PHILADELPHIA — The U.S. Justice Department plans to send monitors to polling stations in Philadelphia and three other Pennsylvania counties for Election Day, according to a letter obtained by The Inquirer.

The Oct. 22 letter addressed to Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt says the Justice Department intends to send monitors to ...Read more

Technical colleges are betting a surge in demand for skilled workers will lift profits, though the payoff may take time as they expand campuses and programs to accommodate more students.

Employers racing to build data centers, expand manufacturing and automate factories are fueling demand for trained workers, lifting enrollment at schools ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — The parents of Alex Pretti are done being silent.

At a press conference Tuesday in downtown Minneapolis, they painted a picture of the stark difference they see between the caring, loving son they raised and the callous, disrespectful actions of the United States government after federal agents shot him dead on a south ...Read more

Responding to a directive from the Vatican, the leader of the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas has placed restrictions on the ministry of a priest once charged with sexually abusing a minor.

Archbishop Shawn McKnight ordered that the Rev. Scott Kallal “is prohibited from conduct with minors that could be reasonably understood as grooming...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — On the morning of Nov. 17, 2024, Nyota Koya, a 66-year-old Black woman from Roseville, lost consciousness during an encounter with a Sacramento police officer named Matthew Sterling. She died a week later without ever regaining consciousness.

Nearly two years later, the Sacramento Police Department still has not told her ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — The FBI Tuesday morning raided a mansion in Beverly Hills in connection with an investigation into former Congressman Eric Swalwell, sources told the Los Angeles Times.

Swalwell, a Democrat from the Bay Area city of Dublin, dropped out of the California governor’s race and resigned from Congress in April after allegations that...Read more

Meghan Markle’s relationship with her embattled father is being reconsidered in light of allegations that Thomas Markle indulged in the exploitation of minors.

The 45-year-old Duchess of Sussex’s 2018 wedding to Prince Harry captured the public imagination for several reasons, including the fact that the bride’s father wasn’t there.

...Read more

A federal judge has indefinitely blocked President Donald Trump’s plan to transform a historic Washington, D.C. public golf course, but he insists the massive renovation will go ahead regardless.

District Judge Ana Reyes issued a preliminary injunction that bars the government from removing or damaging any additional trees on the East Potomac...Read more

BOSTON — It was instant karma for State Trooper John J. Lennon Jr. when a fellow Statie renowned for his honesty responded to the scene of his alleged drunken driving crash earlier this month.

Lennon, 35, of Marshfield, ran his car off Rte. 3 in Hingham after a golf outing and required a tow to get out, according to a police report. That was ...Read more

A Louisville, Kentucky, judge has been suspended without pay after the state’s Judicial Conduct Commission found she had committed a long list of misconduct and other violations.

Laura Adams Ogden was suspended from the Jefferson County Family Court bench in an order issued Monday in which the JCC said she was guilty of bias, due process ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — The body of a missing climber was found, covered in snow, on Mt. Whitney's Mountaineer's Route after a storm delayed recovery efforts, according to authorities.

The Inyo County Sheriff's Office said in a statement Monday it received a report from an employee at a Lone Pine motel shortly before 10 p.m. Oct. 19 of a guest who ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Homicides in Los Angeles still are falling, plunging to levels not seen since the 1960s and continuing a dramatic turnaround from the pandemic crime surge.

But no matter how low the numbers go, an old pattern persists: Black Angelenos are far more likely to be killed than those of other races.

So far this year, 35% of the city'...Read more

LOS ANGELES — A Granada Hills homeowner is hoping to help a small crew of deaf construction workers replace thousands of dollars' worth of power tools that were stolen while they were making repairs to her house.

Jan Menapace had hired Neverless Construction to patch a leak and repair water damage in her kitchen during last week's storms in ...Read more

Iran’s Supreme Leader reiterated his country’s conditions for ending the war with the U.S., amid a regional diplomatic push to avert a fresh round of fighting in the Persian Gulf.

Mojtaba Khamenei emphasized the need to implement “the conditions set out by the country’s officials, with the aim of ending the war and the ‘neither war ...Read more

MIAMI — The new group tasked with retrieving organs for transplantation across South Florida and the Bahamas is already breaking records, just months after taking over operations from a decades-old nonprofit that was ordered shut by the federal government over safety-related issues and other concerns.

The South Florida Donor Network ...Read more

Israelis voted in their highest numbers for more than half a century in the country’s first election since the October 2023 Hamas attack, effectively a referendum on the war-dominated rule of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Turnout stood at 31.5% as of 12 p.m. on Tuesday, according to the central election committee, the highest level at ...Read more

Before most Americans step into the voting booth in November, they will already know their choices at the top of the ballot, in races for governor, the Senate and House of Representatives. But a race near the bottom of the ballot – for the chief prosecutor in their local district – will probably affect the voters’ lives more directly....Read more

When Americans hear of child soldiers, they may imagine tragic images of children wielding rifles on distant battlefields.

But the conditions that help warlords recruit children into armed conflict abroad also help gang leaders draw young people into violent organizations in the U.S.

In cities across the country, gang violence...Read more

A mosquito buzzing in your backyard may seem like a minor annoyance. But these tiny insects, with their taste for human blood, are increasingly appearing in areas where they were once rare or absent, and that’s raising concerns about the spread of mosquito-borne diseases, including West Nile, Zika and dengue fever.

Florida’s ...Read more

When people prepare to see a doctor before an international trip, vaccines usually dominate the conversation.

And while vaccines are important, many of the health problems most likely to derail a trip cannot be prevented with a vaccine: Diarrhea, respiratory infections, motion sickness and flare-ups of existing medical conditions are ...Read more