CHICAGO — The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday asked for more briefing in the ongoing fight over President Trump’s ability to deploy National Guard troops to Illinois, signaling that the court’s highly anticipated ruling is still weeks away.

U.S. District Judge April Perry issued a temporary restraining order Oct. 9 barring National Guard ...Read more

At least 20 people are dead in Haiti and another dozen are missing after a river in the town of Petit-Goâve, southwest of Port-au-Prince, flooded as Hurricane Melissa bombarded the country with heavy rain as it battered nearby Jamaica as a powerful Category 5 storm.

Emmanuel Pierre, the head of the Haitian Office of Civil Protection, told the ...Read more

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell cautioned investors against assuming the U.S. central bank would follow its second straight interest-rate cut with another in December.

“A further reduction in the policy rate at the December meeting is not a foregone conclusion, far from it,” Powell said in the opening comments of his post-meeting press ...Read more

Hurricane Melissa pulled away from Cuba on Wednesday morning, leaving a trail of devastation that stretched through Cuba’s second most populous region and Jamaica, where it was the strongest storm to ever strike the island nation. Next in its sights is the Bahamas.

The storm has a confirmed death toll of at least 27, mostly in Haiti, where ...Read more

WASHINGTON — On his first day in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive memorandum prohibiting new offshore wind leasing for all areas of the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf and directing his Cabinet to review previously approved projects.

The president’s animosity toward wind turbines already was well-known, going back over a ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Federal prosecutors announced charges Wednesday against 12 people who allegedly engaged in violence during demonstrations against the Trump administration’s immigration policies.

The charges, part of an effort dubbed “Operation Bridge Too Far” by federal authorities, largely centered on demonstrations that erupted on a ...Read more

WASHINGTON — House Republicans swear they’re not on vacation.

The House has been out since the government shutdown began, and then some. It last conducted legislative business on Sept. 19. But Republicans are doing “some of the most meaningful work of their careers,” Speaker Mike Johnson said at his Monday news conference.

On Tuesday ...Read more

Sen. Chuck Schumer on Wednesday hit back hard at President Donald Trump over what he called his “heartless” refusal to extend Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program funding on Nov. 1 as the government shutdown stretches on with no end in sight.

Schumer denounced Trump for choosing not to dip into a U.S. Department of Agriculture ...Read more

The Trump administration took another step Tuesday to weaken protections for Americans with medical debt, issuing new guidance that threatens ongoing state efforts to keep that debt off consumers’ credit reports.

More than a dozen states, including Washington, Oregon, California, Colorado, Minnesota, Maryland, New York and most of New England...Read more

DENVER — Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser sued the Trump administration Wednesday to challenge the president’s decision last month to move U.S. Space Command from Colorado Springs to Huntsville, Alabama.

At the top of his list of reasons for taking the legal action, Weiser said during an online news conference, was President Donald ...Read more

BALTIMORE — Maryland Senate President Bill Ferguson said this week that the state’s General Assembly will not move forward with efforts to redraw congressional maps before the 2030 U.S. Census, citing steep legal and political risks tied to a mid-decade redistricting.

In a letter to his fellow Democratic lawmakers Tuesday, Ferguson said the...Read more

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said he wants to “pull the plug” on H-1B visas at state universities, arguing the program meant to recruit top talent wrongly takes jobs away from Floridians.

Almost 400 employees from foreign countries currently work at Florida public universities under that visa program, according to data from U.S. Citizenship ...Read more

Hurricane Melissa pulled away from Cuba on Wednesday morning, leaving a trail of devastation that stretched through Cuba’s second most populous region and Jamaica, where it was the strongest storm to ever strike the island nation. Next in its sights is the Bahamas.

In Jamaica, Prime Minister Andrew Holness issued a disaster declaration not ...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is pledging that the United States will help the island nations of the Caribbean on a “humanitarian basis” as Hurricane Melissa continues to ravage the area.

“We’re watching it closely, and we’re prepared to move,” the president told reporters on Air Force One as he traveled to South Korea. “...Read more

Halloween is shaping up to be a test for the chocolate industry, as high cocoa costs threaten to accelerate a consumer shift toward cheaper and trendier sweets such as sour gummies.

For candy makers, Halloween remains crucial — the holiday made up nearly 18% of annual U.S. candy sales last year, second only to Christmas. But chocolate makers ...Read more

Hurricane Melissa barreled over eastern Cuba on Wednesday morning as a powerful Category 3 storm, bringing torrential rainfall and heavy flooding to the island’s eastern provinces after making landfall near Santiago de Cuba, the second-largest city.

The hurricane’s center struck near the coastal town of Chivirico in the municipality of Guam...Read more

BALTIMORE — Leaders in Baltimore City and Baltimore County are proposing a review of artificial intelligence security systems under contract after officers recently pulled their weapons on a teenage student whose bag of Doritos was mistaken for a firearm.

In the last two years, school systems in both jurisdictions have signed multimillion-...Read more

NEW YORK — A fashion photographer died after being “doored” by a Nissan Maxima as he rode an e-bike in Queens, police said Wednesday.

Jose Luis Mora died Oct. 11, nearly three weeks after the crash in South Richmond Hill, cops said.

Mora, 56, was riding west on 103rd Avenue when a 30-year-old man behind the wheel of a 2011 Nissan Maxima ...Read more

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Rows of shelves inside a warehouse at Harvesters’ Kansas City headquarters are nearly bare, no longer full of canned vegetables, soup and rice or protein drinks for seniors.

They’re refilled each day as best as they can be. But in recent days, as the nation suffers through the fourth week of a government shutdown, it’...Read more

LOS ANGELES — A new report from the city controller's office questions the effectiveness of the LAPD's signature crisis response program, saying clinicians trained in de-escalation too often are forced to defer to armed patrol officers.

For years, Los Angeles Police Department officials have touted the success of the Systemwide Mental ...Read more