ORLANDO, Fla. — The sight of United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket has flown for the last time in its most powerful configuration.

The rocket, sporting five boosters, launched at 12:30 a.m. Thursday from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 41 on the Amazon Leo 8 mission.

All six remaining Atlas V rockets have been...Read more

Acting President Delcy Rodríguez is facing mounting political fallout from last week’s twin earthquakes, with nearly half of Venezuelans saying holding new elections is more urgent than rebuilding after the disaster.

Rodríguez’s disapproval rating climbed to 63.3% in June, up almost five percentage points from May, according to an ...Read more

Americans hit the peak of the summer driving season this July 4 holiday weekend wincing at the cost of gasoline, still running nearly a dollar a gallon higher than before the war with Iran despite falling sharply in recent weeks.

At a Shell station in Southern California with a giant U.S. flag flying overhead, Luis Velasquez added just a single...Read more

WASHINGTON — Small towns across America had big plans to celebrate the nation's semiquincentennial this weekend. Local historical societies scheduled town square readings of the Declaration of Independence, hired bands to play patriotic tunes, organized parades and set up themed baking contests.

But many of their most ambitious plans were ...Read more

When polar ice sheets melt, the effects ripple across the world. The melting ice raises average global sea level, alters ocean currents and affects temperatures in places far from the poles.

But melting ice sheets don’t affect sea level and temperatures in the same way everywhere.

In a November 2025 study, our team of ...Read more

When I started bird-watching as a teenager, a few years after the first Earth Day in 1970, several species that once thrived in my region were nowhere to be found.

Some, like the passenger pigeon, were extinct. Others had retreated to more remote, wild areas of North America. In many cases, humans had destroyed their habitat by ...Read more

Democrats are seizing the mantle of states’ rights to oppose the agenda of President Donald Trump, who has sought to reset Washington’s relationship with the states.

While the party out of federal power has always pushed its agenda in statehouses, Democrats across the country have recently demanded more autonomy for governors and state ...Read more

CHICAGO — For weeks, Chicago’s U.S. attorney’s office has tried to tamp down a scandal over alleged misconduct in grand jury sessions by focusing on a single prosecutor who handled the now-defunct “Broadview Six” case against Operation Midway Blitz protesters.

U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros has ordered a top-to-bottom review of some 100...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Standing outside of her casual Venezuelan restaurant in downtown L.A., Kelly Montana clutched print-out photos of her parents as she visibly held back tears.

This is the longest Montana has gone without contact with her parents — she speaks to them "all day, every day" even when they were thousands of miles away in La Guaira, ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Sen. Thom Tillis wants the White House to stop making “unforced errors” that could affect the midterms.

And in a rare move, Tillis shifted his blame for the administration’s actions from President Donald Trump’s advisers to both the president and his advisers.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune sent lawmakers home early ...Read more

Facing growing criticism over military restrictions in disaster zones, Venezuela’s interim government on Thursday defended its decision to militarize the state of La Guaira as the death toll from last week’s earthquakes climbed to 2,595.

The devastating twin earthquakes of 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude that struck north-central Venezuela on June 24...Read more

WASHINGTON — The top U.S. commander for Europe and Africa stepped down on Thursday, following through on a plan that caught military leaders by surprise and sending another signal that the Trump administration wants to scale back its defense commitment to the continent.

Army Gen. Christopher Donahue, who had been seen as one of the US ...Read more

Cut to a seedy alley behind a Chinese restaurant in Rome: A dozen mobsters menace a slight young man who suddenly pulls out a pair of nunchucks. He swings the traditional stick-and-chain weapons and makes quick work of his enemies, who fall one by one, groaning in pain.

The comedic, legendary action scene is from the 1972 film “Way of the ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Crews in Boyle Heights continued working Thursday to haul away millions of pounds of rotting food in hopes of returning the fire-stricken cold-storage facility and the surrounding neighborhood to normal.

But a block away, a group of about 50 residents and community organizers — who endured days of dark smoke and, now, putrid ...Read more

Hundreds of firefighters battling five wildfires across Colorado may see extreme fire behavior in the coming days, with state leaders bracing for a weather forecast of near-zero humidity, triple digit temperatures and strong winds.

“If you care about our state, if you care about our firefighters, do not use fireworks or other types of flames ...Read more

NEW YORK — They say they did it all for love — but prosecutors say they recklessly put themselves and others in extreme danger.

Angelina Nikolau, 33, and Ivan “Vanya” Kuznetsov, 32, were arraigned Thursday morning for scaling the spire on top of the Empire State Building for a marriage proposal a day earlier.

Appearing in Manhattan ...Read more

NEW YORK — Temperatures in Central Park reached 100 degrees for the first time in nearly 14 years.

The National Weather Service New York reported at 1:51 p.m. that the mercury hit triple digits for the first time since July 18, 2012. And it felt even hotter, with a heat index of up to 106 degrees.

Emergency Management officials reminded New ...Read more