The Spectrum & Daily News
Foster hometown pride to grow civic engagement
Eileen Higgins won a historic victory in December. She became the first woman ever elected mayor of Miami, as well as its first Democratic mayor since 1997. ● Although the stakes in the city’s Dec. 9, runoff election were high, interest was not − 4 in...
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FBI to cut vetting steps for some agent applicants
WASHINGTON – The FBI plans to make it easier for existing employees to become agents, removing two longstanding steps in vetting applicants as the bureau faces a staffing crunch under President Donald Trump’s administration, according to two people...
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Supreme Court strikes down tariffs
WASHINGTON − A furious President Donald Trump slammed the Supreme Court after a landmark decision striking down his power to impose sweeping tariffs. “I’m ashamed of certain members of the court, absolutely ashamed for not having the courage to do...
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CA avalanche killed 8 despite warnings
The warnings were clear and eerie. A winter storm warning forecast up to 8 feet of snow in California’s Lake Tahoe region and avalanche conditions were considered “very dangerous.” Blackbird Mountain Guides, now under scrutiny for its role in the...
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Modern tech helps, hinders Guthrie case
TUCSON, AZ – The search for Nancy Guthrie is unfolding in the desert foothills north of Tucson and across digital networks, where investigators are working to piece together physical evidence and electronic traces left behind by her possible...
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AI COMPANIES GEAR UP TO SELL ADS
Eighteen months ago, it was plausible that artificial intelligence might take a different path than social media. Back then, AI’s development hadn’t consolidated under a small number of big tech firms. Nor had it capitalized on consumer attention,...
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Accountability unlikely for Epstein accomplices
To advocates for transparency and accountability surrounding Jeffrey Epstein, the Justice Department’s release of 3.5 million pages of files was underwhelming. The department withheld another 2.5 million pages and heavily redacted much of what it did...
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Trump’s governor snub draws many questions
President Donald Trump has been warring with Democratic governors since returning to the White House, whether by targeting their states for strict immigration enforcement and funding cuts or mocking them with insults, such as calling Illinois Gov. JB...
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Homan says Minnesota ICE operation will end
The Trump administration said it is ending the controversial immigration operation in Minnesota that sparked nationwide protests after federal agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens in January. White House border czar Tom Homan on Feb. 12 said he...
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Man released in Guthrie disappearance probe
More than a week after Savannah Guthrie’s mother, Nancy Guthrie, went missing from her Arizona home in a possible kidnapping, law enforcement took a person in for questioning. Pima County Sheriff ’s Department deputies “detained a subject during a...
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Deadline looming for DHS reforms
WASHINGTON – Congress and the White House are locked in negotiations over potential reforms to the Department of Homeland Security as a deadline to shut down the agency approaches. Lawmakers have until the end of Feb. 13, to reach an agreement or risk...
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Hundreds protest against ICE outside Super Bowl
SANTA CLARA, CA – They came, they marched, they chanted − all under a close watch. But it wasn’t ICE agents who patrolled the streets on Super Bowl Sunday, as many had anticipated. Hundreds of people on Feb. 8 took over a main thoroughfare less than 2...
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Epstein files
contact with Epstein in 2011, according to the Norwegian tabloid VG. “I must take responsibility for not having investigated Epstein’s background more thoroughly, and for not realizing sooner what kind of person he was,” Mette-Marit said in a...
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A father uncovers truth behind son’s death in jail
COMPTON, CA – The man in the suit arrived in an unmarked car on a spring morning in 2020 with the worst news James Brown had ever heard. His 30-year-old son Jamall was dead. Brown hadn’t heard from his son in the days since he was detained on a parole...
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MAGA vs. Bad Bunny splits Super Bowl
Sen. Tommy Tuberville was thrilled to attend the Super Bowl in 2025 when he hitched a ride on Air Force One, joining President Donald Trump and several other Republican lawmakers for the big game. “Happy Super Bowl Sunday,” the Republican senator for...
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7 states tinker with congressional maps
WASHINGTON – The jockeying between Republicans and Democrats for advantage in the 2026 congressional elections is continuing as the Supreme Court chose not to review California’s redistricting plan, with seven states in the midst of redrawing maps for...
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Pedestrian deaths by trains persisting
In 2018, high-speed passenger trains branded as Brightline started running along the formerly freight-only Florida East Coast Railway. Initial service from Miami to West Palm Beach was extended to Orlando in 2023. ● Unfortunately, the southern end of...
