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Democrat-run New York is poised to become the first U.S. city to hit drivers with punitive tolls after transit officials on Wednesday approved a $15 fee for most motorists headed to the busiest part of Manhattan.

WASHINGTON — Small businesses in Fayette County affected by the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore are eligible to apply for U.S. Small Business Administration low-interest loans. Fayette is one of eight Pennsylvania counties where small businesses, small agricultural cooperatives, small aquaculture businesses, and private nonprofit organizations now are eligible for Economic Injury Disaster Loans, which carry interest rates of 4% (3.25% for private nonprofit organizations) and have terms of as long as 30 years. Businesses can borrow up to $2 million to pay operating expenses if their revenues dropped due to the disaster. Businesses in Maryland;...

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A Department of Transportation component slammed the brakes following semi-furious opposition to its proposal for "on demand" law enforcement surveillance of commercial vehicles a year and a half ago. It took another six months to turn over the records after a FOIA lawsuit to compel their release, a day before they were due in court Thursday, with no indication yet from FMCSA when it would release a final rule. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration had internal conversations about those public comments over several months, including via personal email, at the same time it was stalling a Freedom of Information...

Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., replied to a post on the social media platform X from Elon Musk, CEO of X, accusing the Biden administration of importing voters in response to a report that the president is considering offering green cards to migrants that meet certain criteria. According to the report, "one idea that has been floated among administration officials is opening access to the cancellation of removal program for people who have lived in the U.S. for over 10 years and have citizen or resident relatives who would “suffer” if they were deported. If specific requirements are met and an...

Men are turning away from college and the shift could have profound implications for the economy, their health and the American family. Today, only 39% of young men who have completed high school are enrolled in college, down from 47% in 2011, according to a recent analysis by Pew Research. That works out to about 1 million fewer young men in college compared to just over a decade ago. The trend isn’t new but as scholars like Richard Reeves have pointed out, the gradual retreat from higher education signals a larger crisis facing boys and men.

Rep. James Clyburn says that Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton will start appearing more frequently on the campaign trail for Joe Biden after the trio headlined a fundraiser in New York last week. The South Carolina congressman and Assistant Democratic Leader said the three presidents will come together to 'show defense of democracy' as Biden runs for reelection in 2024 against Donald Trump. Outside the fundraiser with Biden, Obama and Clinton, pro-Palestine protesters descended to object to the current administration's stance on the Israel-Hamas war.

One of the most progressive and socially liberal schools in the country is cultivating controversy as it faces accusations of racism after it allegedly banned white residents from accessing a community farm on Saturdays. Gill Tract Community Farm in nearby Albany has designated Saturdays exclusively for use by 'Black, Indigenous, and People of Color' (BIPOC) after a complaint was filed with the US Department of Education by the Mountain States Legal Foundation. The move has been denounced by some as an example of 'systemic racism.'

They are making men illegal. The former Spanish football chief Luis Rubiales faces a prison sentence of 30 months if convicted of charges of sexual assault and coercion. Rubiales grabbed and kissed footballer Jenni Hermoso at the Women's World Cup medal ceremony in August last year. He says it was consensual. She says it wasn't. But that's not the point. The point is that an area of life which has always been governed by manners, custom and judgement has now fallen under the grey, chilly shadow of criminal law. I confess I have not been all that given to grabbing...

A group of pro-Palestinian demonstrators rallied at the San Francisco waterfront where the USNS Harvey Milk was docked Friday, with some protestors chaining themselves to the gangway of the ship. The group gathered to protest the Friday morning ceremony celebrating the ship and its namesake at Pier 30/32 attended by U.S. House Emerita Nancy Pelosi and San Francisco Mayor London Breed, along with other local and military officials. The Arab Resource and Organizing Center was one of the groups that set up the protest and claimed that the ship was bound for Gaza to support Israel's military effort. The group...

Regime corruption, economic collapse and public anger point to trouble ahead On February 5, Mirtza Ocana, an American citizen of Cuban origin, arrived at Tampa International Airport from Havana and was arrested for attempting to smuggle more than $100,000 into the country. When questioned, Ocana confessed to having carried out 45 similar assignments since May 2023. The smuggling operation involved millions of dollars. Because Cuba has slipped beneath the attention horizon of the news media, this incident attracted zero interest. Yet it posed a perplexing riddle. Cuba’s communist regime currently faces the most disastrous economic collapse in its long history...

