SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Jill Friday said her Spanish language classrooms at Southeast High School in Springfield last year often felt like student living rooms, with kids scrolling on their phones, taking calls from family members and listening to music on headphones.

After weeks of tripping on phone chargers snaking around chairs, Friday ...Read more

LEXINGTON, Ky. — Kentucky’s public universities routinely violate open records law, which guarantees the access and open examination of public records, a Lexington Herald-Leader analysis has found.

The Herald-Leader examined 12 years of open records and open meetings appeals filed with the attorney general’s office, reviewing 156 appeals ...Read more

ATLANTA — Gov. Brian Kemp’s legislation seeking to overhaul Georgia’s civil litigation system would impact nearly every industry in the state. That includes health care, which has been facing access, finance and quality challenges, especially in rural areas.

One section of the bill impacts the kinds of lawsuits medical patients can bring ...Read more

For years, teachers and parents at a Liberty, Missouri, elementary school have worried that something in and around their campus may be making people sick, leading to a high number of cancer diagnoses.

That fear — which initially arose after at least six staff members developed breast cancer from 2013 to 2022 — has only intensified after a ...Read more

National Institutes of Health officials have urged scientists to remove all references to mRNA vaccine technology from their grant applications, two researchers said, in a move that signaled the agency might abandon a promising field of medical research.

The mRNA technology is under study at the NIH for prevention and treatment of infectious ...Read more

Linda Bernardi spent four years building her Malibu dream home, putting the finishing touches on the coastal Sunset Mesa estate late last year.

On Jan. 7, she watched it burn to the ground.

“I absolutely knew I would never live in L.A. again,” she said.

The days and weeks after the devastating Palisades and Eaton fires saw mass migration ...Read more

DENVER — Colorado could take a more proactive and permanent role in managing the wild horse herds that roam the Western Slope under a bill in the state legislature.

Advocates hope House Bill 1283 will make the state a model for cooperative management of the charismatic and controversial species. It would permanently give the Colorado ...Read more

President Donald Trump’s health officials want you to take your vitamins.

Mehmet Oz, the nominee to lead the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, has fed calves on camera to tout the health wonders of bovine colostrum on behalf of one purveyor in which he has a financial stake. Janette Nesheiwat, the potential surgeon general, sells her ...Read more

Capital One Financial Corp. and Discover Financial Services shares fell after a report that staff at the US Department of Justice had concerns about their $35 billion merger.

Discover slid as much as 12.5%, the most since July 2023, while Capital One shares dropped as much as 7%. Traders attributed the decline to a report by The Capitol Forum ...Read more

CHICAGO — The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement unlawfully arrested and violated the rights of 21 immigrants and a U.S. citizen during raids in the Chicago area and other Midwestern states during the first days of the second Trump administration, advocates and attorneys said Monday.

The National Immigrant Justice Center and the ...Read more

Hundreds of former federal employees have applied for vacancies in Pennsylvania's state government since Gov. Josh Shapiro signed an executive order two weeks ago giving them hiring preference for state jobs amid firings and layoffs across the federal workforce.

As of Monday, the commonwealth has received approximately 1,100 applications from ...Read more

U.S. President Donald Trump said he would look to counter China’s economic advantage from coal-based electricity by authorizing his administration to ramp up production of energy from the fossil fuel.

“I am authorizing my Administration to immediately begin producing Energy with BEAUTIFUL, CLEAN COAL,” Trump wrote in a social media post. ...Read more

President Donald Trump picked Federal Reserve Governor Michelle Bowman to serve as the central bank’s vice chair for supervision, a move cheered by Wall Street banks and smaller lenders who expect she’ll be friendlier to the industry.

“Miki has been serving honorably on the Fed’s Board of Governors since 2018, and has great expertise ...Read more

President Trump said Monday that he was stripping former President Joe Biden’s children of their Secret Service protection.

“Please be advised that, effective immediately, Hunter Biden will no longer receive Secret Service protection,” Trump posted on his Truth Social media site. “Likewise, Ashley Biden who has 13 agents will be taken ...Read more

China held new military exercises around Taiwan, linking them to recent U.S. moves backing the self-ruled archipelago.

A total of 42 aircraft crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait on Monday, the Ministry of National Defense in Taipei said in statements. The planes entered sensitive zones around the main island and trained with naval ...Read more

Venezuela will do “whatever it takes” to free hundreds of its citizens deported by the U.S. to a notorious prison in El Salvador, according to National Assembly leader Jorge Rodríguez.

“We will resort to all countries and bilateral relations, legal strategies,” Rodríguez said in a press conference on Monday. “We will even talk to ...Read more