LOS ANGELES -- The Trump administration's decision to cancel a $927 million grant to California's troubled high speed rail project and claw back $2.5 billion in funds already spent has thrust the federal government into uncharted legal territory and posed an existential threat to the state's largest investment ever.

Never before, experts say, ...Read more

CHICAGO -- Those who seek to build grand edifices in Chicago's lakefront parks do so at their own risk.

That's one takeaway from a federal judge's surprising Tuesday decision not to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the location of the Obama Presidential Center in historic Jackson Park. But the setback doesn't doom the promising plans for the ...Read more

MOSCOW -- Russian President Vladimir Putin warned the Trump administration Wednesday against basing intermediate-range missiles in Europe, saying that Moscow would respond by deploying new weapons of its own that could directly target Washington.

Although the threat did not mark a change in Russian doctrine, it raised the ante in what could be ...Read more

When Voyager II flew past Neptune in August of 1989 it revealed a complex system of 13 moons, six of which had never been seen before.

Thirty years later, scientists say the space probe missed one.

Using data from the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have discovered an elusive seventh ice moon around the ice giant that fell just out of ...Read more

Trump says release of Mueller report will be 'totally' up to new AG Barr

WASHINGTON -- During a Wednesday meeting with his Austrian counterpart, President Donald J. Trump said the release of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's report would be "totally" up to Attorney General William Barr.

The president was asked after CNN reported ...Read more

DHAKA, Bangladesh -- At least 49 people were killed in an overnight fire that engulfed several buildings in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka, a rescue official said early Thursday.

Ali Ahmed Khan, director general of the Fire Service and Civil Defense, or DMCH, told dpa 49 bodies were recovered from the site of the fire, and 41 injured people were...Read more

WASHINGTON -- During a Wednesday meeting with his Austrian counterpart, President Donald J. Trump said the release of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's report would be "totally" up to Attorney General William Barr.

The president was asked after CNN reported Wednesday that Mueller's report could be finalized next week. Trump said releasing...Read more

WASHINGTON -- Alabama Republican Rep. Bradley Byrne launched his Senate campaign Wednesday, kicking off the contest to take on one of the most vulnerable senators in the country: Democrat Doug Jones.

"Look in Washington and tell me you don't see a disconnect between your values and the values you see up there," Byrne told supporters at his ...Read more

SEATTLE -- The medical files of nearly 1 million patients of University of Washington Medicine were visible on the internet for at least three weeks in December, UW Medicine said Wednesday.

The files, which were exposed on Dec. 4 because of "an internal human error" were internal files that the hospital system used to document when it shared ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- A Coast Guard lieutenant living in a Washington suburb stockpiled weapons and plotted to kill prominent liberal politicians and television news personalities, federal prosecutors said.

Christopher Paul Hasson, who worked at the Coast Guard headquarters in Washington, was arrested on firearms and narcotics charges last Friday. But ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump said he's told Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to bar an Alabama woman who joined Islamic State and now expresses remorse from returning to the U.S.

"I have instructed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and he fully agrees, not to allow Hoda Muthana back into the Country!" the president tweeted on Wednesday.

...Read more

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt said Wednesday his office would investigate a St. Louis day care where 3- and 4-year-olds were filmed engaging in fist fights.

The announcement came two weeks after the St. Louis circuit attorney's office dropped its case against day care workers Tena N. Dailey and Mickala Guliford, ...Read more

LOS ANGELES -- Nearly 46 years after the lifeless body of 11-year-old Linda Ann O'Keefe was found among the cattails in Newport Beach's Back Bay, police this week announced that a suspect has been arrested in connection with the girl's death.

Orange County prosecutors have charged James Alan Neal, 72, of Colorado with murder. If convicted, he ...Read more

DETROIT -- A United States Postal Service worker is charged with mail theft in Macomb County, Mich., after nearly 15,000 pieces of mail were discovered in her Clinton Township home last month.

Tiara Vann, 30, admitted to withholding the mail since September 2018, according to federal court documents filed with U.S. District Court for the ...Read more

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Saying dolphins and whales are at risk in the search for oil, environmental groups asked a federal court Wednesday to block companies from launching seismic tests to look for oil deposits off the South Carolina coast.

The request for a preliminary injunction to stop seismic blasting would prevent the search from starting until...Read more