WASHINGTON -- Just as hurricane trackers chart storms in the Atlantic before they make landfall, cybersecurity researchers track viral infections that threaten mayhem. They've found a doozy.

A massive zombie robotic network, or botnet, has expanded to infect "an estimated million organizations" and could bring corners of the internet to its ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- A private firm that produced an opposition-research dossier that claimed President Donald Trump's campaign colluded with Russia asked a federal court to prevent the House Intelligence Committee from obtaining its financial records.

Fusion GPS's lawyer, Joshua Levy, filed a complaint in U.S. District Court in Washington on Friday ...Read more

SEATTLE -- Amazon says it received 238 proposals from North American cities, states and provinces interested in serving as the online retailer's second home.

The tally, released on Monday, includes cities in 43 states, as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Outside the U.S., cities from seven Canadian provinces applied, as did ...Read more

A man sat in the corner of a Hot Springs, Ark., bar for hours Saturday before fellow patrons discovered he'd died, police say.

Kenneth Norling, 53, had probably died five or six hours earlier, according to a coroner's report, Cpl. Kirk Zaner of the Hot Springs Police Department told McClatchy. The exact cause of death has not been determined ...Read more

BARCELONA, Spain -- Catalonia's leaders have no divine right to stay in power, Spain's deputy prime minister asserted Monday, hardening a threat to oust the northeastern region's independence-minded president as the two sides moved closer to a showdown.

A senior Catalonia official, meanwhile, sent a new signal of defiance, suggesting that the ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- As U.S.-backed forces succeed in driving Islamic State militants from territory in Iraq and now Syria, the Trump administration has difficult choices -- and divided opinions -- about how the heavily devastated region can recover in an era when U.S. policy is to take a back-seat role.

The administration has stated unequivocally ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- As more states and counties take immigration policy into their own hands, California is stepping up its fight to protect immigrants in the country illegally by not only refusing to detain immigrants slated for deportation, but now also by declining to tell federal immigration officials when they will be released from local jails.

...Read more

WASHINGTON -- Congress should revise the rules guiding base realignment and closure and authorize a new round, a new paper from a conservative think tank recommended.

Done properly, a round of base realignment and closure, or BRAC, is a good example of federal efficiency, wrote Frederico Bartels, an analyst with the Heritage Foundation.

"It ...Read more

HILTON HEAD, S.C. -- Authorities in Texas are asking the public to share a sketch of a young child whose 30-pound body was found Friday in a case that police are calling "extremely unusual."

Galveston police found the body of a 3- to 5-year-old boy in the sand close to the surf around 5:30 p.m. Friday, according to a press release.

The ...Read more

SANTA ROSA, Calif. -- The wine country wildfires destroyed at least 8,400 homes and other buildings, authorities said Monday, a significant increase in the already staggering property loss.

Efforts continued by firefighters to gain control of the fires and by searchers looking for more victims. The death toll as of Monday remained at 42, making...Read more

An uncle of the woman found dead in Joshua Tree National Park reportedly said investigators believe her boyfriend may have killed her in a "sympathetic murder-suicide" after she suffered a head injury.

Joseph Orbeso, 22, shot and killed his girlfriend, Rachel Nguyen, 20, and then turned the gun on himself, according to a news release Friday ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- As lawmakers shuttle multiple supplemental spending packages through Congress to address the devastation from one of the worst hurricane seasons on record, federal audit reports show major ongoing problems with federal agencies' ability to ensure money is spent correctly.

Tens of billions of dollars are expected to flow from two ...Read more

There's a bit of a phony debate breaking out about Donald Trump's accomplishments.

On the one hand, the president himself is his usual bombastic and factually inaccurate self about what he's done in office. In a series of tweets over the weekend, Trump claimed "perhaps no Administration has done more in its first 9 months than this ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- The departure of key Ways and Means Republicans could be a sign of diminished optimism for major legislative achievements, but some GOP observers say it may actually signal confidence about getting a landmark tax bill signed into law.

Six Republicans on the powerful committee with broad sway over taxes, health care and trade are ...Read more

CHICAGO -- Patrons of a late-night restaurant in Chicago's Greektown witnessed some of the first bursts of the weekend violence as eight men and women punched each other, wrestled on the floor and threw chairs across the room.

One person knocked to the ground began firing shots, wounding two people as well as striking himself in the leg early ...Read more