WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump and his team had several red lines that they used to justify the U.S. war against Iran. At a news conference Wednesday, Trump largely brushed them aside.

Explaining his decision to agree to an interim peace deal, Trump repeated his insistence that the country would never get a nuclear weapon. Yet he went on...Read more

ORLANDO, Fla. — The National Hurricane Center on Wednesday said Tropical Storm Arthur formed off the Texas coast, making it the Atlantic season’s first named storm.

As of a special NHC 11:30 a.m. EDT advisory, the center of Arthur was located about 60 miles east-northeast of Port O’Connor, Texas and 165 miles west-southwest of Lake ...Read more

Videos that surfaced online showed St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her and Melissa Hortman with bullet holes in their foreheads, according to charges announced Wednesday.

They were posted on the same day that Hortman, former speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives, was assassinated, along with her husband at their Brooklyn Park home.

...Read more

President Donald Trump signed an interim deal to end the war with Iran and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, speeding up the timeline for the agreement to go into effect despite blowback from Republicans who said it amounted to a victory for Tehran.

The so-called memorandum of understanding is now in effect, a U.S. official said. It was unclear if ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday moved forward with a wide-ranging package of potential revisions to the city’s constitution, including taking a first step toward giving noncitizens the right to vote in city elections.

The noncitizen voting measure was part of a package of proposed city charter changes that will be ...Read more

In a forceful and scolding opinion, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that District Attorney Larry Krasner’s office misled the courts, “violated its duty of candor,” and submitted false statements when asking a judge to vacate a 2004 murder conviction.

In the opinion released Tuesday, Justice Kevin Dougherty wrote that ...Read more

COLUMBIA, S.C. — The first in what is likely to be many hearings leading up to the retrial of Alex Murdaugh’s double murder charges has been scheduled for late June.

The hearing will take place Monday, June 29, at the Lexington County courthouse, according to a notice tucked away on a section of the Colleton County clerk of court public ...Read more

A Raleigh man who allegedly posted Facebook videos threatening to kill President Donald Trump was arrested and charged by federal officials Tuesday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina announced Wednesday.

Christopher Key-Torrion Carnes, 33, was charged with communicating threats against the president of the ...Read more

Hours after accusing Gov. Wes Moore of trying to influence Maryland’s Republican gubernatorial primary through campaign ads and mailers, Republican candidate Ed Hale posted an AI-altered image on social media that may violate the state’s new law against deceptive election-related deepfakes.

The post featured an AI-generated image of Moore ...Read more

CHICAGO — Nearly five years after her death, body camera footage that captured the last moments of Chicago police Officer Ella French’s life was released to the public Wednesday.

The harrowing footage had not been publicly viewed outside of the 2024 criminal trial of the man later convicted in French’s killing. French’s partner, Carlos ...Read more

To labor leaders and advocates behind a campaign to align California Democrats behind increasing what corporations pay in state taxes, the Legislature’s budget agreement — though not yet ratified by the governor — includes what they see as a hard-fought win.

The deal the Assembly and Senate coalesced behind includes a step toward a ...Read more

Organized labor, one of the Democratic Party’s most politically active and reliable constituencies, issued a stinging rebuke to the state’s one-party Democratic rule on Wednesday when the Illinois AFL-CIO deferred making any candidate endorsements for the Nov. 3 general election due to the Illinois General Assembly’s lack of action on ...Read more

DENVER — U.S. Forest Service crews on Sunday found multiple trees that someone doused with accelerant and set on fire near the Pike-San Isabel National Forest in an attempt to start a wildfire in the central Colorado mountains, law enforcement officials said.

Fire crews were on a routine patrol when they found multiple burned trees on ...Read more

NEW YORK — A family of tourists’ picturesque outing in a Central Park carriage turned into a nightmare Wednesday when an 18-year-old from India died after an out-of-control horse pulling the carriage he was riding in suddenly bolted, sending the carriage careening onto its side as onlookers watched in horror.

The precise circumstances of ...Read more

Massachusetts state officials released the final framework for statewide graduation requirements on Wednesday after voters overturned the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System standardized testing standard.

The grad requirements closely follow previous proposals, including MassCore curriculum and a controversial testing component.

“...Read more

MIAMI — Doral real estate broker George Pino declined to testify Wednesday afternoon during his trial, where he is facing two felony charges over a Biscayne Bay boat crash that killed a 17-year-old girl.

“I do not wish to testify,” Pino told Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Marisa Tinkler Mendez.

Shortly after Pino turned down the chance ...Read more