WASHINGTON -- Over the last week, Marianna Trevino Wright has watched work crews drive through her butterfly sanctuary in the Rio Grande Valley to a nearby site where brush is being cleared for a planned six-mile stretch of border wall.

Homeland Security has planned to build an 18-foot-tall steel and concrete barrier across the National ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- Forty-five minutes into a 49-minute news conference Friday that was disjointed, defensive and yet unusually subdued, President Donald Trump looked into the sun at the throng of journalists and television cameras and offered a window into his bruised psyche.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had shown him a "beautiful" six-page ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Gov. Gavin Newsom said Friday that California is planning to sue the Trump administration over its declaration of a national emergency on the southern border with Mexico, delivering on a promise state Attorney General Xavier Becerra made last week "to reject this foolish proposal in court the moment it touches the ground." ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court agreed Friday to rule by this summer on the Trump administration's plan to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census, dealing a potential political blow to states with large numbers of immigrants.

In a brief order, the justices granted a request from Trump's lawyers to bypass the appellate courts and decide ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- Former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld says he's exploring a challenge to President Donald Trump in the 2020 Republican primaries.

Weld, who ran as the Libertarian Party's vice presidential candidate in 2016, lashed out at the president at an event in New Hampshire, where the first primary will be held a year from now.

He criticized...Read more

CAPE MAY COURT HOUSE, N.J. -- Emily Weinman admitted using profane language in a beach melee with Wildwood police last Memorial Day weekend that went viral and was sentenced Friday to one year of probation. She was also banned from Wildwood during that time.

The plea deal, in which all charges were dismissed except one disorderly conduct ...Read more

MIAMI -- A former top prosecutor involved in the Jeffrey Epstein sex case is defending his old boss, Alexander Acosta, whose decision to craft a secret plea deal with the wealthy New York hedge fund manager has come under federal scrutiny.

In his first public comments on the 10-year-old case, Jeffrey H. Sloman -- who at the time was second in ...Read more

LOS ANGELES -- For more than 40 minutes, Zhoie Perez filmed the outside of a Los Angeles synagogue, as a security guard whose ire she had drawn trained his own camera on her.

The passive-aggressive standoff that played out Thursday afternoon in the Fairfax district seemed in line with other videos posted to one of Perez's YouTube channels, ...Read more

NEW DELHI -- The worst terror attack on India since Narendra Modi came to power will put pressure on the prime minister to approve a military response against Pakistan, which it blamed for a deadly assault in Kashmir, as it comes ahead of the country's general election. Islamabad denied any link.

"India will give a befitting reply to this ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- Some in the president's party are wringing their hands about how the emergency declaration for a border wall might set a reckless precedent.

They wonder how a future Democratic president could circumvent Congress on liberal spending priorities like the Green New Deal -- the sprawling plan supported by Democratic progressives to ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- After months of planning, Stockton, Calif., is sending debit cards loaded with $500 to a select group of residents starting Friday as part of a closely watched experiment in universal basic income, the first led by a U.S. city.

Stockton, once dubbed "America's foreclosure capital," was the largest city to seek bankruptcy ...Read more

RALEIGH, N.C. -- More inmates died in North Carolina's jails in 2018 than any other year since the state began tracking deaths in 1997.

Forty-four inmates died behind bars or at a medical facility after becoming ill in the jail last year. That's four more than the previous high in 2015. But over the past five years, jail deaths have trended ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump plans to cap months of speculation and two years of failed negotiations over fortifying the southern border by declaring an emergency on Friday, initiating almost certain legal challenges over the extent of his executive power as well as a new set of political risks.

The declaration is intended to circumvent...Read more

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Maxine Waters had toiled 28 years in Congress for the moment last month when she presided over the powerful House Financial Services Committee for the first time as its chairwoman -- and she wanted to make sure everything was perfect.

So the Los Angeles Democrat cleared her throat, prepared her notes and adjusted a thin ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- Carolyn Bourdeaux was at a thank you party for her supporters in December when she decided she was running for Congress again in 2020.

She'd just lost a recount in Georgia's 7th District to Republican incumbent Rob Woodall -- by 419 votes.

"We were obviously quite tired. We had gone for three weeks after Election Day, and there ...Read more