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

Israel is holding its first election since the October 2023 Hamas attack that traumatized the nation and triggered the wars in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran, a vote many consider to be the country’s most consequential in decades.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, 77, is seeking reelection on Tuesday, bolstered by the endorsement of U.S. President ...Read more

LAVONIA, Ga. — It had been a decade since Kara Holden last had a baby. But as the former obstetric nurse prepared for her fourth child, her head was swimming with contingency plans.

The labor and delivery unit where she used to work in this rural northeastern Georgia community is no longer open. So, she asked former co-workers to be on ...Read more

Four years ago, Oregon hospitals were under fire from state authorities and patient advocates. Hospitals, critics said, had made it too hard for patients to apply for and receive help paying their bills.

Within months, the state enacted a sweeping law that required hospitals to proactively screen patients and give financial aid to those who ...Read more

Voters in six states are considering ballot measures in the midterm elections that would make it clear that only U.S. citizens may vote — and block local governments from expanding that right to others.

Proposed constitutional amendments or law changes in Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Kansas, South Dakota and West Virginia would explicitly bar ...Read more

BRICELYN, Minn. — Last summer, President Donald Trump’s signature tax law cemented his administration’s policy legacy, driving down taxes for individuals and businesses and cutting social welfare benefits for people with no kids or low incomes.

A year later the tax law barely registers on campaign commercials ahead of November’s ...Read more

CHICAGO — Mayor Brandon Johnson’s usual critics in the City Council and Chicago’s business community piled on as soon as his fourth budget proposal leaked last week, but the appetite for another full-out revolt is missing — for now.

“We don’t expect to take over the budget and try to rescue it like last year,” Ald. Scott ...Read more

The Trump administration’s lawsuit against Alaska, which seeks to block certification of the U.S. Senate results there if the GOP candidate does not win, is the latest in a long series of actions throughout 2026 in which the administration has attempted to wrest control of federal elections from states.

In the Alaska case, the U.S. ...Read more

President Donald Trump is coming back to Kansas for the second time this month.

Trump will hold a rally at a not-yet-disclosed location in Salina on Saturday, a representative from the Republican National Committee confirmed to The Star. The event will start at 10:30 a.m. and Trump is expected to speak at noon, according to an RSVP page.

The ...Read more

The Fresno County registrar of voters said his office is coordinating with state elections officials Monday after receiving a letter over the weekend from the Trump Administration demanding evidence that suspected noncitizens were registered as voters.

The administration sent letters demanding Fresno County and its counterpart elections offices...Read more

A federal appeals court Monday denied an emergency request from the U.S. Justice Department to step in and block California election officials from counting about 20,000 ballots from voters whose citizenship the Trump administration has questioned.

The three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals — composed of two judges ...Read more

NEW YORK — The MTA plans to put its fare checking teams back on city buses following a thorough look into the teams’ training sparked by two violent confrontations in recent months, NYC Transit President Demetrius Crichlow said Monday.

The teams, part of the MTA’s so-called Evasion and Graffiti Lawlessness Eradication, or EAGLE, program,...Read more

Three days after the U.S. Department of Justice sent letters to counties across California demanding that they turn over confidential voter registration information and not process ballots of people it alleged are not citizens, Santa Clara County refused to comply with the request, stating that turning over such information would be in violation...Read more

RALEIGH, N.C. — A proposed class-action settlement filed in federal court Monday would set aside up to $1.5 million to compensate people who were wrongly arrested or held in jail too long because of errors in software designed to bring North Carolina’s paper-based court system into the digital age.

The proposed settlement would need to be ...Read more