DETROIT — In the weeks before Rachel Timmerman’s murder in 1997, she warned police and prosecutors that Marvin Gabrion would kill her to stop the 19-year-old from testifying that she’d been raped by Gabrion.

Her mother and others in the Newaygo County community echoed the same concerns during the 1997 case. And their warnings proved ...Read more

ATLANTA — Georgia Republicans can subpoena Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis about her romantic relationship with Nathan Wade, the outside attorney she hired to lead her 2020 election interference case against former and future President Donald Trump and his allies, a judge has ruled.

The decision by Fulton County Superior Court ...Read more

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier dissolved parliament and set the country’s snap election for Feb. 23, formally endorsing a timetable proposed by Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

Scholz, of the center-left Social Democrats, ended his three-party alliance with the Greens and Free Democrats last month, when he sacked FDP Finance Minister ...Read more

South Korea’s parliament impeached Acting President Han Duck-soo, dealing another blow to a government already reeling after President Yoon Suk Yeol’s suspension less than two weeks ago for his brief martial law decree.

Lawmakers voted 192-0 in favor of Prime Minister Han’s impeachment on Friday, according to National Assembly Speaker Woo...Read more

The coming 12 months can’t promise the bumper crop of elections we saw during 2024, when countries home to about half the world’s population headed to the polls. Still, voters will cast ballots in several important elections throughout the year – and many of the themes persist: the impact of inflation, the rise of the populist right and...Read more

Habiba Mohamed was working at a restaurant that served government soldiers in Somalia when al-Shabab insurgents began threatening her to stop. The terrorist group attacked the establishment, killing some of her coworkers, and Mohamed fled to a refugee camp in Uganda in 2018.

Her mother went into hiding in another part of Somalia after the ...Read more

The U.S. House of Representatives will decide Jan. 3 whether to re-elect Speaker Mike Johnson to the top GOP job after he faced a contentious vote to avert a government shutdown at the last minute just before the holidays, leaving some Republicans skeptical of his prospects.

All of Minnesota’s four Republican members of Congress say they plan...Read more

WASHINGTON — Death penalty opponents on Thursday launched a new effort to spare Pittsburgh synagogue shooter Robert Bowers and two others remaining on death row from being executed.

Death Penalty Action submitted a letter to the White House signed by almost 450 organizations, asking President Joe Biden to commute the sentences of the three ...Read more

As he assembles his team for a second term, President-elect Donald Trump is entitled to some latitude, even for his more unconventional picks. Yet not all executive-branch positions are created equal. Senate Republicans should be willing to draw a line when it comes to national security.

Of particular concern are the nation’s intelligence ...Read more

News that President-elect Donald Trump’s team wants to hack away at the forbidding tangle of U.S. bank regulation is welcome in the abstract. In practice, though, much will depend on the details. The goal should be simplifying financial oversight more broadly — not just defanging a tough watchdog.

No doubt, the current system is unwieldy. ...Read more

President-elect Donald Trump wants a Miami-Dade County commissioner to serve as ambassador to Panama. The nomination comes as Trump is threatening to retake control of the Panama Canal over fees charged U.S. ships in the waterway.

Commissioner Kevin Cabrera, a Republican who won his county election two years ago after an endorsement by Trump, ...Read more

The soon-to-be 47th president of the United States wished almost everyone a Merry Christmas on Wednesday, even the “Radical Left Lunatics” and the “wonderful soldiers of China.”

Presidents and politicians have delivered holiday well wishes for decades — former President Calvin Coolidge issued the first official greeting in 1927 — ...Read more

PHILADELPHIA — President Joe Biden signed a bill this week aimed at preventing hazing on college campuses and building transparency around hazing incidents — the first federal law of its kind.

Though most states have enacted laws aimed at curbing hazing with tougher penalties or some sort of public reporting system, the rules are uneven. ...Read more

Anyone who has undergone IVF will tell you that the process can be daunting. It involves weeks of mood-altering, bloat-inducing hormone injections to retrieve eggs so they can be fertilized in a lab before being implanted. That’s followed by weeks of holding your breath to find out if all the discomfort, anxiety and many thousands of dollars ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Lingering ill will among House Republicans after another messy spending fight could complicate Speaker Mike Johnson’s bid to retain the House gavel — and potentially the Jan. 6 formalizing of Donald Trump’s election victory.

As president of the Senate, Vice President Kamala Harris would be the presiding officer during a ...Read more

U.S. Rep. Chris Deluzio, D-Aspinwall, and Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., plan to press the next Congress to invest up to $200 billion in passenger and freight rail overhauls across the country over the next five years, including tens of billions of dollars in safety improvements that Mr. Deluzio says are critical for Western Pennsylvania.

The pair is...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Two San Fernando Valley men, who were sentenced to death over a decade ago for killing five people, had their sentences commuted to life in prison on Monday by President Joe Biden.

In 2007, Iouri Mikhel and Jurijus Kadamovas were sentenced to death after they were convicted of murdering five people in a kidnapping-for-ransom ...Read more

Former national security adviser John Bolton warned Tuesday that there is a “much higher chance” of a major international crisis in the upcoming second administration of President-elect Donald Trump.

The prominent foreign policy hawk said Trump’s lack of focus and inability to stick to policy decisions could trigger an overseas disaster. ...Read more