WASHINGTON — The Trump administration’s top official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, David Richardson, resigned on Monday after about six months on the job.

Richardson had no emergency management experience when he took on the role. He came to FEMA from the Department of Homeland Security’s Countering Weapons of Mass ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — This weekend’s atmospheric river uprooted trees, caked roads in mud and sent toxic runoff flowing into the ocean, but nowhere got quite as hard hit as Santa Barbara, which experienced the soggiest three-day stretch of November rain in the county’s recorded history.

According to data from the National Weather Service, the ...Read more

Ocean plastic kills sea creatures. It can obstruct, perforate or twist their airways and gastrointestinal tracts.

Now new research shows it takes just 6 pieces of ingested rubber the size of a pencil eraser to kill most sea birds.

For marine mammals, 29 pieces of any kind of plastic — hard, soft, rubber or fishing equipment — are often ...Read more

HAMTRAMCK, Mich. — A Wayne County judge on Monday denied a request for a temporary restraining order that would have prevented the Wayne County Board of Canvassers from certifying a candidate who may contest losing the city's Nov. 4 mayoral election by 11 votes.

The request for the restraining order was made by the attorney for apparent Mayor...Read more

NEW YORK — With less than two months to go in his term, Mayor Eric Adams met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, drawing a contrast with his successor, Zohran Mamdani, who has vowed to direct the NYPD to arrest the PM if he sets foot in New York under his administration.

In an interview with the right-wing Israel Hayom ...Read more

NEW YORK — With less than two months to go in his term, Mayor Eric Adams met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, drawing a contrast with his successor, Zohran Mamdani, who has vowed to direct the NYPD to arrest the PM if he sets foot in New York under his administration.

In an interview with the right-wing Israel Hayom ...Read more

CHICAGO — An arsonist attempted to start a fire at City Hall late Friday night, Mayor Brandon Johnson said Monday.

The fire outside the building did not spread beyond the initial flame, and the person who started it was not identified before fleeing, the mayor told reporters during an unrelated news conference.

Johnson said the arson attempt...Read more

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Federal immigration officials named their operation in Charlotte “Operation Charlotte’s Web” after the beloved children’s book by E.B. White. But critics, including White’s granddaughter, say it’s “antithetical” to the author’s values.

U.S. Border Patrol began its operation in Charlotte on Saturday and ...Read more

The body of a 7-year-old girl who was swept into the ocean near Big Sur, California, on Friday has been found, the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office said Sunday.

Her father, identified as 39-year-old Yuji Hu of Canada, died while trying to save his daughter from the surf.

Hu, of Calgary, a city in Alberta, was pulled from the water by another...Read more

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration announced a drastic reduction on refugee admissions for fiscal 2026 as part of a tough-on-immigration approach, but a mixture of prior policies, a court challenge and the recent partial government shutdown have added to uncertainty over U.S. policy.

The State Department last month said 7,500 refugees ...Read more

CHICAGO — The prospects for Mayor Brandon Johnson’s corporate head tax proposal reached a new nadir Monday as fed-up aldermen tried to block his wish to buy more time before holding a key vote on the measure.

Johnson’s handpicked Finance Committee chair, Alderman Pat Dowell, moved to recess a meeting instead of considering the revenue ...Read more

BOSTON — The hiring of a transgender person to Massachusetts' Commission on the Status of Women is a first, the new board member testified, and comes as a shock to one state representative.

Commission member Giselle Byrd, appointed by Gov. Maura Healey in August, said last month during a hearing over a proposed transgender act (S-2155), that ...Read more

Ex-Alaska Airlines pilot Joseph Emerson was sentenced to time served Monday in U.S. District Court in Portland, Oregon, for trying to shut off a plane’s engine midflight.

Emerson, now 46, made international headlines in 2023 for wrestling with pilots to pull levers that could have caused the plane, holding 83 passengers, to crash or at least ...Read more

CHICAGO — A federal judge has allowed a lawsuit alleging inhumane conditions at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing center in Broadview to proceed as a class action, authorizing two former detainees to represent potentially hundreds of current and future immigration arrestees processed at the facility.

The complaint, filed...Read more

WASHINGTON — The perennial battle over EPA’s biofuels mandates is coming to a head soon as the agency works on finalizing updates to the Renewable Fuel Standard’s blending obligations.

So far, the EPA’s proposal for the 2026 and 2027 RFS mandates has drawn the support of farm-state lawmakers — who often find themselves at odds with ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court agreed Monday to decide whether the Trump administration can revive a policy from the president’s first term of denying asylum claims by preventing migrants from crossing the border from Mexico.

The Trump administration asked the justices to review a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, ...Read more

WASHINGTON — U.S. defense contractors have launched a lobbying and public relations blitz to defeat a provision in the Senate-passed NDAA that would set strict new rules for how the Pentagon accesses their intellectual property.

The issue is among the last unresolved matters facing House and Senate negotiators who aim to reconcile before ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department’s indictment of James Comey was riddled with problems that may give the former FBI director legal grounds to have it dismissed, a federal judge ruled Monday.

“The record points to a disturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps, missteps that led an FBI agent and a prosecutor to potentially ...Read more

NEW YORK — Three people have been arrested in a plot to bribe a federal juror in the upcoming case of Goran Gogic, a former heavyweight boxer accused of playing a key role in a massive international cocaine trafficking ring, prosecutors revealed.

The trial, set to start in Brooklyn Federal Court on Monday, was put on hold, with the entire ...Read more