Federal prosecutors in New York filed a new torture conspiracy charge Thursday against former Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, accusing them of directing a campaign of brutal repression that included the torture of political opponents and American citizens held in Venezuelan prisons.

The new 30-page indictment ...Read more

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Could Hurricane Isaias that strengthened in the Gulf Thursday deliver the destruction of 2024’s Hurricane Helene in the North Carolina mountains?

No, the Category 1 storm is not expected to be anywhere near the intensity of Category 4 Helene, National Weather Service forecasters said.

“Isaias is NOT expected to be ...Read more

The Trump administration is launching investigations into foreign exchange visa holders at nine top colleges including Harvard University, Stanford University and MIT, in its latest broadside against international students and scholars at elite schools.

The sweeping fraud probe is focused specifically on J-1 visa holders, who at universities ...Read more

The Trump administration said it would suspend an immigration program for multiple tech firms, including Microsoft Corp., alleging widespread abuse of a worker visa system.

“There has been no company in the United States, unfortunately, that has abused this system more than Microsoft,” Vice President JD Vance said Thursday during a briefing...Read more

The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to step into a lower court dispute over television advertising rates paid by political candidates and joint fundraising committees weeks before the midterm elections.

The application asked the justices to set aside a 2-1 ruling issued Wednesday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th...Read more

NEW YORK -- As Mayor Zohran Mamdani launches universal childcare for 2-year-olds, with the ultimate goal of free care for all young children, what do New York City parents want for their toddlers and even infants?

The answer may not always be a formal daycare program, and seems to vary by geography, race and income, according to a new survey ...Read more

San Francisco Bay Area residents, living in the beating heart of the artificial intelligence boom, are just as conflicted about the technology as the rest of the country.

As OpenAI showed off its latest AI assistants in San Francisco last week, protesters outside — some dressed as killer robots —demanded it keep AI away from the military. ...Read more

LOS ANGELES -- This year's flu season started months early and in an unexpected part of the country, according to health officials.

The unusually early start to the season has prompted local health officials to urge people to get their flu shots as soon as possible.

In Los Angeles County, flu activity began rising in September, ahead of its ...Read more

LOS ANGELES -- It didn’t look like much. Five red and yellow cloth sails, strung up between streetlights in Exposition Park, bridging the road between the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art and the Coliseum. But it was 103 degrees outside, and thousands of people were on the move, headed for Saturday’s USC Homecoming game.

The sails created ...Read more

NEW YORK — Sean “Diddy” Combs’ prison release date has been pushed back by several weeks amid allegations he’d been living a pampered lifestyle behind bars.

The disgraced music mogul is now scheduled to be freed on March 2, 2028, according to Bureau of Prisons records cited by multiple media outlets.

Combs, who is currently behind ...Read more

In 2025, two scholars of religion decided to make a multiday pilgrimage along the Kumano Kodō trail – an ancient route in Japan connecting Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples – guided by an artificial intelligence assistant.

The two – Wayne E. Arnold and John A. Shultz – trained an AI companion on a smartphone to suit their ...Read more

As midterm elections near, Democrats enjoy advantages in national “generic ballot” polling, suggesting they may secure majorities in the House of Representative or Senate, if not both chambers.

But the reality is that partisan control on Capitol Hill will be determined by just a handful of competitive House and Senate contests. ...Read more

After high-level Trump administration officials said they might send armed officers to the polls during the upcoming midterm elections, and after months of administration efforts to wrest control of some aspects of voting from state officials and limit how people vote, there’s a lot of fear that armed federal officials will disrupt voting ...Read more

In June 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear appeals of two lower court rulings that challenged assault weapons restrictions. The high court will decide whether the Second and 14th amendments protect the right to possess semi-automatic rifles like the AR-15. This marks a reversal for the court, which for years has declined to consider ...Read more

ORLANDO, Fla. — Hurricane Isaias intensified overnight Thursday with a forecast it will threaten Florida as it targets the Gulf Cosat. The storm just before midnight had become the first Atlantic system this year to reach hurricane strength, according to the National Hurricane Center.

As of the NHC’s 8 a.m. advisory, Isaias was still a ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Six years after he was released from a California immigrant detention facility, Wilfredo Gonzalez Mena has to sleep with his back propped up by pillows, nearly in a seated position, to avoid gasping for air.

He blames his lasting medical issues on the 10 months he spent in custody until September 2020 at the Adelanto ICE ...Read more

Federal wildlife managers euthanized 28,000 animals in California in 2025 and dispersed about 1 million more as part of a nationwide program meant to control invasive species and minimize danger to people, pets and livestock, new data shows.

The removals by a division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture — which nationwide involved killing 2...Read more