Nearly 22% of Republican legislators in the country have joined at least one far-right Facebook group, with Missouri ranking among the top five, a watchdog organization found in a study released this month.

In a year-long review of the 7,383 seats in state legislatures in the 2021-2022 session, the Institute for Research and Education on Human ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The president of Cuba announced Wednesday that his country will not attend next month’s Summit of the Americas, a major conference to take place in Los Angeles, after the U.S. refused to extend a proper invitation.

The decision throws the summit, which is crucial to the U.S.’ ability to demonstrate its influence in the ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — George Floyd's brother and his aunt came to the corner of 38th Street and Chicago Avenue on Wednesday night, exactly two years after his killing, and quietly made official the name the intersection has carried almost ever since.

"George Perry Floyd Square," read the commemorative street sign, now mounted over a corner of the ...Read more

Rudy Giuliani is trying to raise money from his appearance before the House committee investigating last year’s riot at the Capitol as well as his connection to former President Donald Trump by asserting he invoked attorney-client privilege to refuse to answer some questions.

In an emailed appeal for his defense fund, the former mayor of New ...Read more

Abortion-rights advocates vowed to ask the Oklahoma Supreme Court to block the state’s near-total abortion ban within minutes of Gov. Kevin Stitt signing the measure into law.

State lawmakers, led by Republicans, pushed through the law making Oklahoma the first state to ban abortions while the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roe v. ...Read more

WASHINGTON — It's only been a couple of months since U.S. and European officials said a renewal of the Iran nuclear deal was "imminent."

But with little progress since then, and a shifting global geopolitical scene, the top U.S. envoy for the Iran negotiations testified Wednesday that prospects for reviving the landmark deal were, "at best, ...Read more

UVALDE, Texas — Texas Gov. Greg Abbott was confronted by political rival and former U.S. Rep. Robert “Beto” O’Rourke at a Wednesday news briefing, where officials gave details about the mass shooting at a local elementary school in Uvalde. Three adults — including the gunman — and 19 students were killed.

O’Rourke, 49, a former ...Read more

UVALDE, Texas — At least 21 people — including 19 children — were killed by a gunman during Tuesday’s massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Among them were a 10-year-old girl who had just made the honor roll and a fourth-grade teacher who had worked for the school district for about 17 years.

The victims’ names and ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Republican Rep. Jim Jordan swatted back his subpoena from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol — demanding the panel first turn over information to him.

Jordan doesn’t refuse to comply but argues in a four-page letter to Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat and the panel’s ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Starting in June, millions of Angelenos will be limited to watering outdoors twice a week under new restrictions passed Wednesday by the Los Angeles City Council.

The third phase of the city’s Emergency Water Conservation Plan Ordinance passed on a 13-0 vote, approving drought rules released by the Los Angeles Department of ...Read more

UVALDE, Texas — Salvador Ramos appeared to be spiraling.

In the weeks before the 18-year-old left a Texas classroom littered with bodies in one of the worst school shootings in U.S. history, Ramos stopped showing up at his high school, lost his job, began posting troubling images to social media and started to collect weapons, according to ...Read more

When the coronavirus pandemic upended traditional methods of delivering education, school districts across the country and the globe turned to online learning platforms.

It was a quick pivot. Miami-Dade County Schools, for example, switched from in-person learning to fully remote learning in a two-week time frame that overlapped with spring ...Read more

A grocery store. A church. An elementary school. Again.

Within 10 days this month, mass shootings in Buffalo, New York; Laguna Woods, California; and Uvalde, Texas, have claimed dozens of lives, shattered families and communities, and put people around the U.S. on edge.

As of Wednesday, there have been 213 mass shootings in the U.S. this year,...Read more

ORLANDO, Fla. — NASA’s astronauts could soon officially have a new ride to the International Space Station as the Boeing CST-100 Starliner finally completed its long-delayed reflight of its uncrewed test mission arriving back on Earth on Wednesday.

The capsule that launched last week from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station spent more than ...Read more

NEW YORK — An often-sued NYPD officer with an extensive history of misconduct allegations has been indicted on charges that he re-enacted finding a gun in a suspect’s car so he could record the discovery with his body camera.

Officer Kevin Martin, 45 — the subject of 34 misconduct complaints and at least a half-dozen civil suits that cost...Read more

UVALDE, Texas — A gunman who killed 19 children and two teachers at a Texas elementary school in one of the deadliest school massacres in U.S. history posted his intentions online before barricading himself inside a fourth-grade classroom, where all the fatalities and injuries occurred, state and federal officials said Wednesday.

“We’re ...Read more

To keep doing business with Texas, companies will effectively have to take a vow of neutrality if the latest school-shooting massacre sets off another nationwide furor over gun control.

That’s because in June 2021, flanked by Republican lawmakers and officials from the National Rifle Association, Governor Greg Abbott signed a state law that ...Read more

The U.S.’s review of tariffs on more than $300 billion in Chinese imports that’s required as the duties reach their four-year anniversary will likely take months, a top trade official said.

At the same time, that won’t prevent the Biden administration from taking other steps such as exclusions from duties in tandem with that analysis, U.S...Read more

WASHINGTON — Biden administration officials have asked a Lebanese general for help securing the freedom of Austin Tice, a journalist missing in Syria since 2012, as well as five other Americans held in the Middle East, U.S. officials said on Wednesday.

Abbas Ibrahim, chief of Lebanon’s General Security Directorate, met with Roger Carstens, ...Read more