For the first time ever, surgeons at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston transplanted a pig kidney into a living human patient. Mass General said Thursday the procedure was the first successful procedure of its kind in the world. The kidney recipient was identified as 62-year-old Rick Slayman of Weymouth. He is recovering well at Mass General and the hospital expects him to be discharged soon. Slayman was suffering from end-stage kidney disease at the time of the transplant. Dr. Leo Riella, medical director of kidney transplantation at the hospital, broke down in tears during a press conference on Thursday. "Deepest...

Jane Dorotik has spent two decades fighting for her freedom. The California mother and wife was convicted of murdering her husband Bob in 2001, but always maintained her innocence. From prison, where she was serving a sentence of 25 years to life, Jane spent years filing motions pushing for a new examination of the evidence. Working with Loyola Project for the Innocent, new testing of evidence was done, including of blood found in the couple's bedroom. They said it revealed some of the spots were never tested and others were not blood at all. "If you just look at all...

The City of Minneapolis has reached a tentative settlement with a man who filed a lawsuit after witnessing George Floyd's murder. Court documents obtained by WCCO show the city attorney's plans to present the agreement to the City Council on April 25. If the council approves, Mayor Jacob Frey then has seven days to approve or veto the settlement. The agreement is with Donald Williams. He can be seen on Tou Thao's body cam video asking the now-former officers to intervene. In the lawsuit, Williams said Thao and Derek Chauvin taunted Floyd, Williams and other bystanders who expressed concern and...

... The challenges farmers cite include E.U. requirements to cut the use of pesticides and fertilizers, now partly dropped in light of the protests. Europe’s decision to open its doors to cheaper Ukrainian grain and poultry in a show of solidarity added to competitive problems in a bloc where labor costs already varied widely. At the same time, the E.U. has in many cases reduced subsidies to farmers, especially if they do not shift to more environmentally friendly methods. German farmers have attacked Green party events. This month, they spread a manure slick on a highway near Berlin that caused...

Lori Vallow packed her bags for a weekend trip to St. George, Utah, in late October 2018. She and a few friends were traveling north from Arizona to attend a weekend preppers conference held at a local high school. At the time, Vallow was married to her fourth husband and had two children and adopted another. But that didn’t stop her from catching the eye of the author and seminar speaker she was here to see. Chad Daybell had already built a reputation, the former Utahn whose apparent near-death experiences had prompted his foray into the world of preppers —...

A new study demonstrates the use of a simple pre-surgical infection prevention protocol to prevent dangerous post-surgical infections. Surgical site infections (SSIs) are a type of health care-associated infection with deadly consequences for some patients. These infections lead to a high rate of morbidity and mortality, with a patient's estimated risk of death as much as 11 times higher than normal. Researchers aimed to evaluate the results of a protocol designed to reduce SSIs through a particular focus on the Staphylococcus aureus pathogen. The approach involved a pre-surgical intranasal application of povidone-iodine and skin antisepsis using chlorhexidine gluconate (CHG). The...

A five-day course of once-daily inorganic nitrate reduces the risk of a serious complication following a coronary angiogram, in which the dye used causes damage to the kidneys. The clinical trial also showed that the five-day course improves renal outcomes at three months and major adverse cardiac events (MACE) at one year compared to placebo. Contrast-induced nephropathy (CIN), also known as contrast associated acute kidney injury (CA-AKI), is an uncommon but serious complication following coronary angiography. A special dye, which is visible on X-rays, is injected into the body and when the dye reaches the coronary arteries, an X-ray is...

Rep. Nancy Mace incorrectly claimed that crime is "skyrocketing" across the United States under President Joe Biden, prompting X (formerly Twitter) to issue a community note correcting her. That note was later removed by the platform. "You're seeing, since Joe Biden took office, crime skyrocketing all across the country, and especially in big cities," Mace said in a campaign video posted to X on Saturday. "You see illegal immigrants coming in, beating up cops… You're seeing crime skyrocket." But data from the FBI shows that crime decreased significantly in 2023, including a 13 percent decline in murder, a 6 percent...