SEATTLE — Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson announced several actions Thursday to help residents worried and affected by immigration enforcement activity, as well as prepare the city for a possible surge by federal officers.

Her orders focused on creating a community hotline, disseminating $4 million for local immigrant support organizations, ...Read more

Two years after the DeSantis administration steered $10 million from a Medicaid settlement to a political campaign, the House Republican who followed the money is pushing legislation to stop future administrations from doing something similar.

State Rep. Alex Andrade’s bill, HB 593, was passed unanimously Thursday afternoon by the House ...Read more

BALTIMORE — Shortly after defending redistricting efforts in a House committee hearing earlier this week, Gov. Wes Moore in a social media post accused Republicans of trying to wipe out Black leadership across the country. But before the day ended, he scrapped that pointed language from his post in exchange for a more general statement saying ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — White House border czar Tom Homan said Thursday that a plan is in the works to reduce the number of federal agents in the area, after conversations with numerous political and law enforcement leaders in Minnesota.

That drawdown, Homan added, will require the cooperation of Minnesota law enforcement and political leaders with ICE...Read more

President Trump’s border policy adviser, Tom Homan, said Thursday that federal authorities would wind down immigration crackdowns in Minnesota only if agents were given access to jails to seize undocumented immigrants for deportation.

Speaking to reporters publicly for the first time since arriving Minnesota on Monday after Border Patrol ...Read more

PALO ALTO, Calif. — Prosecutors and defense attorneys presented closing arguments this week in the trial of five pro-Palestine activists accused of felony vandalism at Stanford University’s executive offices, with defense attorneys arguing that prosecutors failed to prove the charge.

The trial is nearing its conclusion three weeks after it ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — A Waymo self-driving taxi recently struck a child near a Santa Monica elementary school during drop-off hours, triggering an investigation into the incident by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The child sustained minor injuries, Waymo said. After being struck, the child stood up and walked to the sidewalk, ...Read more

MIAMI — Blocked roads and heavy traffic plagued Miami on Wednesday when Vice President JD Vance came to town for a Miami Beach private event. One Miami man decided police checkpoints erected to protect the VP weren’t going to stop him, landing him in handcuffs, police say.

Tobias Gonzalez Garcia, 29, is facing charges of resisting an ...Read more

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The Florida Attorney General’s Office said it is expanding its investigation into petition fraud and is asking local elections officials to hand over more documents related to a proposed recreational marijuana amendment — days ahead of the final deadline for signatures to be verified.

Statewide prosecutor Brad McVay on...Read more

California Democrats have assumed leading roles in their party’s counteroffensive to the Trump administration’s massive immigration crackdown — seizing on a growing sense, shared by some Republicans, that the campaign has gotten so out of hand that the political winds have shifted heavily in their favor.

They stalled Department of ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The arrival of a U.S aircraft-carrier strike group in the Middle East has given President Donald Trump new, more forceful options to carry out his threats to attack Iran, but the choices carry serious risks of retaliation from Tehran.

At the same time, Trump’s shifting messages about his goals — removing Iran’s leaders, ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — In January, promotional posters for "Melania," a documentary film about the first lady, were installed at bus stops across Los Angeles.

But soon, the posters began to accumulate graffiti, photos show: devil horns scribbled atop her head, a Hitler-style mustache and scrawled expletives referring to her husband's association with ...Read more

Hundreds of organizations from across the country are staging a nationwide economic shutdown on Friday to protest the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement policies and demand an end to ICE operations.

Activists are calling for a day of “no work, no school (and) no shopping” in response to the fatal shootings of at least four ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles police solved more than two thirds of all homicides citywide in 2025, a year that ended with the fewest number of slayings in six decades, according to statistics presented by local authorities on Thursday.

Of the 230 homicides logged in areas patrolled by the LAPD, officials said that 156, or 68%, were considered ...Read more

WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump said he had successfully appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin to halt the bombing of cities and towns in Ukraine as the country prepares for an extreme cold snap.

“I personally asked President Putin not to fire into Kyiv and the various towns for a week, and he agreed to do that,” Trump ...Read more

BOISE, Idaho — For years, the city of Sandpoint in Idaho’s Panhandle had an ordinance that said everyone could enjoy the “full benefits of citizenship” and equal opportunity “regardless of sexual orientation” or “gender identity/expression.”

The city defined the latter term as a “gender-related identity, appearance, expression...Read more

WASHINGTON — Thom Tillis has always said that he hates the camera. Then he announced his retirement last year.

Now, the moderate Republican from North Carolina cannot stop making headlines.

In a fiery floor speech earlier this year, Tillis said he was leaving the Senate to remove himself from any “boundaries I should have in expressing my ...Read more

NEW YORK — Mayor Zohran Mamdani upped the ante in a simmering showdown with Gov. Kathy Hochul on Thursday, threatening budget cuts if she does not move forward with his plan to raise taxes on wealthy New Yorkers or fork over to the city a larger share of state money.

If Hochul doesn’t grant any of those asks, then “all it leaves the city ...Read more

HARTFORD, Conn. — School officials in Fairfield canceled a planned visit by U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon after the district said there was pushback from parents about her visit.

McMahon, a Connecticut resident, was scheduled to visit McKinley Elementary School on Friday morning as part of the U.S. Education Department’s “...Read more