For the past decade, scarcity was the U.S. housing industry’s most powerful marketing tool. The less there was to buy, the greater the urgency to keep bidding, even as prices hit record highs.

Demand was supercharged by record-low pandemic-era mortgage rates that sparked bidding wars and sent prices soaring, crushing affordability. Recent ...Read more

MIAMI — The chain-link cages under white industrial tents have been emptied. The guards dismissed. The immigrants transferred out.

But even though Alligator Alcatraz’s gates are closed, allegations of beatings, pepper-spraying, and injuries — including a broken wrist and a bloody eye — continue to haunt the remote Everglades runway ...Read more

MIAMI — As Florida education leaders signal openness to expanding religious expression in public schools, a recent survey finds broad support for school prayer in public schools — but only if it is optional.

The survey, released by the Pew Research Center in April 2026, sheds light on how Americans feel about different aspects of religious ...Read more

The Trump administration is continuing its pushback against state artificial intelligence laws that it views as ideologically biased, proposing a new Federal Trade Commission policy.

The proposed policy statement, which is open for public comment through July 31, would affect how the FTC regulates AI companies. The agency said it’s meant to ...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump warned Iran that the U.S. military would “completely decimate and destroy all areas” of the Islamic Republic if its leaders attempted or carried out his assassination.

The president’s message, in a Truth Social post late Friday, came at the end of a week in which clashes between Iran and the U.S. ...Read more

DETROIT — The Gordie Howe International Bridge will open to traffic July 27 under an agreement between Canada and Michigan and with the support of the U.S. government, Canadian officials said Friday.

The announcement came a few hours after Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mike Rogers, an ally of President Donald Trump, said the bridge was ...Read more

The Illinois House is launching a special committee to investigate longtime state Rep. Carol Ammons after the Democrat’s recent indictment on federal wire fraud and obstruction charges, a move forced by members of the chamber’s Republican superminority.

House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch said Rep. Curtis Tarver would chair the special ...Read more

DENVER — More than 850 structures have burned in the Aspen Acres fire southwest of Pueblo, officials said Friday morning, as the scope of the blaze starts to come into focus.

Colorado officials have also allowed some of the thousands of people displaced by four major wildfires to return home this week, with more evacuation orders lifted ...Read more

China has again told Russia not to even consider using a nuclear weapon against Ukraine, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Russian nuclear saber rattling has accelerated in 2026, with officials and major Russian outlets making the case for tactical nukes more forcefully and unambiguously than any time since Vladimir Putin ordered the ...Read more

NEW YORK — New York City’s specialized high schools continued to make few offers to Black and Latino students during Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s first admissions cycle in office, according to data released Friday.

Black students received 3.5% and Hispanic students 6.5% of acceptance letters — broadly consistent with last year’s 3% and 6.9%...Read more

BALTIMORE — At least three men were shot Friday afternoon in New Northwood, according to Baltimore Police.

Officials responded around 5 p.m. to reports of a shooting at the shopping center in the 1400 block of East Cold Spring Lane. Upon arrival, officers found three men, two 24-year-olds and one 25-year-old, with multiple gunshot wounds.

...Read more

A San Jose, California, man was sentenced to 60 days in county jail for lying to his insurance company after he brake-checked a semi-truck on the freeway in a fit of road rage, prosecutors said.

Ken Pham Tran, 53, was convicted last month of felony insurance fraud, felony vandalism and reckless driving, a misdemeanor, stemming from a road rage ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The U.S. is demanding that Iran issue a public statement that all channels of the Strait of Hormuz are open to shipping and that they will not attack transiting civilian vessels, according to senior administration officials.

The officials, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity on Friday, said they expected talks to ...Read more

A Ryanair Boeing 737 NG plane flying from Greece to Germany turned back for an emergency landing after an issue with its right engine, a cabin decompression event and a broken passenger window, according to safety regulators and the airline.

The Ryanair flight from Thessaloniki, Greece, to Memmingen, Germany, made an emergency landing Friday ...Read more

DETROIT — The Gordie Howe International Bridge is expected to open soon to traffic through a deal negotiated by the United States and Canada, according to Republican Mike Rogers, who's running for the U.S. Senate in Michigan and is an ally of President Donald Trump.

Rogers of White Lake Township made the comments during a Friday radio ...Read more

WASHINGTON — A group of high-ranking Senate Democrats Friday called on their Republican counterparts to investigate whether President Donald Trump’s crypto ventures pose national security risks.

Democrats sharply criticized Trump’s financial disclosure last week showing he generated at least $1.4 billion from crypto ventures, and accused ...Read more

Fifteen states on Friday sued the Trump administration to prevent millions of dollars in cuts to school-based mental health funding.

The new lawsuit is part of an ongoing legal battle between Democratic-led states and the U.S. Department of Education over a mental health grant program that Congress established following the 2018 school shooting...Read more

Cubans who self-describe as revolutionaries have been turning to social media to question the rapid ascent of Raúl Castro’s grandson and his role in negotiations with the Trump administration, in an unusual sign of divisions among core government supporters.

Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro has no formal government position but, as a direct...Read more

King Charles III on Friday hosted a long-awaited but already much-debated reunion with his errant son, Prince Harry, his American wife, Meghan Markle, and their two children, Archie, 7, and Lilibet, 5, at his country estate.

The meeting, “shrouded in secrecy,” took place at Highgrove, Charles’ private Gloucestershire residence, a short ...Read more