New Jersey is parched top to bottom.

In some regions, rainfall has plunged as much as eight inches below average for the past year, straining reservoirs, streams, and aquifers enough that the state Department of Environmental Protection has issued a drought warning — a notch shy of an emergency.

As a result, officials are asking residents to...Read more

DETROIT — The father of a female high school athlete in Michigan has filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education alleging two local school districts violated Title IX rules and failed to protect female students who competed twice against a volleyball team with an alleged transgender athlete on its roster.

Sean Lechner, whose ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — A passenger who died on a Royal Caribbean cruise was doused with pepper spray and physically restrained by staff members after he was served 33 alcoholic drinks and became violent, according to a lawsuit the man's family filed against the company.

Video from aboard the Royal Caribbean Cruises ship showed Michael Virgil at times ...Read more

ATLANTA — Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis will testify about her conduct before a state Senate committee next week, her lawyer told the Georgia Supreme Court.

Former Gov. Roy Barnes said Tuesday that Willis will comply with a witness subpoena issued earlier this year by the Georgia Senate’s Special Committee on Investigations, ...Read more

NEW YORK — New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani met Tuesday morning with a real estate and finance leaders to talk through how to move forward on his ambitious housing agenda amid controversy over his opposition to the current administration’s policy of clearing homeless encampments from the streets.

Elected largely on a platform of making ...Read more

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A Missouri Republican lawmaker last week blasted out-of-state influence amid an ongoing redistricting fight, writing on social media that “Missouri’s elections aren’t decided in California.”

But the post that U.S. Rep. Ann Wagner criticized was not about the state of California. It was an article from the California...Read more

President Donald Trump accused a reporter of being “dramatic” when pressed on concerns Americans have amid the holiday season as prices continue to climb and increased health care costs could loom for many.

During a 45-minute interview with Politico, Trump was asked if people doing their holiday shopping should take into account the ...Read more

BOSTON — Governor Maura Healey is demanding congressional Republicans vote to extend a set of tax credits under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to prevent what she calls skyrocketing health care costs across the country, as well as here in Massachusetts.

Healey held a press conference Tuesday at the State House demanding the extension and ...Read more

CHICAGO — President Donald Trump’s administration has issued a blistering order for the city and state to come up with a safety plan to boost police on the Chicago Transit Authority and take other steps or once again risk vital federal funding.

In letters Monday to Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, Trump’s ...Read more

In a rare high-profile case, Cuba’s former vice prime minister and minister of economy, Alejandro Gil, was sentenced to life in prison on charges of espionage, the People’s Supreme Court announced in a harshly worded statement on Monday.

In a first trial that took place Nov. 11-13, Gil was found guilty of several crimes including espionage,...Read more

CHICAGO — Gov. JB Pritzker on Tuesday signed into law a ban on federal agents making certain arrests near courthouses and easing a path for individuals to sue if they think their rights were violated during civil immigration arrests, capping off months of resistance to the Trump administration’s sometimes-violent enforcement crackdown in ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court gave a mixed reception during oral arguments Tuesday to an effort to overturn a limit on how much political parties can spend in coordination with federal candidates.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee, as well as Vice President JD Vance from when he was a senator, and former Rep. Steve Chabot, R-Ohio,...Read more

SpaceX sent up its second launch in less than 24 hours on the Space Coast on Tuesday afternoon, while also bringing home its booster for the last time on a landing zone it has been leasing for the last 10 years.

A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off on the NROL-77 mission with a classified satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office from Cape ...Read more

Two U.S. F-18 fighter jets flying in tandem entered Venezuelan airspace around noon Tuesday, circling over the Gulf of Venezuela in the latest show of force against the regime of Nicolás Maduro.

The flyover — carried out despite the Venezuelan regime’s possession of a number of Russian-made anti-aircraft batteries — took place less than ...Read more

NEW YORK — The FDNY offered a first look this week at some of its plans for commemorating the upcoming 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attack.

A special FDNY-organized anniversary ceremony will take place Sept. 9, 2026, at the Staten Island FireHawks ballpark to honor the 343 firefighters and paramedics who died during the attacks, ...Read more

MIAMI — Gov. Ron DeSantis issued an executive order Monday evening designating two Muslim groups as “foreign terrorist organizations.”

The executive order, which was posted on DeSantis’ social media accounts, states that the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Society of Muslim Brothers (Muslim Brotherhood) would be classified...Read more

NEW YORK — A Manhattan judge on Tuesday granted a request by the Justice Department to unseal grand jury materials in Ghislaine Maxwell’s criminal case, complying with new legislation compelling federal law enforcement to release its investigative files on deceased sex predator Jeffrey Epstein.

​In a 24-page opinion, Federal Judge Paul ...Read more

Former Venezuelan Gen. Cliver Antonio Alcalá Cordones, currently serving a 21-year prison sentence in the United States, claims in a letter to President Donald Trump that Nicolás Maduro’s regime is effectively run not by the strongman himself but by two of his closest allies: siblings Jorge and Delcy Rodríguez.

Alcalá, who pleaded guilty ...Read more

ORLANDO, Fla. — NASA astronaut Jonny Kim flew home with two Roscosmos cosmonauts from the International Space Station packed tight in their Soyuz spacecraft landing in the frozen steppes of Kazakhstan on Tuesday to complete an eight-month stay in space.

Kim launched to to the station back on April 8 with cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey ...Read more