SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — The Illinois Supreme Court on Friday endorsed the consolidation of , a rare victory in a yearslong battle to find an answer to the state’s besieged retirement accounts.

The rejected claims by three dozen working and retired police officers and firefighters from across the state that the merger of 649 separate systems into two statewide accounts violated the state constitution’s guarantee that benefits “shall not be diminished or impaired.”

For years, that phrase has flummoxed governors and legislatures trying to cut

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — The Louisiana Legislature passed a congressional map with a second majority-Black district on Friday, marking a win for Democrats and civil rights groups after a legal battle and political tug-of-war that spanned nearly two years.

Democrats have long fought for a second majority-minority district among Louisiana’s six congressional districts — arguing that the political boundaries passed by the GOP-dominated legislature in 2022 discriminates against Black voters, who make up one-third of

BOSTON (AP) — Harvard University, struggling to manage its campus response to , announced task forces on Friday to combat antisemitism and Islamophobia.

“Reports of antisemitic and Islamophobic acts on our campus have grown, and the sense of belonging among these groups has been undermined,” Alan Garber, Harvard’s interim president, said in a letter to the school community. “We need to understand why and how that is happening — and what more we might do to prevent it.”

The separate task forces follow the

NEW YORK (AP) — An 11-month-old baby died Friday after being burned by steam leaking from a radiator inside a Brooklyn apartment, according to New York City police.

Officers responding to a 911 call shortly after 6 a.m. found the boy unconscious in an apartment bedroom, where steam continued to spew from the heating unit, police said. He was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

An investigation was underway, police said.

A radiator malfunction was blamed

FORT EDWARD, N.Y. (AP) — A man who fatally shot a 20-year-old woman after the car she was riding in mistakenly drove up his backcountry driveway in upstate New York testified at his trial Friday that he believed he was under siege that night and now feels “like my soul is dead.”

But he maintained the fatal shot went off accidentally.

Kevin Monahan, 66, took the stand in his own defense to end testimony in his second-degree murder trial.

Five teenagers are facing charges in connection with an armed robbery at a Pickering pharmacy.

Durham police were called to the Guardian Drug Store on Kingston Road on Thursday around 2:30 p.m. to reports of a robbery.

It’s alleged four males entered the pharmacy, one armed with a gun, demanding access to the store safe. The suspects then allegedly stole narcotics and cash before fleeing in a waiting white Chevrolet four-door sedan.

Police located the suspect vehicle as it entered the westbound Highway 4

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Republicans who control the Wisconsin Assembly introduced a bill Friday that would call for a binding statewide referendum on whether abortion should be banned after 14 weeks of pregnancy.

The GOP has scheduled a public hearing on the bill for Monday afternoon at the state Capitol. Democratic Gov. Tony Evers is almost certain to veto the measure. However, the proposal could still galvanize the conservative base after Democrats parlayed anger over the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn its landmark 1

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (AP) — A University of North Carolina graduate student on campus five months ago had visited a gun range the day before the professor was killed and had bought a pistol, according to information from federal search warrants.

Tailei Qi, 35, was arrested in a residential area less than two hours after the Aug. 28 shooting of Zijie Yan inside a laboratory building at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Qi, charged with first-degree murder and a gun

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Six nuns were kidnapped Friday in Haiti as they traveled on a bus through the capital, according to religious leaders.

The nuns were accompanied by an undetermined number of unidentified people on the bus who also were kidnapped, according to a statement by the Haitian Conference of the Religious. It said the nuns are from the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Anne.

The congregation didn’t respond to messages for comment. It wasn’t immediately known who was responsible