Author: FOX24 US

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,…

FOX 24 US Senate Republicans’ reconciliation package in its current form includes billions of dollars for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), effectively providing funding for those agencies until the end of fiscal year 2029. If the reconciliation package becomes law, the funding — combined with the money from last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) — will be enough for ICE to operate at quadruple capacity for the next three and a half years. And the funding for Border Patrol, again combined with OBBB, will be more than enough to run it for the…

FOX 24 US Democrats seem to have avoided the nightmare scenario in California: with just under 60 percent of the vote in, only one Republican is currently poised to make it to the general election.  Just a couple months ago, the two Republican candidates in the race were polling first and second, threatening a Democratic lockout. In California’s jungle primary, the top two vote getters proceed to the general election regardless of party. Democrats fielded more than 20 candidates in the race, dividing voters. As of Wednesday afternoon, Republican former Fox News host Steve Hilton leads with 28 percent of…

FOX 24 US The Supreme Court showed beyond a doubt Tuesday that it will never again put a stop to Republican states snuffing out the Black vote.  The six right-wing justices granted Alabama’s request for a stay, which clears the way for the state to hold its 2026 elections under a 2023 map crafted to deliver Republicans six congressional seats and Democrats only one. It does so by making Black Alabamians’ votes count for less than white ones’.  In Louisiana v. Callais, the Court made vote dilution nearly impossible to prove. It ignored Congress’ alterations to the Voting Rights Act…

FOX 24 US State Rep. Josh Turek (D-IA), a gold medal Paralympian, won the Democratic primary Tuesday and will now set his sights on the open Iowa U.S. Senate seat. While Iowa has seemed lost to Democrats since the 2010s white working class realignment, open races for Senate and governor, strong Democratic recruits and President Trump’s dismal approval rating may be enough to put the seat in reach. Turek beat state Sen. Zach Wahls (D-IA), who vowed to bring the fight to the Democratic establishment, especially Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). Turek declined to say whether he’d vote for Schumer,…