LAS VEGAS — Nevada’s Colorado River czar offered little concrete insight into the status of negotiations at a summit Wednesday as the state braces for the federal government to hand down a final operating plan its water managers aren’t happy with.

“There’s hope that things can change,” said John Entsminger, general manager of the ...Read more

The death toll from Colombia’s earthquake rose to 265 as President Abelardo de la Espriella moved to declare an economic emergency to confront the fallout from the strongest tremor to strike the country in 47 years.

The 7.4-magnitude quake that struck Aug. 10 was the second strongest recorded in Colombian territory in the past century. ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Mayor Jacob Frey proposed a $2.3 billion budget Wednesday that would require a 11.3% increase in the city’s property tax levy, the elimination of 100 positions and the consolidation of several departments.

That would be the biggest levy increase since at least 2000, according to city records. But Frey said the city spending is...Read more

Reality TV personality Joseph Duggar and wife Kendra — who were charged with multiple counts of child endangerment and false imprisonment in March — withdrew their not guilty pleas Monday.

On March 20, Arkansas’ Tontitown Police Department issued arrest warrants for the couple, who were each charged with four counts of endangering the ...Read more

The companies that agreed to pay Maryland $2.25 billion over the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge could ultimately get some of that money back under terms of the settlement obtained by The Baltimore Sun.

The settlement, agreed to in May, calls for Maryland to pursue damages from the Dali’s shipbuilder, HD Hyundai Heavy Industries. ...Read more

DENVER — Former University of Colorado Boulder professor Ward Churchill, a controversial symbol of academic freedom and free speech who was fired after comparing 9/11 victims to a notorious Nazi, has died, his former attorney confirmed. He was 78.

Ward died Tuesday in Atlanta of complications from a stroke, longtime friend and former attorney...Read more

NASA says it wants to build bases on the moon. Maryland's Eastern Shore could become a key part of that effort.

“We’re going to the moon, and we’re going to build a moon base, and we’re going to stay,” Wallops Director David Pierce said Wednesday.

Pierce was among the government, business and education leaders gathered at Salisbury ...Read more

DENVER — Denver Mayor Mike Johnston is officially running for a second term, according to paperwork he filed with the clerk’s office this week.

Johnston, who was first elected in 2023, has focused on major upgrades throughout the city, including plans for a new women’s soccer stadium, a new Broncos stadium and development of Park Hill ...Read more

Gunman John Hinckley thought he’d wind up with Jodie Foster even after shooting President Ronald Reagan and being arrested. He now realizes that wasn’t meant to be and wishes the Academy Award winner well.

The 71-year-old attempted assassin was institutionalized until 2016 at St. Elizabeths Hospital after shooting the 40th president outside...Read more

Karoline Leavitt on Wednesday announced she is stepping down as White House press secretary, citing the demands on her time posed by being a mother of two.

Leavitt, 28, who is one of President Donald Trump’s closest advisers, said she would leave the post at the end of the month. She recently returned from maternity leave after giving birth ...Read more

CHICAGO — Parts of Cook and Will counties were hit by another round of dangerous weather Wednesday, just a day after two tornadoes tore through Chicago’s southern suburbs.

The back-to-back storms this week are the latest in an unusually volatile year that has already brought a record-breaking number of tornadoes to Illinois. And with ...Read more

NEW YORK — Mayor Zohran Mamdani laid the blame Wednesday on former Eric Adams Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro for his own step back from a highly controversial plan to shut down Lower Manhattan’s Elizabeth Street Garden to build affordable housing on the site.

During last year’s mayoral campaign, despite growing opposition, Mamdani backed ...Read more

MIAMI — A naturalized Cuban American woman in Miami is expected to lose her U.S. citizenship after a federal jury found she lied on an application form about her criminal history defrauding the nation’s healthcare system for the elderly.

Tania Rosa Rodriguez, 57, was found guilty last week of fraudulently obtaining her citizenship in 2018 ...Read more

NEW YORK — The gunman accused of spraying a Brooklyn Fourth of July cookout with gunfire isn’t just an alleged mass shooter — he’s also a puppy killer, prosecutors say.

Robert Smith, 44, fired a fatal bullet into the head of a 6-year-old boy’s beloved 10-week-old pup, Sky, when he opened fire on a crowd of about 50 people celebrating ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Prosecutors unsealed a murder indictment Wednesday against Nick Reiner in the fatal stabbing of his parents, Rob and Michele Reiner, inside the family’s Brentwood home last December.

Reiner, 32, made a brief appearance on the 13th floor of downtown Los Angeles’ criminal courts building on the newly released indictment, which...Read more

RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina’s vaccine requirements won’t change ahead of the 2026-27 school year, state officials say, despite a new executive order from President Donald Trump that calls for looser childhood vaccine recommendations.

Trump’s order calls for the measles, mumps and rubella vaccines — typically administered at the ...Read more

Tropical Storm Cristobal formed in the Atlantic on Wednesday as no threat to land, but the National Hurricane Center continued to track two other systems headed toward the Caribbean with a chance to develop into the season’s next tropical depression or storm.

As of 11 a.m. EDT, the center of Cristobal was located 880 miles west of the Azores ...Read more

DEARBORN, Mich. — One of the men who was videotaped assaulting an anti-Muslim activist during an Aug. 2 religious celebration is a convicted murderer and a "criminal alien from Iraq" who is in federal custody awaiting a deportation hearing, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said Wednesday.

The incident happened during ...Read more