Iran said it’s “time to decide” ahead of Friday’s nuclear talks with the U.S., with the main sticking point being whether Tehran will be able to continue enriching uranium.

The first four rounds of talks, mediated by Oman, have broadly gone well, according to both U.S. and Iranian officials. But Iran insists that any deal must enable it...Read more

NEW YORK — After the first week of Sean “Diddy” Combs’ federal trial was full of graphic and shocking testimony from Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, the second week saw prosecutors call several witnesses who backed up her accounts.

Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty to sex trafficking and racketeering charges. The feds are attempting to ...Read more

South Korean presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung saw his lead in the election campaign narrow sharply in the latest opinion poll released Friday as the conservative ruling party’s Kim Moon-soo made up ground after their first TV debate.

The opposition Democratic Party nominee Lee had the backing of about 45% in a Gallup Korea poll conducted ...Read more

PASADENA, Calif. — A crew of 10, many sporting bright orange National Day Laborer Organizing Network T-shirts, funneled out of a Mexican restaurant on the edge of the Eaton burn scar.

Four months — to the day — after winds smashed a tree into a car next to NDLON’s Pasadena Community Job Center and soot blanketed the neighborhood, a ...Read more

PHILADELPHIA -- Pamela Albright walked into Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia shortly before 1 p.m. on April 29, keeping her appointment for presurgery testing.

At the registration area she was directed to a check-in cubicle, where a worker asked her a series of questions, all of them routine, Albright said, until this one:

“Are you...Read more

Since President Donald Trump released his 2026 budget blueprint in early May, calling for $163 billion in federal spending cuts, much of the attention has focused on his slashing of foreign aid and boosting of border security. But the proposal also holds important clues — amid some mixed messages — about the administration’s approach to ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Several nonprofits are competing to redevelop the “People’s Way,” a defunct Speedway gas station that serves as the protest headquarters of George Floyd Square.

Whoever is chosen will exert tremendous influence over the direction of the entire fractious intersection, which is still viewed worldwide as a barometer of how ...Read more

DETROIT — Supporters of ranked choice voting — a system that would overhaul how elections are won and lost in Michigan — are hoping to gather petition signatures in the coming months and put a proposal on the ballot to amend the state Constitution in November 2026.

Pat Zabawa, executive director of the group Rank MI Vote, told The Detroit...Read more

Mauricio Claver-Carone, the Cuba and Venezuela hard-liner tapped as special envoy for Latin America, will leave his position by the end of May, leaving Secretary of State Marco Rubio with some policy wins but without an important ally to navigate the Trump administration.

As a former Western Hemisphere director at the National Security Council ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles City Council signed off on a $14-billion spending plan for 2025-26 on Thursday, scaling back Mayor Karen Bass’ public safety initiatives as they attempted to spare 1,000 city workers from layoffs.

Faced with a nearly $1-billion budget shortfall, the council voted 12 to 3 for a plan that would cut funding for ...Read more

SPRINGFIELD — Illinois lawmakers advanced a measure that would eliminate mandatory road testing for drivers under 87 and allow people to report close relatives they believe are no longer capable of driving safely.

The bill, championed by Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias, sailed through the Senate on Thursday by a 57-0 vote after passing ...Read more

CHICAGO — Eight months after a Cook County judge found Trump Tower repeatedly violated clean water laws, the president’s business operators agreed Thursday to pay $4.8 million to settle lawsuits alleging the skyscraper’s cooling system killed untold numbers of fish in the Chicago River.

The glass-and-steel tower, emblazoned with a sign ...Read more

SAN DIEGO — A small plane crashed in dense fog in a Murphy Canyon neighborhood early Thursday morning, presumably killing all six people onboard, injuring eight people on the ground and burning several cars and homes in military housing.

The plane, a Cessna 550, crashed east of Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport around 3:45 a.m., according to...Read more

Beijing and Washington continued high-level contact with a Thursday call between senior officials, a sign that the two sides are maintaining active communications following their trade truce earlier this month.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau and China’s Executive Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu discussed a wide range of ...Read more

South Korea said there have been no discussions with the U.S. over a possible pullback of American troops stationed in the country, after a media report said Washington is reviewing a proposal to withdraw some of its forces.

The proposal could result in the removal of about 4,500 American troops based in South Korea, the Wall Street Journal ...Read more

LANSING, Mich. — The Republican-controlled Michigan House voted Thursday to hold Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson in contempt of the chamber and authorize litigation against her office after Benson failed to comply fully with a subpoena seeking election training materials for training clerks.

Benson has argued over the past ...Read more

A Norco man has been convicted of purposefully igniting the Line fire that scorched some 44,000 acres of the San Bernardino Mountains and injured six firefighters, authorities said.

On Thursday, 35-year-old Justin Halstenberg was found guilty of seven counts related to the Line fire and two counts related to a subsequent blaze, according to the...Read more