graffiti before firing upon ...Read more

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images North America/TNS

Trump says Powell should 'resign immediately' if he misled Congress

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President Donald Trump said Jerome Powell should “resign immediately” if allegations from an administration official that the Federal Reserve chair misled lawmakers prove true, while deepening his personal attacks against the head of the central bank over interest rate policy.

Trump, speaking in a Cabinet meeting Tuesday, called Powell “...Read more