When a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman was arrested by Iran’s “morality police” for not wearing her head scarf in the manner required by the regime, human rights advocates were right to fear the worst. The Iranian government later claimed Mahsa (Zhina) Amini suffered a fatal heart attack, but witnesses alleged she was beaten unconscious ...Read more

The U.S. State Department urged Americans to leave countries across the Middle East, citing “serious safety risks” from the war with Iran.

The security update, posted Monday on X by Assistant Secretary of State for consular affairs Mora Namdar, told Americans to “depart now via commercial means.”

In a video posted on his own X account,...Read more

China’s next five-year plan set to be published this week will help dictate how fast the top polluter can cut greenhouse gas emissions and the extent of new support for clean technology sectors, policy settings that are critical to determining the world’s success in tackling climate change.

Policymakers gathering in Beijing from March 5 for...Read more

Congressional Democrats are vowing to contest the Trump administration’s unprecedented actions against the artificial intelligence giant Anthropic PBC, which include a prohibition on all use in the federal government and by Pentagon contractors.

Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, vowed to “pull out all ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court revived a San Diego judge's order Monday and said parents have a right to know about their child's gender identity at school.

The decision came in a 6-3 order granting an emergency appeal from lawyers for Chicago-based Thomas More Society.

They said the student privacy policy enforced in California infringes on...Read more

Minnesota House Speaker and gubernatorial candidate Lisa Demuth has been the target of increasingly threatening phone messages at her office from a woman who was undaunted even after law enforcement confronted her, according to charges.

The felony case filed on Feb. 26 in Washington County District Court against Rachel Marie Welsch, 42, of Hugo...Read more

A battered Jamaica, which saw widespread damage and destruction from a record-setting Hurricane Melissa four months ago, will soon transition from recovery to rebuilding, Prime Minister Andrew Holness said.

“We’re going to close the recovery stage and move into the reconstruction phase,” he told the Miami Herald. “The reconstruction ...Read more

A federal judge has ordered the U.S. government to bring back a wrongly deported man to the United States, delivering another blow in the courts to the Trump administration’s illegal immigration crackdown in Minnesota.

Emilio Pena Jimenez was taken to Juárez, Mexico, earlier this month despite two court orders for his release in Minnesota. ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Only a few months after opening Star Autism Center in St. Cloud, the business was billing millions of dollars in services.

But on Monday, March 2, its owner and founder Abdinajib Hassan Yussuf said the St. Cloud health care provider made up fraudulent claims to take advantage of one of the Minnesota social services programs now ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department is backing out from a court battle with four major law firms that won rulings blocking President Donald Trump’s executive orders against them.

The DOJ plans to drop its appeals of the rulings, according to three sources familiar with the situation. The Wall Street Journal first reported the move.

The ...Read more

SEATTLE — Thousands of Washington students walked out of school in February to protest increasing federal immigration enforcement, mirroring their peers speaking out across the nation. While hundreds of South King County and Seattle students have participated in peaceful demonstrations, a handful of students in Burien, Marysville, Everett, ...Read more

Avian influenza has now killed more than 10 million birds in Minnesota since 2022, as farmers and state officials continue to deal with a disease that just won’t stop.

The virus, highly pathogenic avian influenza, is no longer inflating egg prices at the grocery store like a year ago. But the virus is still hammering turkey flocks, ...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Monday refused to box himself in on how long U.S. military operations will last in Iran, saying the conflict in the Middle East could stretch a month or potentially “far longer” as he frames the mission as one that is necessary to eliminate a “colossal threat” to American interests.

“Whatever ...Read more

A Fairbanks lawmaker is pushing to overhaul Alaska's marijuana tax structure, as cultivators and retailers say the current structure is an "existential threat" to their business.

HB 91 would phase out the existing $50 per ounce tax levied on cultivators to replace it with a 6% sales tax paid by consumers, modeled after the "sin tax" in place ...Read more

Former President Bill Clinton told the House panel investigating Jeffrey Epstein that former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers introduced him to the disgraced financier after Clinton departed the White House.

The panel released video on Monday of its questioning of the former president and his wife, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton...Read more

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Monday urged the Supreme Court to limit the reach of the Second Amendment and deny gun rights to "habitual" users of drugs, including marijuana.

But most of the justices sounded skeptical. They questioned whether marijuana users are so dangerous they should not have firearms.

They noted too that ...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s war against Iran risks delivering another shock to an economy that voters are already disenchanted with, just eight months out from midterm elections.

The biggest domestic effects for Americans would likely arrive via more expensive gasoline, with the U.S. and Israel launching attacks just a few days ...Read more

DENVER — Colorado may have improperly paid more than $75 million to autism service providers and could be on the hook to return more than half that sum to the federal government, a new report found.

The Office of the Inspector General estimated the state’s Medicaid program overpaid $77.8 million for applied behavior analysis services in ...Read more