LONDON -- British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Conservative government on Monday plowed on with its plan to conclude Brexit by Oct. 31, despite being blocked by the parliamentary speaker from from holding a vote on its Brexit deal.

Jacob Rees-Mogg, Johnson's leader in the Commons, parliament's elected main house, told lawmakers that the ...Read more

CHICAGO -- A cell phone battery or charger exploded in a bag while the bag was being loaded onto a flight at Chicago's Midway International midday Monday, but there were no reports of injuries, police said.

Police were called to the airport just before 12:20 p.m. Monday after a bag exploded while being loaded onto a flight, said police ...Read more

CHICAGO -- A Des Plaines, Ill., man found guilty of a hate crime for harassing a woman wearing a Puerto Rican flag shirt was sentenced Monday to two years of probation and 200 hours of community service and was also forbidden from going to any Cook County Forest preserves for two years.

Timothy G. Trybus, 63, was found guilty last month of a ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS -- President Donald Trump trails several leading Democratic candidates, as well as U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, at this point in the presidential campaign in Minnesota, according to a new Star Tribune Minnesota Poll.

The two current front-runners for the Democratic nomination, former Vice President Joe Biden and U.S. Sen. Elizabeth ...Read more

TEL AVIV, Israel -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday handed back to the president the mandate to form the next government, after failing to recruit enough lawmakers to join the coalition.

The move comes two days before his deadline.

This is the second time in half a year that Netanyahu has failed to form a government ...Read more

AUSTIN, Texas -- Democratic presidential candidate Julian Castro, one of two Texans in the race, said on Monday that he will end his campaign if he can't raise $800,000 before the end of the month.

"If I can't raise $800,000 in the next 10 days -- I will have no choice but to end my race for President," Castro wrote in an email to supporters. "...Read more

EUREKA, Ill. -- A 9-year-old boy accused of murder and arson in the deaths of five people appeared Monday morning in Woodford County juvenile court, and a judge tried to explain the charges being brought against him.

The boy wore blue slacks and a red and black checkered shirt. He walked in with his hands in his pockets. When he sat, his feet ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump, trying to dig out from two new political holes of his own making on top of the expanding House impeachment inquiry, held forth for 71 minutes Monday during what was ostensibly a Cabinet meeting but ended up being a familiar torrent of grievance, defensiveness and bold statements about his expansive view of ...Read more

NEW YORK -- Facebook Inc. discovered four separate misinformation networks -- three tied to Iran and one to Russia -- that the social network said it shut down as part of an ongoing effort to counter "foreign influence campaigns."

Facebook said that the "coordinated inauthentic behavior" took aim at the U.S., North Africa and Latin America and ...Read more

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- A hiker died after falling off the infamously dangerous Big Bradley Waterfall in Western North Carolina over the weekend, according to first responders and news outlets.

Aaron Post of Charleston, South Carolina, fell at about 10:40 a.m. Saturday, Polk County Emergency Management Director Bobby Arledge told McClatchy news ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday morning officially overturned a ruling that had called for nearly three dozen congressional and legislative districts in Michigan to be redrawn because they unfairly helped one political party.

The decision -- which vacated an earlier ruling made by a three-judge panel by the Sixth U.S. Circuit ...Read more

TIJUANA, Mexico -- Drivers, hoteliers and medical professionals in Tijuana are possibly abusing a fast lane pass originally meant for people with medical issues to bypass hours-long border traffic at the San Ysidro Port of Entry, a recent city investigation found.

Each year, millions of Americans cross into Baja California to undergo weight ...Read more

CHICAGO -- At least five people were killed and 35 others were wounded by gunfire in Chicago over the weekend, the city's most violent since the long Labor Day holiday.

Shootings were reported from the Austin neighborhood on the West Side to the Roseland neighborhood on the South Side. None occurred downtown or on the North Side. The most ...Read more

PHILADELPHIA -- On a rain-soaked block, Philadelphia's acting police commissioner, Christine Coulter, struggled Sunday to understand the second grievous shooting of a child in less than 24 hours.

"No child should be murdered in their living room. It's just terrible," Coulter said at the corner of Ontario and Water Streets. "The wanton gun ...Read more

LOS ANGELES -- Douglas Hodge, the former chief executive of global investment giant PIMCO, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud and money laundering, the first of four parents who will reverse their not-guilty pleas on Monday after coming under new pressure from federal prosecutors in the college admissions scandal.

In pleading guilty ...Read more

CHICAGO -- Monday was the third day without classes in Chicago public schools, with picket lines remaining up around the city as union officials reported some progress during weekend talks.

Teachers and support staff were out in front of Chicago schools again Monday morning after staying out of school starting Thursday. The strike has sent ...Read more

WASHINGTON – Sen., Mitt Romney uses the alter ego "Pierre Delecto" to lurk on political debates and occasionally defend himself on Twitter.

The 2012 Republican presidential nominee and former Massachusetts governor, who's said he's not running for president again, confirmed to the Atlantic on Sunday he was behind the Twitter handle @qaws9876....Read more

SOUTHFIELD, Mich. -- Ford Motor Co.'s Jim Hackett and Wall Street analysts started this year frustrated with one another. Sure, the automaker had been underperforming, but the chief executive appealed for time to show he was fixing things. He assured them the redesigned Explorer SUV rolling out months later would be a proof point.

But rather ...Read more