Author: FOX24 US

FOX 24 US This article was originally published by ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive their biggest stories as soon as they’re published. Trump administration officials earlier this year killed a federal criminal investigation into the coal empire owned by Sen. Jim Justice, a Republican from West Virginia and a close ally of the president’s. The investigation examined potential criminal violations of the Clean Water Act by the multistate mining operations largely run by Justice’s son, Jay, according to current and former officials familiar with the matter. The criminal probe was a significant escalation…

FOX 24 US While the outcome of Tuesday’s primary was never in doubt, the margin was; a mediocre showing against Maine Governor Janel Mills (D), who dropped out after running a begrudging campaign, would suggest that Democrat Graham Platner had taken on water from his recent stream of scandals. As of Wednesday morning, with about 88% of the vote tabulated, there were no such warning signs.  Platner’s Percentage of the Vote Paces Gideon’s  Sara Gideon, former Maine House speaker and the Democrat who ran against Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) in 2020, got 71.5% of the primary vote against two longshot…

FOX 24 US This story about Winooski was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter. WINOOSKI, Vt. — The day’s class started with a writing prompt: Do you feel safe in school? Why or why not? The students — whose families hail from across the globe and speak languages including Arabic, Nepali, Spanish and Somali — wrote their responses before reading them aloud. “I feel safe in school because I saw the school doors are locked every time,” one student said, “and I heard…

FOX 24 US Two erstwhile allies of President Trump who gave up their seats in Congress to run for governor of South Carolina failed to make it into a runoff election on Tuesday. Pamela Evette, the Trump-endorsed lieutenant governor, came in first place, followed by Alan Wilson, the state’s current attorney general. The two colorful members of Congress, Ralph Norman and Nancy Mace, lagged far behind.  Like most Republican primaries in this MAGA era, South Carolina’s gubernatorial race was defined by President Donald Trump’s famous “Complete and Total Endorsement.” The race also showed the level of loyalty Trump demands in…

FOX 24 US Grand jury sessions are among the most tightly held elements of the criminal justice system. But thanks to the collapse of the federal case against Chicago’s Broadview Six, transcripts from the proceedings were released into public view on Tuesday. The transcripts document interactions between prosecutor Sheri Mecklenburg and the grand jurors that later gave rise to allegations of prosecutorial misconduct. They show how, over the course of three separate appearances on three separate days, Mecklenburg made a series of errors before the grand jury that later infuriated the judge in the case. Before the grand jury finally…

FOX 24 US So far, a clear media narrative has emerged from the 2026 midterm election primaries: Trump’s unprecedented reshaping of the Republican Party in his image over the last decade is nearly complete, and his influence remains as strong as ever.  He’s repeatedly succeeded in unseating his political enemies in Congress and in state legislatures. He vanquished state legislators who defied his redistricting push in Indiana, defeated now-outgoing Sen. Bill Cassidy in Louisiana, and booted Rep. Thomas Massie in Kentucky. In Texas, he backed scandal-laden election denier Ken Paxton, who ousted longtime senator John Cornyn (R-TX) in a runoff.…

FOX 24 US When President Donald Trump’s administration began its shakeup of the federal government, purging online data sets and demonizing previous federal policy, Laura Pegram saw that her organization could be in danger. She, along with others at the National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors, or NASTAD, moved to restructure their website. “We very intentionally took down all of our staff bios, took down a vast majority of our drug user health resources,” Pegram said. “I still have them, of course. Just like I have all of the CDC and SAMHSA pages that used to affirm the…

FOX 24 US U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy, a Trump appointee, on Friday referred Justice Department lawyers for disciplinary proceedings after writing that the attorneys’ “reckless disregard for the duty of candor owed to a federal court is appalling.”  The order stems from the Trump administration’s attempt to trawl for sensitive information about trans kids by subpoenaing hospitals that provide gender affirming care. Some hospital systems — including the University of Michigan’s, as TPM first reported in August — stopped providing care altogether rather than fight the subpoenas. But others spawned lawsuits. McElroy, a judge in the District of Rhode Island,…

FOX 24 US Senate Republicans passed their reconciliation bill early Friday morning funding Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol until the end of fiscal year 2029. The, 52-47, largely party line final vote followed an all day vote-a-rama that stretched into the early hours of Friday. In the end, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) was the only Republican to break with her caucus and vote against the bill. Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO), who is currently running to become the next governor of Colorado, did not vote as he was back in his state to participate in a gubernatorial debate.…

FOX 24 US Hello, and welcome back to The Franchise! The biggest voting rights news this week is, of course, another series of devastating developments in the battle to redistrict away minority and Democratic voting power in the South. But there’s lots more to unpack today, including an exclusive convo with Franchise readers’ favorite conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell, who has some delusional spin to share on why it’s actually good news that he didn’t receive the Republican endorsement in the Minnesota gubernatorial race. We’ll get into that a bit more below, but first:  On Tuesday, in a win for Republicans,…