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USAID raised early alarm on Gaza crisis
WASHINGTON — U.S. Agency for International Development staffers in early 2024 drafted a warning to senior officials in Joe Biden’s administration: Northern Gaza had turned into an “Apocalyptic Wasteland” with dire shortages of food and medical...
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Trump actions worry free-speech advocates
The FBI search of a Washington Post reporter’s home on Jan. 14 was a rare and intimidating move by an administration focused on repressing criticism and dissent. In its story about the search at Hannah Natanson’s home, at which FBI agents said they...
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Judge orders ICE to release child, father
A federal judge in Texas has ordered the release of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father from an immigration detention center by Feb. 3 at the latest, as President Donald Trump said he has directed the Department of Homeland Security not to...
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Catholics condemn ‘nationalism on steroids’
The rift between President Donald Trump and the Catholic church’s leadership is reaching biblical proportions. The country’s highest-ranking Catholic archbishops took the rare step of issuing a joint statement on Jan. 19, rebuking United States’...
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Shutdown still possible despite DHS deal
Lawmakers appeared to be closing in on a deal endorsed by President Donald Trump to avoid an extended government shutdown, but a key player said a brief government closure may be inevitable as there still was work to be done Jan. 30 as funding was set...
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Thousands train to legally record ICE Session draws 147,000 enrollees nationwide
Two people have been killed in Minnesota while monitoring the activity of immigration officials, but that hasn’t deterred tens of thousands of others who appear eager to volunteer for similar roles. More than 147,000 people all over the country signed...
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Consumer-driven future seen for GLP-1 drugs
LONDON – Ask executives in the health care industry about the future market for weight-loss drugs and the analogies are telling: monthly GLP-1 medicine subscriptions like a streaming video membership; dose decisions managed on a smartphone app; access...
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Judge orders ICE director to court
MINNEAPOLIS − Minnesota’s chief federal judge ordered the acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to appear in court over what he says is the Trump administration’s repeated failure to grant detained immigrants bond hearings despite judicial...
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‘They didn’t leave us anything at all’
DEIR DIBWAN, West Bank – The Jewish settler outpost of Or Meir is small. A handful of prefabricated white shelters, it sits at the end of a short dirt track on a hill leading up from Road 60, a major route that dissects the Israeli-occupied West...
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Minnesota officials vow accountability
Minnesota leaders are vowing to hold federal officials accountable for the fatal shooting on Jan. 24 by a Border Patrol agent of a 37-year-old ICU nurse, whose death has sparked fresh protests in a state already rocked by the recent killing of Renee...
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Navajo man alleges detention despite ID
PHOENIX – Peter Yazzie told U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents where they could locate his Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood, birth certificate and other documents proving that he was both a U.S. citizen and a Native American. It made...
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U.S. faces ‘human rights emergency,’ group says
One year into the second Trump administration, the United States has quickly eroded human rights safeguards, according to Amnesty International. The nonprofit released a report Jan. 20, the anniversary of President Donald Trump retaking office, saying...
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‘VERY DISAPPOINTING’
CHICAGO – In Chicago’s workingclass Pilsen neighborhood, a 1960s-era oil-fired power plant rises up from an industrial lot behind Dvorak Park, which in warmer weather is packed with children climbing on its colorful playground and zooming down...
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Greenland
Trump also posted a doctored image that showed European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen sitting in the White House’s Oval Office next to a map showing Greenland and Canada as American territory. He posted a separate AI image with him planting...
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Federal probe into Good questioned
First Amendment groups are concerned that the federal government’s investigation into the killing of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis will have negative implications for free speech. The concern follows New York Times reporting that the Department of...
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Farm economy shows widening cracks
CHICAGO – Across the U.S. Farm Belt, these have become depressing times. Farmers are facing another season of low prices, high costs and difficult decisions about how – or whether – to keep operating. Banks are cutting off some growers just as they...
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Trump releases health insurance framework
WASHINGTON – Facing pressure to address affordability concerns, President Donald Trump called on Congress to pass a series of measures aimed at lowering drug prices and health insurance costs as he unveiled a long-awaited health care plan that is...
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President threatens Insurrection Act in MN
President Donald Trump on Jan. 15 threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act, which would give him power to deploy armed forces domestically, as tensions ratcheted up yet further in Minnesota following a second shooting involving a federal agent. The...
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ICE detention centers are expanding in U.S.
President Donald Trump’s second term has brought sweeping changes to immigration enforcement. One of the top takeaways: Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention has expanded dramatically, both in the number of people being held and the sites...
