NEW YORK — A federal judge in Manhattan on Thursday approved a $72.5 million class-action settlement reached between victims of Jeffrey Epstein and Bank of America.

Manhattan Federal Court Judge Jed Rakoff greenlit the agreement at an hour-long conference, hailing the outcome as a significant step toward accountability while acknowledging ...Read more

NEW YORK — A new state audit Thursday found a number of New York City students are facing repeat disciplinary action — while schools fail to properly intervene.

Over four school years during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 16,600 students — or 30% of all 54,600 students who were suspended or briefly removed from class — were ...Read more

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A viral Fort Lauderdale baker thought her missing cinnamon rolls were stolen. Turns out, they went missing during an immigration bust.

College student Julie Pierre, 21, took to social media last Saturday to tell her almost half-million followers that thousands of dollars worth of cinnamon rolls had disappeared after a ...Read more

DETROIT — Michigan's worst outbreak of cyclosporiasis has slowed, with fewer than 200 new cases reported this week, according to numbers released Thursday by the state.

The Department of Health and Human Services indicates 142 new cases of the parasitic illness were reported this week, down from 283 cases reported last week and the lowest ...Read more

PHILADELPHIA — Pope Leo XIV is significantly more popular among Pennsylvania Democrats than Republicans in the state, according to an Inquirer/New York Times/Siena University poll released this week.

While 75% of Democrats expressed a favorable opinion of Leo, only 40% of Republicans did. Meanwhile, 37% of Republicans viewed the pope ...Read more

SEATTLE — A recall effort against Mayor Katie Wilson was dismissed Thursday at the behest of the people who started it.

Melinda Jacobson, who spoke for her and her husband Dale Osterud, who she filed recall “charges” with, told a King County Superior Court judge she wanted to withdraw the charges after a back-and-forth during which the ...Read more

DETROIT — A group seeking to require proof of citizenship and photo ID to vote has asked the Michigan Supreme Court to overrule a state panel that found it was short the required signatures to appear on the November ballot.

Americans for Citizen Voting argued in a filing Thursday, Aug. 27, that the Board of State Canvassers’ signature ...Read more

CHICAGO — A federal judge on Thursday denied Tommy Schaefer’s long-shot bid for release pending trial on charges he helped his then-girlfriend Heather Mack bludgeon her mother to death at a vacation resort in Bali in 2014.

Schaefer’s attorneys had asked U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly to release him on home confinement with his ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — The city of Minneapolis will pay The Minnesota Star Tribune $31,500 to settle two lawsuits over officials’ failure to turn over public records about a homicide victim and police misconduct complaints against former police Chief Brian O’Hara.

The City Council approved the settlements without comment on Thursday. City ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Eight months have passed since Rob and Michele Reiner were killed and their youngest son was arrested and charged with murder, but the couple's eldest son still feels he "will never understand why this happened."

The children of film director Rob Reiner and photographer Michele Reiner mostly have kept mum despite extensive ...Read more

After an outcry from immigrant and civil rights advocates over plans to equip immigration officers with gloves capable of delivering electric shocks, California lawmakers on Thursday unveiled a bill that would ban the use of shock gloves by any law enforcement agent in the state.

The gloves deliver can an electrical shock strong enough to drop ...Read more

As soon as news broke about the death of beloved songwriter Dolly Parton, I began receiving condolence messages from across the country, and around the world.

They came from friends, family and colleagues who knew I’d been working on a biography of the country legend – everyone from a conservative Catholic monk to advocates for ...Read more

BOSTON — The jurors in the Lindsay Clancy triple murder trial have been sent home after deliberating this afternoon for the first time after weeks of testimony and closing arguments.

Clancy killed her children on January 24, 2022, then tried to kill herself, leaving her paralyzed from a fall out of her second-story bedroom window.

She isn’...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump announced he was moving to rename Lake Ontario as Lake America, escalating his clash with Canada after trade negotiations between the two nations collapsed.

Trump on Thursday signed a directive changing the name of the lake and said the move would take place “effective immediately.” The president ...Read more

Nevada lawmakers will consider a bill in 2027 that would end the state’s tax breaks for AI data centers and issue a statewide pause on building or expanding facilities.

Members of the state’s interim standing committee on revenue agreed to draft the bill at a meeting Wednesday in a 6-2 vote, setting the stage for a fight over big tech in ...Read more

BOISE, Idaho — A federal judge’s recent ruling that expanded access to abortion in Idaho will now apply to just one doctor — the maternal-fetal medicine specialist who filed the lawsuit — after the Idaho Attorney General’s Office appealed the decision and filed an emergency motion to limit its scope.

Idaho District Court Judge B. Lynn...Read more

MIAMI — The federal government says it will cost $4.5 billion to elevate and floodproof more than 3,000 homes and buildings in Miami-Dade, part of a massive plan to help protect the region from the stronger hurricanes and higher sea levels of the future.

A newly issued plan from the Army Corps of Engineers, the construction arm of the federal...Read more

LAS VEGAS — The defense rested Thursday in the trial over the slaying of Tupac Shakur in 1996.

A defense attorney for Duane Davis, 63, and prosecutors will make their final pitch to the jury in closing arguments Monday.

Davis is the only person to be prosecuted in connection with the slaying of Shakur, who died Sept. 13, 1996, days after the...Read more

The National Hurricane Center on Thursday said Tropical Storm Dolly formed in the Atlantic after becoming more organized overnight.

In the NHC’s 5 p.m. EDT advisory, the center of Dolly was located about 1,425 miles east of the Caribbean’s Leeward Islands moving west at 24 mph with maximum sustained winds of 40 mph.

Tropical-storm-force ...Read more