CHICAGO — The federal judge who issued a landmark preliminary injunction in November limiting the use of force by immigration agents agreed Thursday to take over a new lawsuit filed by the state and city of Chicago alleging a much broader swath of illegal actions during the Trump administration’s Operation Midway Blitz.

U.S. District Judge ...Read more

CHICAGO — In recent decades, some of the Chicago Police Department’s most notorious scandals were perpetrated by officers assigned to the same team or unit, including Jerome Finnigan of the special operations section and Ronald Watts of the public housing unit.

But it took extensive searches to connect individual accusations and see wider ...Read more

TAMPA, Fla. — Hillsborough County prosecutors declined to pursue hate crime charges against three men who harassed a group of Muslim students while they prayed on the University of South Florida’s Tampa campus in November.

Instead, Richard Penkoski, 49, Christopher Svochak, 40, and Ricardo Yepez, 28, are charged with disturbing a religious ...Read more

NEW YORK — New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin is only letting Queens Councilwoman Vickie Paladino serve on two committees this session due to her “abhorrent” social media posts about Muslims and other minorities.

Paladino, one of the Council’s most far-right Republicans, is only going to serve as a member of the Council’s ...Read more

NEW YORK — Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Thursday appointed Afua Atta-Mensah, who was a top official on his mayoral campaign, to head the Mayor’s Office of Equity and Racial Justice.

Atta-Mensah was the senior political director during Mamdani’s general election run. She led outreach efforts to Black voters, a demographic the then-candidate ...Read more

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — As Florida’s recreational marijuana campaign again tries to get in front of voters, the state has levied pressure on local elections supervisors — putting them, one official said, “in the middle of a political war.”

That scrutiny intensified this week, when the state Office of Election Crimes and Security told ...Read more

NEW YORK — A federal appeals court on Thursday dealt a blow to Columbia University graduate and pro-Palestine activist Mahmoud Khalil in his legal battle against the Trump administration, reversing a lower-court order keeping him out of immigration jail while he fights the government’s efforts to deport him.

The split two-to-one decision by...Read more

A group of U.S. senators say Christians are under attack throughout the world, and religious freedom needs to be reprioritized in the U.S. and abroad.

Idaho Sen. Jim Risch, a Republican who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, introduced a resolution that reasserts America’s role as a global leader for religious liberty.

...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Reported ICE activity sent concerned citizens racing to Knollwood Mall last week, determined to track a convoy of unmarked vehicles carrying federal immigration agents.

It took less than half a mile for the agents to spot the tail.

One agent accelerated, then slammed on his brakes — immediately causing a minor collision with ...Read more

CHICAGO — Days before a high-profile trial, a federal judge Thursday barred prosecutors from bringing in evidence that a Chicago man charged with putting a bounty on Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino’s head had ties to the Latin Kings.

In her order, U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow said that without direct evidence showing Juan Espinoza ...Read more

BALTIMORE — A nationwide drop in overdose deaths may be driven by a collapse of the international fentanyl supply chain in 2023, a Maryland criminologist in world drug markets reported in the journal Science, Jan. 8.

“We were trying to understand why fentanyl overdose deaths, after rising rapidly for a decade, in mid 2023 suddenly turned ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — A new wave of angry protests erupted in Minneapolis after a federal agent shot and wounded a Venezuelan immigrant during an arrest attempt Wednesday night on the city’s North Side.

The reignited tensions brought fresh pleas for calm from elected officials in a city on edge for more than a week over the fatal shooting of Renee ...Read more

LAS VEGAS — Cases of a potentially lethal fungus have stabilized in Nevada, according to public health officials, who urge continued vigilance against the drug-resistant “superbug.”

Nevada’s first case of Candida auris was detected in Las Vegas in August 2021. By 2022, Southern Nevada was experiencing the largest outbreaks in the ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Tensions boiled over Tuesday night at a West Bank Business Association public safety meeting, where residents and Democratic politicians voiced fears that an upcoming “March Against Minnesota Fraud” could lead to harassment of Somali community members.

The march, planned for Saturday afternoon at Minneapolis City Hall, is ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Student attendance has dropped sharply in several Twin Cities school districts as families keep children home amid heightened fear over increasing federal immigration enforcement.

With 3,000 federal agents reportedly headed to Minnesota in what the U.S. Department of Homeland Security calls the largest immigration enforcement ...Read more

FORT WORTH, Texas — A Texas A&M graduate professor was told by the school’s government and public service department that his Ethics in Public Policy class was canceled three days into the spring 2026 semester.

The university alleges professor Leonard Bright refused to submit information needed to be exempt from a new rule on teaching ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — California officials are issuing warnings about a new flu strain that is increasing flu-related cases and hospitalizations statewide, with public health experts across the nation echoing the alerts.

A newly emerged influenza A strain, H3N2 subclade K, is already wreaking havoc globally and is affecting hospitals and clinics in ...Read more

DENVER — Gov. Jared Polis used his final State of the State speech to highlight achievements made on housing, education and transportation over his tenure, work that he said would continue through his final year.

He delivered his speech to a joint session of the Colorado legislature on Thursday as lawmakers grapple with a major budget gap as ...Read more