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MN faces obstacles to charge ICE agent
Many in Minnesota and across the country were outraged by the killing of Renee Nicole Good by a federal immigration agent in a Minneapolis neighborhood and called for the agent to face charges. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, who oversees the city’s...
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Polls: Venezuela invasion splits American opinion
President Donald Trump’s strike on Venezuela has evenly split the country: Republican hawks are cheering the Jan. 3 raid that dragged President Nicolás Maduro to New York to face criminal drug charges, while Democrats question whether constitutional...
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Trump foreign focus may hurt midterms
WASHINGTON – Even before the United States seized control of Venezuela and ousted its leader, some of President Donald Trump’s allies worried he was giving too much attention abroad while Americans made clear their top concern was the economy and cost...
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Maduro opponent vows to return Machado says opposition is ready to win in Venezuela
WASHINGTON – Venezuela’s main opposition leader Maria Corina Machado has vowed to return home quickly, praising President Donald Trump for toppling President Nicolás Maduro and declaring her movement ready to win a free election. Trump appears,...
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AI to review Medicare claims in pilot program
A new Medicare program that uses artificial intelligence to review medical claims is set to launch in six states. Critics worry it will lead to patients being denied necessary care and more red tape for providers. The controversial new six-year pilot...
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Arizona traffic stops lead to deportations
On a heavily patrolled stretch of Interstate 10 south of Phoenix, people pulled over for having a cracked windshield or an object dangling from their rear view mirror have ended up in deportation proceedings. The stated goal of the traffic stops is to...
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Walz called to testify on Minnesota fraud scandal
Republicans in Congress have invited Tim Walz, Minnesota’s Democratic governor and Kamala Harris’ former running mate in the 2024 presidential election, to testify before lawmakers over the fraud scandal that has rocked his state. Rep. James Comer,...
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Americans are still feeling impact of Trump’s tariffs
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump had been in office less than three months when he slapped retaliatory tariffs on imports from dozens of countries, arguing the duties would benefit American companies that have been treated unfairly by foreign...
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Big events on calendar for 2026
As a new year dawns, many Americans are reflecting on 2025, a year marked by historic events including the inauguration of a president, the appointment of the first American pope, and major pop culture moments like the release of “Wicked: For Good” and...
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‘ The freedom to be unkind’
Alley Mills Bean approached the podium at a Los Angeles City Council meeting alongside council member Traci Park on a June day in 2024, Emmy in hand. She’d won it the previous year for her role as the hook-wielding serial killer Heather Webber on...
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Over 1M students homeless in U.S.
WASHINGTON – After T’Roya Jackson discovered the paint in her apartment gave her daughter lead poisoning, she and her children moved out. They couch-surfed for a while before moving into a homeless shelter over the summer. The hair stylist began...
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Regenerative farming making a comeback
At Troon Vineyard, in southern Oregon’s Applegate Valley, Garett Long has turned composting into an art form, using it to support soil microbes and eliminate the need for petroleum-based fertilizers. When Andrea Malmberg and her husband, Tony, bought...
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U.S. hits Islamic State in northern Nigeria
President Donald Trump said on Dec. 25 that the U.S. military had attacked Islamic State targets in Nigeria, claiming the group had been targeting Christians. In a post on Truth Social, the president said he directed the military to launch a “powerful...
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Trump may be repeating Biden mistake on economy
Americans might be experiencing a bit of déjà vu after watching President Donald Trump trying to cheer up the country amid national anxiety about the cost of living. During a 20-minute speech from the White House on Dec. 17, Trump plowed through a...
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New Epstein files spotlight Trump
References to president found in latest release Josh Meyer USA TODAY WASHINGTON – Former President Bill Clinton had his moment in the spotlight on Dec. 19 when the first batch of the Epstein files were released. On Dec. 23, it was sitting President...
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Federal agents pull back in San Francisco
SAN FRANCISCO – President Donald Trump vowed this year to flood San Francisco with federal agents – and even soldiers – to crack down on crime. Instead, his administration has quietly taken law enforcement away, leaving the city with less help to fight...
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‘FORMIDABLE CHALLENGE’
LONDON – The West’s push to build a homegrown magnets supply chain to reduce its reliance on China – led by massive U.S. backing for Nevada-based MP Materials – is running into a critical problem: the scarcity of so-called heavy rare earth...
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Data: Venezuela not a major source of deadly fentanyl
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump and his top aides have justified lethal military strikes on suspected drug smuggling boats from Venezuela, by accusing Venezuela and alleged criminal networks operating on its soil like the Cartel de los Soles of...
