Harvard University is proposing to limit the number of top grades awarded to undergraduate students, responding to concerns that grade inflation may weaken the meaning of a degree from the school.

The plan would cap A grades at 20% of undergraduates, with some flexibility, across courses and departments if it’s approved by faculty ahead of ...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Friday deleted from his social media account a video clip depicting former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes, following fierce backlash from Democrats and some Republicans who called it racist and urged the president to take it down.

The White House initially defended ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Hennepin County Sheriff Dawanna Witt said she hasn’t decided how much to cooperate with federal officials when it comes to handing over immigrants in the country illegally who are held in the jail she oversees in downtown Minneapolis.

Witt told reporters on Friday she’s had four meetings with White House border czar Tom ...Read more

NEW YORK — As temperatures are expected to drop again into single digits over the weekend, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said the city is enlisting the help of school nurses, business improvement districts and formerly homeless New Yorkers to get people out of the dangerously chilly elements.

The mayor said that, over the past three weeks, outreach ...Read more

WASHINGTON — As lawmakers begin working toward a potential reauthorization of the post-9/11 program that provides emergency communications services for first-responders, they will have to navigate calls for a revamp of its structure and for more competition.

A House Energy and Commerce subcommittee is headed toward a markup Tuesday after ...Read more

Does your favorite cocktail these days come in a can?

In a real twist on cocktail culture, ready-to-drink cocktails, or RTDs, are now the top-selling American spirit by volume.

According to new data released by the Distilled Spirits Council of the U.S., in 2025 Americans bought 85.6 million 9-liter cases of RTDs, up 17.1% from the year before....Read more

NEW YORK — Archbishop Ronald Hicks was officially installed Friday as New York’s top Catholic leader, outlining a vision of a missionary church that would put people above politics.

“This is a call to be a missionary church not a country club,” Hicks said. “A club exists to serve its members. The Church exists, on the other hand, to ...Read more

DENVER — The Colorado Senate this week approved a bill that would expand the list of who can authorize and prescribe vaccines and, in the words of the sponsor, sidestep “the dysfunction coming out of Washington, D.C.”

Senate Bill 32 would allow pharmacists to prescribe vaccines independently. It would also authorize the state Board of ...Read more

DENVER — Federal immigration authorities have repeatedly violated a court order by continuing to “indiscriminately” arrest people in Colorado without warrants and without first checking if they’re likely to flee, attorneys alleged in a new legal filing.

Lawyers representing four immigrants arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs ...Read more

Iran said it agreed with the U.S. to continue indirect talks to de-escalate tensions and avert a military confrontation, with Tehran describing the first day as positive.

Negotiations, mediated by Oman in its capital Muscat, had a “good start,” Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told state TV after the talks concluded for the day. He ...Read more

BOSTON — It could be a double weather whammy for Bay Staters this weekend.

Ahead of some downright brutal temps and wind chills, parts of the region may see several inches of snow.

The National Weather Service’s Boston office has issued a “Winter Weather Advisory” for much of Massachusetts — where widespread amounts of 2 to 4 inches ...Read more

ORLANDO, Fla. — A former Brevard County school principal accused of allowing a raucous, alcohol-fueled party for minors at her home last year accepted a plea deal Monday that allows her to avoid jail time.

Prosecutors said the party at the home of Elizabeth Hill-Brodigan, the former principal of Roosevelt Elementary School in Cocoa Beach, on ...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is capping off another week in which he had to qualify many of his bold statements, while keeping his actual policy intentions masked or vague over a tidal wave of presidential words.

The former reality television host has become something of a narrator for his own second term — think a tough-talking, ...Read more

The Trump administration on Friday filed a doubled-barreled appeal of a federal judge’s ruling that blocked the Department of Homeland Security’s order terminating deportation protections for hundreds of thousands of Haitians.

Justice Department lawyers asked U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes in Washington, D.C., to lift her stay of the DHS ...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Friday deleted from his social media account a video clip depicting former President Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama as apes, following fierce backlash from Democrats and some Republicans who called it racist and urged the president to take it down.

The White House initially defended the ...Read more

SAN DIEGO — A San Diego federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to return three recently deported families to the U.S., finding the administration unlawfully removed those families through “lies, deception, and coercion.”

The order issued late Thursday by U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw came in litigation over the first Trump ...Read more

BOSTON — A Methuen man has pleaded guilty to shipping narcotics to federal prisoners.

Tuere Barnes, 43, pleaded guilty in federal court in Boston to one count of providing contraband in prison. According to a plea agreement, Barnes faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a fine of $250,000. U.S. District Court Judge Allison D. ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — A skier died at Mammoth Mountain on Thursday following a fatal accident in full view of other skiers riding a nearby lift. It was the fourth death at the resort this season.

The skier, who has not been identified, was attempting a run called Dropout 2 — among the steepest marked trails in California — which descends from the...Read more

NEW YORK — A Manhattan judge was expected Friday to issue a ruling on a request for a temporary restraining order that would require the Trump administration to let federal funding resume for the construction of the Hudson River Tunnel project.

In arguments Friday, the New Jersey attorney general’s office said thousands of construction ...Read more