Maryland’s 2026 legislative session kicked off Wednesday, with senior Democrats doubling down on Gov. Wes Moore’s pledge that Marylanders shouldn’t and won’t face increased taxes during this session, despite a projected $1.4 billion budget deficit.

Moore has repeatedly pledged not to hike taxes and fees to wipe out the deficit, a stark ...Read more

Los Angeles law enforcement sources are shedding more light on Kiefer Sutherland’s most recent arrest after the “24” star allegedly threatened to kill his Uber driver this week.

The two-time Emmy winner, 59, was arrested for felony criminal threats just after midnight on Monday. He was released later that day on $50,000 bond and is due ...Read more

A man was shot in the leg Wednesday night during a federal immigration enforcement operation in north Minneapolis, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the situation.

Witnesses say a series of gunshots followed a car chase and foot chase involving federal agents.

In a post on X from the city of Minneapolis, staff said, “We are ...Read more

President Donald Trump faulted Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy as the main obstacle to an agreement to end the war Russia launched against his country four years ago.

Trump, in an interview with Reuters on Wednesday, described Russian President Vladimir Putin as “ready to make a deal,” Reuters reported. When pressed on what was ...Read more

The U.S. measles outbreak that drove cases to a 34-year high in 2025 shows no signs of slowing, as 168 more people have become infected since the start of the new year.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Wednesday that a total of 171 cases have been confirmed this year in nine states. On Tuesday, South Carolina reported ...Read more

WASHINGTON — A day after the Department of Health and Human Services implemented a late-night rollback of $2 billion in mental health and substance use funding, an administration official confirmed late Wednesday that the grants are now being restored.

The cancellation of Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration funding had ...Read more

Federal judges in the Western District of Washington plan to appoint a new U.S. attorney when the term of acting U.S. Attorney Charles Neil Floyd expires next month, setting in motion a potential clash with the Trump administration and Attorney General Pam Bondi.

Floyd, a controversial and tough-minded immigration judge, was appointed acting U....Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — The attorney for the family of Renee Good said that an ICE agent killed “the best of the best” when he shot the Minneapolis woman a few blocks from her home last week and pledged timely public transparency of the firm’s findings.

Anthony Romanucci arrived in Minneapolis on Jan. 14, hours after he disclosed that his Chicago...Read more

As a federal immigration enforcement surge continues in Minnesota, Gov. Tim Walz on Wednesday called on Minnesotans to peacefully resist the administration of President Donald Trump and to record videos of immigration agents operating in the state.

The governor delivered remarks on the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in an ...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump insisted he does not plan to fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell despite a Justice Department probe into the central bank’s renovation.

“I don’t have any plan to do that,” Trump said Wednesday in an interview with Reuters.

Still, the president said he had not arrived at a conclusion about ...Read more

The Florida Senate took a step Wednesday toward reforming the funding model for the state’s $4.3 billion school voucher system, unanimously adopting legislation aimed at fixing problems identified in a recent scathing Auditor General’s report.

Among other things, the measure would move voucher funding into a budget line that’s separate ...Read more

Mabelyn Hernandez-Diaz was still breastfeeding her 6-month-old son in September when Hillsborough County sheriff’s deputies approached the vehicle she and her boyfriend, the boy’s father, were sitting in while it was parked in front of a store in Wimauma.

Hernandez-Diaz, a 20-year-old immigrant from Guatemala, held her infant son Aiden ...Read more

Sixty-five percent of Chicagoans think the Trump administration’s recent federal immigration enforcement activities have “gone too far,” according to results from a survey commissioned by the Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation and conducted by NORC as part of the University of Chicago’s ChicagoSpeaks panel.

But Chicagoans were ...Read more

In a major victory for Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Democratic Party, a federal court in Los Angeles ruled Wednesday that California can use its newly configured congressional district boundaries for the 2026 midterm elections, increasing Democrats’ odds of winning five additional U.S. House seats and seizing control of the chamber.

Attorneys ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday rejected a request to extradite a California physician accused of providing abortion medication to a Louisiana patient, marking the latest clash between states with sharply different abortion laws following the U.S. Supreme Court's 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade.

"Louisiana's request ...Read more

A new state report warns that California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to close a projected $2.9 billion budget shortfall fails to confront what it calls “alarming” multibillion-dollar deficits looming in the years ahead.

“The Governor and administration officials have acknowledged the downside risk to the state’s revenue picture and the ...Read more

DENVER — Twelve months into President Donald Trump’s mass-deportation program, Democratic lawmakers in Colorado are preparing a three-pronged package of bills aimed at regulating immigration enforcement and the detention facilities where authorities hold immigrants — and further tightening a law that Gov. Jared Polis tried to sidestep last...Read more

DENVER — A panel of Colorado Court of Appeals judges appeared to seriously consider Wednesday whether discredited elections clerk Tina Peters’ nine-year prison sentence was unfair, while also expressing skepticism that her convictions should be overturned altogether.

During the hourlong hearing, the three judges focused on whether Mesa ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — A top Trump administration lawyer pressed a federal judge Wednesday to block a newly enacted California law that bans most law enforcement officers in the state from wearing masks, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

Tiberius Davis, representing the U.S. Department of Justice, argued at a hearing in Los ...Read more

NEW YORK — The Trump administration on Wednesday opened an investigation into New York City’s public school system over a policy that allows students to participate in sports based on their gender identity, federal education officials announced.

The city’s school system is one of 18 school districts, colleges and a state education ...Read more