ORLANDO, Fla. — SpaceX launched Wednesday evening the first of a pair of Space Coast rockets in two days, both carrying batches of the company’s Starlink satellites.

A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 23 of the internet satellites for SpaceX’s growing constellation lifted off at 5:26 p.m. Eastern time from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39-A...Read more

BALTIMORE — Chuck and JoAnn Anderika were up before dawn Tuesday to bring their sailboat back home.

The Anderikas set out around 6 a.m. from Solomons Island, headed for Baltimore. The couple wanted to ensure they made it in time to take advantage of a one-hour window for recreational boats to pass by the wreckage of the Francis Scott Key ...Read more

NEW YOKR — A legislative package boosting New York City in its battle against the estimated 2,500 unlicensed cannabis shops operating citywide has been secured in state budget negotiations, lawmakers said Wednesday.

The plan to fight illegal cannabis stores, one of the most closely watched policy elements in the state budget, would deploy a ...Read more

BOSTON — FBI agents have nabbed an Oklahoma man accused of throwing a pipe bomb onto the porch of the Satanic Temple in Salem.

Sean Patrick Palmer, 49, has been charged with using an explosive to cause damage to a building used in interstate or foreign commerce.

Palmer was arrested on Wednesday, and will make an initial appearance in the ...Read more

NEW YORK — A New York City livery and taxi driver advocate is offering a $5,000 reward to anyone with information that can help cops make arrests in a string of recent attacks and carjackings among working drivers.

“We are outraged that, in seven days, we have had upwards of six armed robberies,” Fernando Mateo, founder of the New York ...Read more

JUNEAU, Alaska — The Alaska Senate is planning to set aside around $15 million in its draft budget in extra school funding. That's because the federal government says state funding was not adequate for the highest-need schools during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 2021 American Rescue Plan Act gave over $125 billion to schools across the nation ...Read more

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Lawmakers are moving ahead with a measure that would make mental health professionals who get sent on emergency calls alongside law enforcement eligible for the same benefits as other first responders if they’re also hurt in the line of duty.

Mental health advocates for years have pushed for a more holistic approach to ...Read more

More than 100 pro-Palestinian students Wednesday occupied the main lawn of Columbia University, as college President Minouche Shafik defended before Congress her handling of rising campus antisemitism amid the Israel-Hamas war.

Members of the Republican-led U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce grilled Shafik on the administration...Read more

WASHINGTON — Senators were sworn in at 1 p.m. Wednesday for their third impeachment trial in four years, this time of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas.

Three hours later, they had voted along party lines to dismiss both counts against Mayorkas.

House Republicans, who say Mayorkas has failed to fulfill his duties in ...Read more

WASHINGTON — White House officials have renewed discussions about potentially declaring a national climate emergency, an unprecedented step that could unlock federal powers to stifle oil development.

Top advisers to President Joe Biden have recently resumed talks about the merits of such a move, which could be used to curtail crude exports, ...Read more

The Federal Bureau of Prisons appears unwilling to allow a court-appointed special master to have broad oversight of its closure of the scandal-plagued FCI Dublin women’s prison in Northern California, according to a recent court filing.

The agency’s challenge to the prison’s first-of-its-kind special master comes the same week the ...Read more

ATLANTA — The legal battle over whether counties have the right to draw their own district lines went to the Georgia Supreme Court Wednesday.

The case involves the Cobb County Commission’s decision to overrule state legislative redistricting, which would have drawn a Democratic commissioner out of her district mid-term, and claim it could ...Read more

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Convicted killer and fraudster Alex Murdaugh will appeal his 40-year sentence for federal financial crimes.

His lawyers on Tuesday filed a notice of appeal to the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. The 40-year sentence — perhaps the stiffest ever for financial crimes in South Carolina — was handed down on April 1 by U.S. ...Read more

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Administrative positions and offices dedicated to diversity, equity and inclusion are likely to be eliminated at all public universities across North Carolina following a vote Wednesday by members of the board that oversees the campuses.

The UNC System Board of Governors’ University Governance committee approved a policy ...Read more

NEW YORK — More than 100 pro-Palestinian students Wednesday occupied the main lawn of Columbia University as college President Minouche Shafik defended before Congress her handling of the school’s response to campus antisemitism amid the Israel-Hamas war.

Members of the House Committee on Education & The Workforce grilled Shafik on the ...Read more

Sentencing has been scheduled for Nicolae Miu, the Prior Lake, Minnesota, man who was convicted of stabbing a teenager during a 2022 confrontation at the Apple River in western Wisconsin.

Miu, 54, will learn on July 31 his sentence from St. Croix County District Judge Michael Waterman after jurors found him guilty on April 11 of first-degree ...Read more

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas says the local labor market would benefit from an influx of workers seeking asylum in the United States legally but who are now stuck in crowded shelters in big cities like New York as they await work permits.

“All are welcome in Kansas City,” Lucas said Tuesday in a social media post in ...Read more

NEW YORK — Over 1,600 illegal mopeds, motorcycles, ATVs and dirt bikes were pulled off New York City streets in a massive NYPD crackdown on the ear-splitting rides, police say.

Cops seized scores of scooters and mopeds without proper registrations and license plates during a 10-day operation across the five boroughs last week. ATVs and dirt ...Read more