WASHINGTON — The Trump administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court to let Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency have access to sensitive Social Security information, escalating a privacy fight that could affect millions of people.

The administration is challenging a federal trial judge’s order blocking DOGE from having full ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — The State Bar of California announced Friday that its beleaguered leader, who has faced growing pressure to resign over the botched February roll out of a new bar exam, will step down in July.

Leah T. Wilson, the agency’s executive director, informed the Board of Trustees she will not seek another term in the position she has ...Read more

SEATTLE — Employees at Mt. Rainier Scenic Railroad are reeling after a fire destroyed one of the railroad’s biggest bridges late Wednesday night.

According to a Thursday morning Facebook post, a fire on the 28-span bridge between Mineral and Morton was reported at about 6:40 p.m. Wednesday.

Regular excursions are still up and running, the ...Read more

CHICAGO — George Homer Ryan served one term as Illinois governor, his scandal-clouded tenure and subsequent imprisonment on federal corruption charges overshadowing a nationally historic move to halt the state’s death penalty and empty its Death Row amid concerns of widespread misconduct in capital cases.

Ryan, a Republican whose 35-year ...Read more

DEDHAM, Mass. — Members of an extended Canton family the Karen Read defense team has suggested colluded to frame their client were listening in on formal police interviews and commenting on them, according to text messages newly unveiled in the retrial.

“Kerry (Roberts) talked to cops and kept (it) simple,” Jennifer McCabe texted her ...Read more

CHICAGO — President Donald Trump’s administration has filed a lawsuit alleging the state of Illinois is undermining federal immigration laws with a measure passed by the General Assembly last year aimed at protecting the privacy of workers who are non-U.S. citizens.

The lawsuit is the latest challenge to Illinois’ progressive immigration ...Read more

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier says he will not tell state law enforcement agencies to obey a federal court order halting immigration arrests under a new state law even as the judge who issued the order threatens to hold him in contempt of court.

In a statement issued to Fox News on Friday, Uthmeier said that he ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The White House made official Friday that President Donald Trump wants the first ever $1 trillion defense budget.

Yet Trump will not be able to increase defense spending at all above current levels — in fact it would decrease after accounting for inflation — unless a narrowly divided Congress sends him a reconciliation bill ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Friday called for cutting discretionary health spending by about 26% in fiscal 2026 and slashing medical research, public health and support service programs.

The White House’s “skinny budget” request, released by the Office of Management and Budget, seeks $93.8 billion for the Department of ...Read more

NEW YORK — New York lawmakers are brokering a deal that would delay and weaken educational requirements for religious schools — a major setback for yeshiva reform advocates who believe all students should receive some secular instruction, The New York Daily News has learned.

The plan is to include the changes in the next state budget, which...Read more

A federal grand jury in California has returned a new indictment against Chicago rapper Lil Durk that removes allegations that his lyrics referenced the August 2022 murder of a rival in Los Angeles but adds a new stalking count.

The second superseding indictment comes as lawyers for Lil Durk, whose real name is Durk Davontay Banks, are ...Read more

James B. Milliken, the chancellor of the University of Texas who has led among the nation’s largest higher education systems and navigated GOP politics, has been named the next president of the University of California.

His appointment, announced Friday afternoon by the UC Board of Regents, comes at a tense time for the state’s vaunted ...Read more

President Donald Trump issued a late-night executive order Thursday calling for an end to government dollars for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the taxpayer-backed entity that provides funding to public media outlets the president described as "left wing propaganda."

But Trump's ongoing effort to cut federal funding of public media ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Four Democratic members of Congress removed their names as original co-sponsors of the articles of impeachment that Michigan U.S. Rep. Shri Thanedar introduced this week targeting President Donald Trump.

The lawmakers' offices indicated that Thanedar's staff had not followed up with their bosses to confirm that they wanted to be ...Read more

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Gov. Ron DeSantis and first lady Casey DeSantis led a news conference in Tallahassee on April 1 to announce that trained Hope Florida liaisons were in every sheriff’s office.

The DeSantises, flanked by uniformed sheriffs and deputies in the state Capitol, touted the liaisons as dedicated conduits between the program and ...Read more

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — On the last scheduled day of Florida’s regular legislative session, lawmakers passed a Gov. Ron DeSantis priority to change the state’s ballot initiative process.

The measure passed by the Legislature didn’t go as far as DeSantis’ office wanted. But opponents of the bill said it would still make it difficult for ...Read more

Newly released video shows Kilmar Abrego Garcia interacting with Tennessee state troopers during a traffic stop back in 2022, an incident the Trump administration has used to justify his deportation from the United States to a notorious prison in El Salvador.

Abrego Garcia was driving from Texas to Maryland when he was stopped for speeding on ...Read more

The FDA has rehired at least some workers tasked with releasing public records generated by the agency’s regulatory activities, two employees said. The recall reverses firings carried out roughly a month ago by the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the agency.

Workers who process records about medical device and tobacco ...Read more

For decades, an “extremely rare” fossil sat unidentified in Japan’s Museum of Unique Insect Fossils.

Discovered in 1988 in Hyogo Prefecture, the imprint of a large butterfly wing and body is now confirmed to belong to an extinct species that’s new to science, according to a May 2 study published in the journal Paleontological Research. ...Read more