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Brown shooting suspect found dead
PROVIDENCE, RI – Though the suspect connected to the deadly Brown University attack and the fatal shooting of an MIT professor was found dead in New Hampshire, the questions and fallout have only begun. Providence Police Chief Col. Oscar Perez...
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Best and worst times to drive, fly for the holidays
The final stretch of holiday travel for the year is upon us, and it’ll be a busy one. For the winter holidays between Dec. 20 and Jan. 1, around 122.4 million Americans are expected to travel – exceeding last year’s 119.7 million and setting a new...
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Tariff inflation less than expected
Millions of American consumers have been waiting for President Donald Trump’s tariffs to spark a dramatic rise in consumer prices, pushing the inflation rate into the red zone. They’re still waiting. The annual inflation rate reached 3% in September,...
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FBI seeks leads in Brown shooting
A search in Rhode Island rolled into its fourth day Dec. 16 as federal and state officers pursued a suspect who opened fire during a final exam at Brown University, killing two, injuring nine and leaving no obvious indication of a motive. The widening...
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‘SEEING PEOPLE AS PEOPLE’
When Elizabeth Dalzell’s daughter Liesl complained of severe pain in her left shoulder in June by using sign language, it began a nearly monthlong odyssey through New Jersey’s health care system before the young woman with multiple disabilities...
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Skiing with the best
With more than two hundred resorts across the western U.S. and Canada, choosing where to ski can be an overwhelming task. Ski Magazine tries to help with that each year, annually naming the top ski resorts in each region of North America. Its 2026 top...
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Summit explores school bus safety
WASHINGTON – At a packed conference room in the nation’s capital, dozens of people gasped as they watched a video monitor playing a terrifying, yet common scene: Cars speeding past kids as they approached their school bus. “Horrible,” one person said...
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Trump: Oil tanker seized ‘for a very good reason’
The United States has seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela amid a monthslong buildup of military forces surrounding the country, President Donald Trump confirmed Dec. 10. “As you probably know, we’ve just seized a tanker on the coast of...
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Private firms snap up mobile home parks
One of America’s most affordable paths to homeownership is slipping away. At manufactured home parks – sometimes called trailer parks or mobile home parks – rents are rapidly rising due to large-scale buyouts by private equity firms. Although private...
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Survey: Kirk killing had chilling effect
A new survey conducted in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination in September is providing new insight into how college students – and those at Utah Valley University, where the conservative activist was killed – view free speech on campus. The...
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KFF: Most want health care subsidy extension
About a quarter of Americans enrolled in Obamacare health plans said they would go without insurance in 2026 if COVID-era government subsidies are not extended past this year and premium payments double, a poll by health-research firm KFF found. The...
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Record lows loom as frosty air sweeps in
December is off to a chillier than typical start for much of the country. Just in time for a weekend of holiday festivals and parades, more frosty temperatures will blanket much of the northern and eastern regions of the country, potentially with some...
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AI could worsen school inequalities
Today’s teachers find themselves thrust into a difficult position with generative AI. New tools are coming online at a blistering pace and being adopted just as quickly, whether they’re personalized tutors and study buddies for students or lesson plan...
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‘I wish this country supported artists’
Being an artist is not viewed as a real job. It’s a sentiment I’ve heard time and again, one that echoes across studios, rehearsal halls and kitchen tables – a quiet frustration that the labor of making art rarely earns the legitimacy or security...
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Centuries-old seashells tell history of habitats
During a day at the beach, it’s common to see people walking up and down the shore collecting seashells. As a paleontologist and marine ecologist, we look at shells a bit differently than the average beachcomber. Most people dig up shells in the sand...
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2026 results are key for JD Vance’s future
WASHINGTON – Vice President JD Vance has a lot riding on the November 2026 midterm elections. He is seen as the front-runner to be the next Republican nominee for the White House, yet he faces the more immediate challenge of being one of his party’s...
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Millions may forgo health care coverage
Dawn Wheeler followed every twist and turn of the government shutdown. In some ways, she said, she felt as if her life were on the line. • The 59-year-old from Edwardsville, Kansas, is one of millions of Americans who buy health insurance through the...
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Trump vows further migrant crackdown
President Donald Trump said Nov.27 that U.S. Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, of the West Virginia National Guard, died after being shot the previous day in an ambush near the White House, a shooting that drew claims from his administration of Biden-era...
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