Author: Abigail Clark

WASHINGTON — Plans to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary are turning into a full-on political brawl, with congressional Democrats accusing the Trump administration of trying to take over the semiquincentennial planning process and steer money toward a White House-backed initiative that they say is less transparent than the congressionally chartered commission. At a House Natural Resources…

NEW YORK — Actor Blake Lively and director Justin Baldoni attended a court-mandated settlement conference in Manhattan aimed at resolving Lively’s lawsuit before a scheduled May trial — but they left without a settlement after hours behind closed doors, according to the Associated Press. The case has been drawing heavy attention because it mixes celebrity,…

When you open a wall expecting a quick electrical tweak, the junction box is often the detail that quietly turns a simple job into a sprawling repair. A box that is the wrong size, buried behind drywall, or surrounded by a sloppy cutout can force you into patching, rewiring, and sometimes even opening more of…

BOSTON — A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to facilitate the return of a Honduran college student who was deported in violation of a court order, escalating a case that has become a flashpoint in the immigration enforcement debate. The student, Any Lucia Lopez Belloza, attends Babson College in Massachusetts. Reuters reported she was…

Home inspectors are flagging the same problem in new builds and renovated houses alike: breaker panels that are mislabeled, half labeled, or not labeled at all. You might have brand new wiring and shiny devices, but if the directory beside those switches is wrong or unreadable, you are inviting safety risks, failed inspections, and expensive…

WASHINGTON — Immigration and Customs Enforcement plans to spend $38.3 billion by the end of the year on a major detention-and-processing expansion aimed at holding tens of thousands of immigrants slated for deportation, according to a planning document obtained and published by New Hampshire Gov. Kelly Ayotte’s office. The plan is attention-grabbing because it isn’t…

Swapping a tired outlet for a modern one looks like the definition of minor home maintenance, the kind of task you handle between errands without a second thought. Yet that simple change can quietly cross the line from cosmetic upgrade into regulated electrical work, raising permit questions that only surface when an inspector, buyer, or…

WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency has revoked the government’s 2009 “endangerment finding,” a scientific determination that greenhouse gases threaten public health and welfare and a key legal foundation for U.S. climate regulations. The Trump administration says the move will cut regulatory costs and roll back federal greenhouse-gas standards for vehicles, while critics say it…