BALTIMORE — With less than two weeks left in the energy-dominated 2026 legislative session, Maryland senators clashed for nearly four hours Thursday over whether to prioritize immediate utility relief or long-term investments to stabilize the power grid.

The partisan divide was on full display during debate over Senate Bill 841, the Senate’...Read more

Four cases of rape in Haiti involving members of the departing Kenya-led Multinational Security Support mission, including one involving a 12-year-old girl, have been investigated and corroborated, a United Nations report says.

The U.N. said it received the reports of sexual exploitation and abuse involving personnel from the Kenya-led anti-...Read more

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is closing all four of its Forest Service research and development facilities in Michigan as part of a massive restructuring effort, the federal agency announced this week.

The move could impact the health of Michigan's nearly 3 million acres of national forestland, a Michigan forestry researcher said. State ...Read more

BOISE, Idaho — The Department of Health and Welfare would be required to report the immigration status of people using state HIV prevention services under a proposed public health budget.

The move comes after Idaho lawmakers in 2025 passed a measure to prevent some immigrants from accessing services such as soup kitchens, prenatal care and ...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s effort to curtail mail voting through executive order will likely be ruled illegal in at least one of several lawsuits filed this week, experts said, the latest in the president’s long-running effort to assert federal control of elections.

Democratic party groups and civil rights organizations have ...Read more

DENVER — Lawyers for Gov. Jared Polis wrote to a Denver judge last month that the governor shouldn’t face a restrictive ruling that would limit how he could respond to subpoenas from federal immigration authorities.

Polis had attempted to fulfill a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement subpoena last year, only for the judge to tell him ...Read more

As loyal as she was to President Donald Trump, Pam Bondi apparently didn’t cut it as U.S. Attorney General after less than a year and a half on the job.

In a social media post on Thursday, Trump said nothing about why he let Bondi go as the nation’s top law enforcement official, instead praising her as a “Great American Patriot and a ...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump ousted Pamela Bondi as attorney general Thursday, closing out a tumultuous tenure punctuated by rolling controversies and attacks against the Justice Department’s traditional independence from the White House.

Trump, who made the announcement in a social media post, said his former personal attorney, ...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump issued fresh threats to Iranian infrastructure in an effort to pressure Tehran in negotiations, a day after his pledge to continue the war touched off global market and economic turmoil.

“The biggest bridge in Iran comes tumbling down, never to be used again — Much more to follow!” Trump posted to ...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump fired Pam Bondi as attorney general on Thursday, ending a tumultuous 14-month tenure marked by mass firings of career prosecutors, a bungled handling of Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking investigation and a string of investigations into the president’s political foes, including prominent California ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has asked Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George to step down, according to Pentagon officials, a move that comes after President Donald Trump warned of military escalation against Iran.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed an earlier report from CBS News, which cited people ...Read more

Mark McAfee is standing by his cheese.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has asked McAfee’s Fresno, California-based Raw Farm to voluntarily pull its unpasteurized cheese products from the market as the agency investigates an E. coli outbreak that has sickened nine people in three states — seven of them in California.

The U.S. Centers ...Read more

It had been 53 years, 3 months and 17 days since the Apollo 17 crew — the final moon landing mission — left lunar orbit, headed back to Earth and ended an era.

But a new era has finally begun with the Wednesday launch of the Artemis II mission from Kennedy Space Center, an event that will kickstart the agency’s plans to venture back to a ...Read more

ORLANDO, Fla. — A federal judge will decide whether to once again dismiss the wrongful death lawsuit against Charter Communications for the killing of Spectrum News 13 reporter Dylan Lyons, after a hearing Thursday in which she seemed skeptical of arguments to allow it to go forward.

The hearing took place after Senior District Judge Anne ...Read more

PHILADELPHIA — A sit-in to demand that Philadelphia Sheriff Rochelle Bilal act to help stop ICE arrests at the Criminal Justice Center turned chaotic Thursday, when deputies handcuffed and physically removed demonstrators from the foyer area outside the Sheriff’s Office.

They were escorted on elevators to the street-level floor, then loaded...Read more

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Thursday signed an executive directive that instructs state agencies to assess the impact of tariffs on Michigan industries and consumers and to aid businesses in seeking refunds from the federal government.

The order was signed on the one-year anniversary of Liberation Day, when President Donald Trump imposed wide-...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Trump fired Pam Bondi as attorney general on Thursday, ending a tumultuous 14-month tenure marked by mass firings of career prosecutors, a bungled handling of Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking investigation and a string of investigations into the president’s political foes, including prominent California Democrats. ...Read more

The Trump administration will impose tariffs of as much as 100% on certain imported medicines, albeit with several key exemptions, a maneuver to pressure drugmakers to manufacture more in the U.S.

The new levy, which President Donald Trump authorized on Thursday, applies to patented drugs made in countries that lack tariff deals with the U.S. ...Read more

When Artemis II took off from the Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday, it had one especially cute crew member aboard — "Rise," a stuffed toy created by an 8-year-old boy from California that will indicate for astronauts when they have reached weightlessness.

Lucas Ye, from Mountain View, won an international competition to design the toy, which...Read more