WASHINGTON -- The worldwide -- and illegal -- cyberattack-for-hire business flourishes. Got a grievance against a retailer? A former spouse bugging you? Plenty of online thugs will take astonishingly small sums of money and launch a cyberattack on your behalf.

The hackers-for-hire flood a website with malicious traffic and knock it off line.

...Read more

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens made a rare appearance on the fourth floor of the Missouri Capitol on Wednesday, bodyguards in tow, as he met with some of the Republican lawmakers who hold his fate in their hands.

Reporters waited outside a fourth floor office and followed Greitens, a Republican, down a stairwell as he headed...Read more

The Pentagon has awarded a nearly $19 million contract to expand Guantanamo's war court complex with Top Secret office space for lawyers defending the accused plotters of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. The builder? A subsidiary of the construction giant that helped rebuild the World Trade Center.

The award to URS Group Inc. of Morrisville, ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- Attorney General Jeff Sessions refused to tell Congress on Wednesday if he had stepped aside from supervising the federal investigation into President Donald Trump's personal lawyer in New York, or say if he has discussed the sensitive probe with the president or his aides.

Sessions, testifying before a Senate Appropriations ...Read more

BEIRUT -- Experts have visited a second site in the Syrian town of Douma, the scene of an alleged chemical attack, and collected samples for analysis, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said.

"These samples will be brought back, together with other samples, to the OPCW laboratory in Rijswik (in the Netherlands). ...Read more

Cambridge Analytica's promotion of discontent tied to Bannon

WASHINGTON -- Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie told House Democrats that Steve Bannon, President Donald Trump's former adviser, was behind much of the company's early focus on promoting public discontent to influence U.S. elections.

"Cambridge Analytica was set up ...Read more

MIAMI -- After 26 years on the lam and another year in jail, infamous drug smuggler Gustavo Falcon wrote the federal judge who would decide his fate a letter confessing shame and regret.

The five-page handwritten note to U.S. District Judge Federico Moreno was revealed in federal court Wednesday as Falcon, 56, faced sentencing in one of the ...Read more

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A Wyandotte County judge Wednesday dismissed the criminal case against one of the five defendants facing charges in the 2016 death of a boy on the Verruckt water slide.

Judge Robert Burns dropped charges against Schlitterbahn Waterpark of Kansas City, Kan., which was named as a defendant in a March grand jury indictment that...Read more

LOS ANGELES -- Families of the Golden State Killer's victims have waited decades for answers, and on Wednesday they could see the face of a man police suspect in a years-long series of crimes.

Authorities arrested a 72-year-old Citrus Heights resident and former police officer, Joseph James DeAngelo Jr., in connection with the crimes in the ...Read more

DETROIT -- Two bodies appeared to be covered in mold and the facial area of a third body was covered in unknown fluids at the Cantrell Funeral Home in Detroit on Wednesday, when state regulators inspected the establishment and ordered its closure.

The Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs said that, in response to a complaint ...Read more

MEXICO CITY -- The soldiers took them in the night.

First they came for Nitza Alvarado Espinoza and Jose Alvarado Herrera. The 31-year-old cousins were sitting in a van outside a family member's house when troops forced them into a military truck.

Minutes later, soldiers arrived at the house of another Alvarado cousin, 18-year-old Rocio ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- The nation's acting consumer financial watchdog delivered some good news and lobbying advice this week to the bankers he regulates: He would like to cut off public access to a database of consumer complaints and suggested the industry donate to lawmakers to persuade them to weaken his agency's authority.

The comments by Mick ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court's conservative justices sounded ready Wednesday to uphold President Donald Trump's travel ban, potentially giving the beleaguered White House a big legal victory after a series of defeats in the lower courts.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Anthony M. Kennedy portrayed the issue before the court as ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- The White House on Wednesday continued defending embattled Veterans Affairs Secretary nominee Ronny Jackson, saying multiple background checks have turned up no red flags. And, for the first time, a senior official said an internal review could happen as his nomination appears stalled.

With his Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee ...Read more