WASHINGTON -- Calif. Sen. Kamala Harris charged that the Trump administration had committed "crimes against humanity" after meeting at a U.S. detention center on Friday with immigrant mothers who had been separated from their children.

Harris became the latest prominent Democrat to travel to the southern border as controversy rages over ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- House Energy and Commerce Chairman Greg Walden said Friday he remained open to advancing a bipartisan proposal that would establish a national authority for regulating doping and medication in horse racing.

But after a raucous Digital Commerce and Consumer Protection subcommittee hearing that revealed an industry divided over how ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS -- A pregnant Monalisa Perez cried and pleaded with her boyfriend several times to put a stop to a YouTube stunt but the man urged her on, eventually dying after she fired a gun at him as he held an encyclopedia to his chest.

Norman County authorities released videos, evidence and transcripts Friday showing that Pedro Ruiz III, 22, ...Read more

Several of the nation's biggest airlines, including American and United, have jumped into the fray over children who were being separated from their parents under the Trump administration's controversial immigration policy.

The carriers notified the U.S. government -- and the public -- that they wished to have no part in transporting those ...Read more

CHICAGO -- A Chicago nonprofit said Friday it is housing 66 migrant children who have been separated from their parents under the "zero tolerance" policy in the last six weeks.

Evelyn Diaz, president of Heartland Alliance, welcomed Sen. Dick Durbin for a visit to one of the organization's nine shelters that is accommodating the children -- two-...Read more

CHICAGO -- Wildlife officials say some 70 baby seagulls found on a Chicago sidewalk were attacked and, in most cases, dropped to their death by older birds in their colony.

Annette Prince, director of the Chicago Bird Collision Monitors, said her organization first was notified of the injured birds along the 600 block of West Harrison Street on...Read more

CHICAGO -- There was a palpable sense of shock in the voice of the man when told his Illinois license plate contains a symbolic number used by white supremacists.

"I had no idea that ... I had no idea," the man said, tripping over his words during a telephone conversation with a Tribune reporter. "I am completely blown away, blown away and a ...Read more

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- South Florida's not quite Jurassic Park, but it's getting close.

Packs of green iguanas are swarming seawalls, roaming yards and parks, and leaving a path of destruction and filth in their wake. Like a shot of espresso, the hot summer sun has stoked activity in the cold-blooded creatures, which experts say may be at ...Read more

TACOMA, Wash. -- Gary Charles Hartman wasn't what people expected to see as he shuffled into a Pierce County, Wash., courtroom Thursday.

The 66-year-old had white hair on his balding head, wore black wire-rimmed glasses and appeared timid.

One person who went to court to see him described Hartman as "a little, old man."

But in his younger ...Read more

There aren't many people who've had to impress a gorilla for a job interview, but Mary Lee Jensvold is one of them.

The interviewer in question was Koko, the western lowland gorilla who made a name for herself by learning American Sign Language and demonstrating for the world that animals have more intelligence and emotional depth than humans ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- With an early morning tweet Friday, President Donald Trump put the likely final nail in the coffin of an immigration measure supported by the House GOP leadership, saying that lawmakers shouldn't bother with legislation he had claimed to support just days before.

"Republicans should stop wasting their time on Immigration until ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- Republican leaders wanted to tout the six-month anniversary of their tax cuts this week. The rest of Washington was too busy to join the fanfare.

Instead, to GOP dismay, another issue dominated the headlines: immigration. It was the latest example of the struggle Republicans face in making the tax overhaul -- their signature ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- In a victory for privacy in the digital era, the Supreme Court ruled Friday that the Constitution protects tracking data from a cellphone, requiring police to have a search warrant to obtain cell tower records that show a person's movement for days or weeks.

The justices, by a 5-4 vote, said the 4th Amendment protects the data ...Read more

ST. LOUIS COUNTY -- Jason Booker said he called the mother of his 1-year-old son, Isaiah, almost every day.

That's how it always was between the two, whether they were on again or off again throughout their nine-year relationship, he said.

"Even when we weren't together, we were together," he said. "She was my heart."

But in mid-May, that ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court sidestepped a constitutional dispute Thursday over the scope of the president's power to fire high-level federal employees.

Instead, by a 7-2 vote, the court ruled that administrative law judges who hear stock fraud cases at the Securities and Exchange Commission are "officers" of the United States, not civil ...Read more

Researchers may have found a tiny culprit -- human herpes virus -- in the progressive loss of memory, thinking ability and identity that comes with Alzheimer's disease. And it could be a big deal.

In research that revives a suspicion first raised more than six decades ago, scientists have found higher levels of the common virus in the brains of...Read more