Drier Weather Helping Illinois Farmers Plant Corn, Oats

LOS ANGELES — It was an ordinary day at his Los Angeles law office when John Nadolenco opened a letter from Brazil enlisting his help in a mission to retrieve a stolen, and quite possibly cursed, 836-pound emerald. The year was 2014, the heyday of the Nigerian prince email scam, and the up-and-coming attorney was no fool. “I immediately thought it was just completely fake, a total hoax,” he said.

By JOHN HANNA, Associated Press TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas official who is an informal adviser to President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team on immigration issues doesn’t expect mass deportations to prompt arrests of migrants at sensitive locations such as schools and churches. But Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach does expect Trump to take action that will spark a legal challenge over the citizenship status of children born in the U.

By CHRIS MEGERIAN, Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump delivered a likely death blow to bipartisan congressional budget negotiations on Wednesday, rejecting the measure as full of giveaways to Democrats after billionaire ally Elon Musk whipped up outrage toward the bill and cheered on Republican lawmakers who announced their opposition. Trump’s joint statement with Vice President-elect JD Vance, which stopped the bill in its tracks, punctuated a daylong torrent of social media posts by Musk attacking the legislation for what he described as excessive spending. “Stop the steal of your tax dollars!” Musk wrote on his social media platform X as he dangled primary challenges against anyone who voted for the budget deal, a threat Trump later echoed in a post of his own. The episode showcased the growing political influence of Musk, whom Trump has selected alongside entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy to spearhead the Department of Government Efficiency, a nongovernmental task force formed to find ways to fire federal workers, cut programs and reduce regulations. Rep.

By MARK SCOLFORO and MICHAEL R. SISAK, Associated Press HOLLIDAYSBURG, Pa. (AP) — The suspect charged with shooting to death a health insurance company chief executive on a Manhattan street will be taken Thursday morning to hearings on related Pennsylvania criminal charges and efforts to extradite him to New York. The preliminary hearing on forgery and firearms charges and consideration of a fugitive from justice complaint against Luigi Mangione may not take long. He is expected to waive extradition, clearing the way for his return to New York, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.

By JOHN LEICESTER, TOM NOUVIAN and MARINE LESPRIT, Associated Press AVIGNON, France (AP) — A court in France on Thursday sentenced the ex-husband of Gisèle Pelicot to 20 years in prison for drugging and raping her and allowing other men to rape her while she was unconscious, in abuse that lasted nearly a decade. The sentence against Dominique Pelicot was the maximum possible under French law.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: When I was in college, a friend’s family graciously opened their home to me for a couple of months while I worked a summer job near their home, which was an hour from my family’s. I did my best to treat their home as respectfully as my parents’ home, and at the end of summer, I gave them what I could afford out of my earnings for their kindness. During one evening meal, I was enjoying some garden tomatoes that the lady of the house had provided.