RALEIGH, N.C. — Gov. Josh Stein on Wednesday announced that he would reverse cuts his administration made to Medicaid provider payment rates, saying months of legislative inaction left the program underfunded and led to a wave of lawsuits from patients and providers.

For months, Stein said, the state’s health and human services department ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say a Trump administration policy change is making it nearly impossible for agency staff with disabilities to access telework as a reasonable accommodation.

Political appointees at the agency are repealing previously approved reasonable accommodation requests as the ...Read more

A federal judge in New York ordered the release of grand jury materials from the sex trafficking probe of financier Jeffrey Epstein at the request of the U.S. government.

U.S. District Judge Richard Berman’s decision on Wednesday follows a similar ruling from a judge in Florida, who ordered the unsealing of grand jury materials from an ...Read more

MIAMI — Following her decisive victory in Miami’s runoff election, Mayor-elect Eileen Higgins laid out a vision for a new era in Miami politics Wednesday, with promises to end City Hall’s “reality TV show” culture and instead focus on tackling major issues plaguing Miami residents.

“So first of all, the temperature on the dais has ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Sen. Adam Schiff gave his first major speech in the Senate on Wednesday and recalled how he has had to endure bitter criticism from President Donald Trump and his allies, but remains hopeful about the country’s future.

“Sometimes I have to break through the caricatures of right-wing media, and that can be a challenge,” the ...Read more

Ukraine sent a revised peace plan to Washington as President Donald Trump held a call with European leaders, according to a person familiar, as both sides scramble to keep efforts on track to end Russia’s invasion.

The war-torn country’s latest submission was sent as Trump held a separate discussion with Prime Minister Keir Starmer, ...Read more

ORLANDO, Fla. — Gov. Ron DeSantis rolled out his “Floridians First” budget proposal Wednesday in Orlando, calling for more than $1.5 billion in funding for teacher pay increases and a continuation of his key environmental and law enforcement initiatives.

As he approaches his final year in office, DeSantis said he wants a $117 billion ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — The U.S. Department of Justice has filed suit against Minneapolis Public Schools, accusing the state’s third-largest district of providing discriminatory protections to teachers of color in layoff and reassignment decisions.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Minnesota, marks the Trump administration’s ...Read more

PATRICK SPACE FORCE BASE, Fla. — A trio of runners dressed in camouflage fatigues tucked into light brown boots round the track with gritted teeth, red faces, and muscles strained in their necks, giving one last push at full sprint with the finish line in sight.

Shirts soaked in sweat, they’re each holding onto a rope and can’t let go.

...Read more

U.S. forces seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, President Donald Trump said Wednesday, in the latest escalation in a widening U.S. campaign of military and law-enforcement pressure on the Nicolás Maduro regime.

Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump described the vessel as “a large tanker, very large, largest one ever ...Read more

PHILADELPHIA — Keep punching, Rocky.

Creative Philadelphia’s proposal to permanently install a Rocky statue at the top of the Philadelphia Art Museum’s famed steps is one step closer to reality following an Art Commission meeting Wednesday, though the plan fell short of receiving final approval following a mixed vote. Three commissioners ...Read more

Billionaire MAGA activist Elon Musk claims that being in public puts him at risk, particularly in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s killing.

The 54-year-old Tesla CEO expressed his concerns on “The Katie Miller Podcast,” which is hosted by the wife of White House adviser Stephen Miller.

In addition to saying his largely unpopular work with the ...Read more

Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation has fired senior members of a limited liability company’s leadership team and denounced a $30 million contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

“As a sovereign Nation, our values guide the decisions we make, and we acknowledge that this contract does not align with those principles,” ...Read more

BOSTON — An illegal immigrant from Peru with a history of reckless driving is now in ICE custody after allegedly hitting an Everett woman with his car so hard her shoes and pants came off before fleeing the scene Sunday morning, only to be ordered held on just $2,500 bail.

Immigration officials confirmed with the Boston Herald that the ...Read more

Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado used her Nobel Peace Prize lecture on Wednesday to deliver a sweeping account of her country’s two-decade struggle against authoritarianism, portraying Venezuela’s crisis not only as a national tragedy but as a global warning about the fragility of democracy and the cost of freedom.

Machado...Read more

LOS ANGELES — As the Eaton and Palisades fires rapidly jumped between tightly packed houses, the proactive steps some residents took to retrofit their homes with fire-resistant building materials and to clear flammable brush became a significant indicator of a home’s fate.

Early adopters who cleared vegetation and flammable materials within...Read more

New Jersey is among the 10 states that allow a physician to assist a terminally ill patient in ending their own life, under certain conditions. But those patients must be New Jersey residents, a federal appeal court ruled.

The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals said last week that New Jersey’s limit of the aid-in-dying law to state residents is ...Read more

While the federal government was shut down, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services altered the name under the official portrait of Adm. Rachel Levine, a Pennsylvania doctor who served as the agency’s assistant secretary under former President Joe Biden, to her birth name or “dead name.”

Levine, who had previously served as ...Read more