MINNEAPOLIS — A civil rights organization announced Wednesday that a settlement with the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office has yielded significant changes toward protecting the rights of transgender people in custody, particularly involving whether they are housed in the men’s or the women’s unit.

In 2023, Gender Justice filed a ...Read more

Lebanon and Israel sent negotiators to join a rare summit to address tensions surrounding last year’s ceasefire with Hezbollah, following fears that the militant group is attempting to rearm.

The Lebanese presidency named former ambassador to the U.S. Simon Karam as head of the country’s delegation, while Israel dispatched Uri Resnick, a ...Read more

In what Sen. Ted Cruz referred to as a “Groundhog Day” Senate committee hearing Wednesday, billionaire Jared Isaacman saw bipartisan support for a second time as President Donald Trump’s nominee to be the next NASA administrator.

The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation held the confirmation hearing nearly eight months...Read more

PHILADELPHIA — As U.S. District Judge Gerald McHugh prepared to sentence Mark Anthony Tucci for hurling racist, violent threats at two Black women he’d never met, the judge paused for a moment and teared up.

Tucci’s vile language and promises to harm the women were not only criminally inexcusable, McHugh said, they were also a ...Read more

MIAMI — Federal agents, including U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers, were once again seen in the Florida Keys on Wednesday as immigration operations continue to intensify in the area.

In Key Largo, in front of Pink Plaza at mile marker 103.4, agents stopped a woman driving a white Toyota Corolla and surrounded the vehicle. Video ...Read more

Working out of a tribal-owned hospital in Anchorage, Alaska, liver specialist Brian McMahon has spent decades treating the long shadow of hepatitis B. Before a vaccine became available in the 1980s, he saw the virus claim young lives in western Alaskan communities with stunning speed.

One of his patients was 17 years old when he first examined ...Read more

Four Republican states have agreed to help the Trump administration gain access to state driver’s license data through a nationwide law enforcement computer network as part of the administration’s hunt for alleged noncitizen voters.

The Trump administration said as recently as October that federal officials wanted to obtain driver’s ...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump announced a pardon of Rep. Henry Cuellar and his wife on Wednesday, a move that would wipe away a criminal case that accused the couple of taking about $600,000 in bribes from the government of Azerbaijan and a foreign bank headquartered in Mexico City.

Trump said in a social media post that he was ...Read more

U.S. companies shed payrolls in November by the most since early 2023, adding to concerns about a more pronounced weakening in the labor market.

Private-sector payrolls decreased by 32,000, according to ADP Research data released Wednesday. Payrolls have now fallen four times in the last six months. The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of ...Read more

Kevin Grosbusch has a good idea where he’d be if it not for the supportive housing he receives at Catholic Charities’ Endeavors Residence in Minneapolis.

“Truth be told, I would probably be behind a dumpster behind Denny’s restaurant,” he said.

But Grosbusch and thousands of others may soon lose the services that keep them housed.

...Read more

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth suggested military service members shouldn’t follow “unlawful orders” in a recently unearthed 2016 speech that closely mirrors the recent remarks by a group of Democratic lawmakers he has criticized as treasonous.

President Donald Trump’s Pentagon chief was captured on tape telling a conservative policy ...Read more

NEW YORK — Jamie Torres-Springer, a senior MTA official and the husband of one of Zohran Mamdani’s transition team heads, is under consideration to become the incoming mayor’s top operations deputy at City Hall, the Daily News has learned.

Torres-Springer is currently the president of construction and development at the MTA, a role he has...Read more

A “very intoxicated raccoon” was found passed out in the bathroom of a liquor store in Ashland, Va., over the weekend after breaking in and ransacking several shelves, officials said Tuesday.

The “Black Friday break-in” was discovered early Saturday morning by an employee at the Ashland ABC store.

The employee called the local animal ...Read more

For years, renowned epidemiologist Alison Galvani suspected that she spent part of her childhood raised by a killer.

But nothing the Bay Area native did — not the private investigator she hired, the relatives and detectives she spoke with, the research she did independently — convinced authorities there was sufficient evidence to arrest the...Read more

BOSTON — Boston Mayor Michelle Wu is urging a reluctant state Senate to act on the contentious tax shift legislation she’s been pushing for nearly two years, in light of city data that shows homeowners are facing an “unsustainable” 13% tax increase next year.

Insisting that there is no other option, Wu and her allies urged senators to �...Read more

DENVER — Hundreds of flights were derailed Wednesday morning at Denver International Airport during a weather-fueled ground delay issued by the Federal Aviation Administration.

As of 7 a.m. Wednesday, 267 flights at DIA had been delayed and one was canceled, according to flight-tracking software FlightAware.

Flights headed in and out of DIA ...Read more

Lebanon and Israel sent negotiators to join a rare summit to address tensions surrounding last year’s ceasefire with Hezbollah, following fears that the militant group is attempting to rearm.

The Lebanese presidency named former ambassador to the U.S. Simon Karam as head of the country’s delegation, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin ...Read more

President Vladimir Putin is set to visit India this week for the first time since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a rare trip that underscores the countries’ defense and energy ties as New Delhi seeks to finalize a trade deal with Washington.

The Russian leader is eager to show that Moscow still has strong relationships that matter beyond ...Read more

ATLANTA — Georgia’s Democratic U.S. senators have launched an inquiry into the Trump administration’s new policy of restricting lawmaker access to immigration detention facilities.

On Monday, Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock sent a letter to Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, criticizing her department’s “arbitrary and ...Read more