BALTIMORE — The Defense Department ordered the National Guard Bureau federal agency last week to permanently close three Guard-run camps for at-risk teens, among them the Maryland National Guard Freestate Challenge Academy, to boost national defense spending, a bureau spokesperson said in an email to The Baltimore Sun.

Citing national defense...Read more

DENVER — U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet backed out of a weekend gubernatorial forum hosted by Colorado Muslims because he didn’t want to address questions about the war in the Gaza Strip, the event’s organizers said.

While a state senator backed up that account, Bennet’s campaign disputed the characterization on Tuesday.

For the Sunday event...Read more

Three weeks after Sophia Bassan’s mastectomy, she felt a stabbing pain beneath her right armpit. In the following months, painful shocks radiated through her chest and back. Her body became so sensitive that at times she couldn’t wear a shirt or lift a fork to her mouth.

Bassan slept sitting up because it hurt to lie down, and she would ...Read more

The Trump administration is quietly seeking unprecedented access to medical records for millions of federal workers and retirees, and their families.

A brief notice from the Office of Personnel Management could dramatically change which personally identifiable medical information the agency obtains, giving it the power to see prescriptions ...Read more

ORLANDO, Fla. — The largest alligator in Gatorland’s history has died.

Buddy, who measured about 13 feet, 8 inches long and weighed nearly half a ton, had been in failing health for a while, according to an announcement on Gatorland’s social media accounts. The animal was under veterinary care, the post said.

“He was on and off ...Read more

COLUMBIA, S.C. — A South Carolina Senate finance panel has adopted a proposal that freezes the state’s school voucher program at 10,000 students and suspends portions of the law that have been used to award taxpayer-funded scholarships to students educated at home.

The temporary measure grandfathers in roughly 1,000 home-educated students ...Read more

NEW YORK — Mayor Zohran Mamdani has an approval rating of 48%, with a majority of New Yorkers thinking the city is headed in right direction under his leadership, a poll by Marist University found Wednesday.

The poll comes as Mamdani is rounding out his first 100 days in office. Conducted over the last week in March, the Marist survey is the ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Federal prosecutors are seeking a 15-year prison sentence Wednesday for a woman known as the "Ketamine Queen" who provided the drugs that killed actor Matthew Perry.

Jasveen Sangha, who prosecutors said operated a high-volume drug trafficking business out of her North Hollywood home, pleaded guilty in September to one count of ...Read more

NEW YORK — Accused Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann admitted in a Long Island court Wednesday to murdering eight young women during a nearly two-decade spree — after adamantly denying the charges against him since he was arrested in 2023.

Heuermann, 62, pleaded guilty to slaying seven victims before State Supreme Court Justice ...Read more

Two men accused of failing to follow a police order to leave a high-profile pro-Palestinian protest at the University of California, Irvine were acquitted of criminal charges Tuesday, and a mistrial was declared for a third man after the trio became the first of dozens of protesters to take their controversial cases to trial.

After deliberating...Read more

BOSTON — A Jamaican national connected to a massive cargo-theft scheme that hit Massachusetts has been indicted for allegedly stealing nearly 34,000 pounds of frozen snow crabs from a Worcester storage warehouse.

Romoy Forbes, 31, of Deer Park, New York, is facing the courts for his alleged spree of thefts that the feds say involved other ...Read more

NORFOLK, Va. — Former Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin leveled sharp criticism against his successor, Gov. Abigail Spanberger, and called the April 21 redistricting referendum she’s championed “illegal and unconstitutional” during a recent appearance on Fox News host Sean Hannity’s podcast.

Youngkin again dodged questions about a future ...Read more

AMMAN, Jordan — As the 11th-hour ceasefire agreement between the U.S. and Iran came into effect on Wednesday, Middle East governments welcomed the cessation of hostilities even as Israel continued to pound wide swaths of Lebanon.

Regional countries are breathing a sigh of relief after Washington and Tehran announced Tuesday night that they ...Read more

Bond traders boosted wagers that the Federal Reserve will lower interest rates this year as a U.S.-Iran ceasefire sent oil tumbling.

Treasuries rallied along with other government debt markets, paring losses since the war began Feb. 28. The energy price surge it caused threatened to stoke inflation and cause central banks either to delay ...Read more

The U.S. and Iran said they are prepared to hold talks to end the war in the Middle East during a proposed two-week pause in hostilities, even as Israeli strikes on Lebanon threatened to derail the fragile truce.

Further adding uncertainty, sporadic fighting continued throughout the region and the Strait of Hormuz remained largely blocked. ...Read more

NEW YORK — Accused Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann admitted in a Long Island court Wednesday to murdering eight young women during a nearly two-decade spree — after adamantly denying the charges against him since he was arrested in 2023.

Heuermann, 62, pleaded guilty to slaying the eight victims before State Supreme Court Justice ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — When she ran for mayor four years ago, Karen Bass said she wanted to regrow the Los Angeles Police Department to the 9,500-officer force it was before the ranks began to shrink. Now up for reelection — and facing a budget crunch — Bass says her plan has shifted.

The aim going forward, she told The Times in a recent interview...Read more

MIAMI — A Haitian immigrant has confessed to fatally beating a woman to death with a hammer last week at the Fort Myers convenience store where she worked, according to police and court records. Rolbert Joachin is now facing murder charges in Lee County.

The case has become the latest flashpoint in immigration politics because Joachin had ...Read more

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Three years after Illinois passed a sweeping assault weapons ban in the wake of Highland Park’s Fourth of July mass shooting, state lawmakers are weighing another measure aimed at the firearms industry: requiring some gun manufacturers to redesign pistols so they can’t be easily converted into automatic weapons.

The ...Read more