US

Treasury Begins Mailing $500 ACA Refund Checks to Nearly 1 Million Americans

The Trump administration started sending one-time $500 payments this week to Affordable Care Act enrollees in 30 states who receive no premium subsidy, a rollout that lands five weeks before the midterm elections and amid the steepest one-year drop in marketplace enrollment since the exchanges opened.

Flash floods push New Mexico dam to the brink of failure, forcing evacuations

An aging flood-control dam near Rincon, New Mexico, was overtopped by rain fed by Hurricane Polo's remnants, forcing evacuations in five communities and capping a two-week flooding spell that has killed at least four people statewide.

Judge weighs bid to acquit Massachusetts mother in her children's deaths

A Plymouth Superior Court judge has not ruled on a defense motion to acquit Lindsay Clancy outright after her murder trial ended in a deadlocked jury; prosecutors have not said whether they will seek a retrial.

Dublin couple charged with murder in parking-lot shooting of son-in-law, a New York Times engineer

Shouyong Zhang and Shili Chen, both 77, are accused of gunning down Jonathan McKinsey, 40, in front of witnesses at a youth sports complex amid a bitter custody battle over his three children with their daughter.

Hackers Claim They Stole Personal Data on Nearly All FBI Employees

A criminal extortion group says it exfiltrated roughly two to three terabytes of records from the FBI's hiring and personnel systems, including Social Security numbers and, in some cases, medical files. The bureau has confirmed a breach but not verified the hackers' full claims.

Jury begins deliberating in Ohio murder trial of former "American Idol" singer

A Miami County jury started deliberating Tuesday in the trial of Caleb Flynn, accused of shooting his wife, Ashley, in their Tipp City home and staging the scene as a home invasion; he faces aggravated murder and up to life in prison if convicted.

Tennessee governor denies clemency for Christa Pike, clearing way for first female execution in 200 years

Gov. Bill Lee said he would not intervene after the state Supreme Court rejected Christa Pike's final appeals, leaving her execution set for Wednesday morning at a Nashville prison.

Cornell Fraternity Rape Case Reopened by Prosecutor After Civil Suit Filing

Tompkins County's district attorney will bring a 2024 gang-rape allegation at Cornell's Chi Phi fraternity to a grand jury, two years after declining to prosecute, following a civil lawsuit that described drugging and a group-chat summons other fraternity members allegedly did not disclose to police.

BNSF train derails after hitting stalled dump truck at Missouri quarry crossing

A locomotive and six rail cars went off the tracks Sunday when a southbound BNSF freight struck an oversized dump truck stopped on a gated private crossing north of Fruitland, Missouri, critically injuring the truck's driver in the second serious derailment on this quarry rail spur in less than a year.

Three killed, four hurt in shooting at unlicensed Detroit after-hours club

A dispute erupted into gunfire at a west-side Detroit venue with a history of police calls, leaving three men dead as the city's homicide rate sits at a six-decade low.

Trump approves sharply lower fuel-economy standards, scrapping Biden-era EV push

The Transportation Department is expected to finalize a rule Monday cutting the 2031 fleet-wide mileage target to 34.5 mpg, down from 50.4 mpg under President Biden, a trade the administration says will lower vehicle prices but critics say will raise costs at the pump.

Brush Fire Near Lahaina Forces Evacuations as High Winds Fan Flames in West Maui

A fast-moving brush fire forced evacuations and shut the only highway through West Maui on Saturday, burning within miles of Lahaina, where a wind-fueled wildfire killed more than 100 people two years ago.

A powerful fall storm brought wind gusts over 80 mph and heavy coastal flooding to the Northeast this weekend, killing one person in Brooklyn and disrupting air travel from Boston to New York.

Third Fatal Teen Shooting in Five Weeks Jolts Houston, as County Data Show Youth Gun Violence Climbing

A Westbury High School senior was killed steps from campus Friday, the third Houston-area teenager fatally shot by another teenager since August, prompting a rare public rebuke from the mayor and renewed scrutiny of county data on juvenile gun crime.

Gunman Still at Large After Five Shot at Arlington, Virginia, House Party

Police say an argument at an overnight gathering in Arlington's Arlington View neighborhood escalated into gunfire early Saturday, wounding five people and prompting a helicopter and K-9 search for the shooter.

Smyrna Man, 18, Charged With Murder After Family Finds Neighbor's Dismembered Remains

Kingston Bradley, 18, now faces a malice murder charge after Georgia investigators say a Friday search of a car turned up more of a missing DoorDash driver's remains — days after her own relatives, not responding police, first discovered part of her body.

Hurricane Nolo Stalls South of Hawaii's Big Island, Threatens Catastrophic Flooding

A slow-moving Category 2 hurricane has triggered a rare pre-landfall federal emergency declaration for Hawaii, with forecasters warning of life-threatening rain on ground still saturated from an earlier storm.

Tennessee prepares to execute Christa Pike, first woman put to death in the state in over 200 years

Christa Gail Pike, convicted at 18 of torturing and killing a fellow Job Corps trainee, faces lethal injection Sept. 30 after courts rejected her final appeals; a 226-page clemency petition and a UN appeal now sit on Gov. Bill Lee's desk.

Supreme Court Lets Trump Administration Revive Voter Citizenship Database Ahead of Midterms

A 6-3 emergency order allows a retooled federal database to resume checking voters' citizenship after a judge found it violated privacy law, with the three liberal justices warning it puts naturalized citizens at risk of being wrongly purged just weeks before Election Day.

Trump Rally Shooting Survivor James Copenhaver Dies at 76

Copenhaver, wounded alongside two others in the July 2024 assassination attempt on Donald Trump, died two years later from complications of his injuries, as a wrongful-death lawsuit against the Secret Service remains pending.

Man fires shots from Miami airport parking garage; no injuries, felony charge filed

A 31-year-old man fired four rounds toward Miami International Airport's terminal from a parking garage Wednesday afternoon, triggering a heavy law enforcement response and a brief shutdown of departure roadways before he was arrested and charged with a felony.

Salmonella outbreak tied to Idaho sprout grower reaches 32 cases across six states

Evergreen Fresh Sprouts, LLC has halted production and recalled broccoli sprouts after a multistate Salmonella outbreak — the Idaho company's third documented food-safety incident since 2011.

Powerful Nor'easter Bears Down on East Coast From the Outer Banks to Maine

A rare late-September coastal storm is bringing near-hurricane-force gusts, feet of surf and record-high tides to a stretch of coastline already strained by chronic erosion, with the worst conditions expected Friday and Saturday.

FBI investigates hackers' claim of massive breach at bureau's jobs website

A group calling itself ShinyHunters says it stole terabytes of data on FBI agents and job applicants after breaching FBIjobs.gov, and is threatening to publish the files unless the bureau retracts an earlier warning about the group.

ICE officer who shot Austin delivery driver was not wearing required body camera

A federal judge has blocked the deportation of a Venezuelan DoorDash driver shot by an ICE officer in Austin last weekend, as more than 100 members of Congress and the Travis County district attorney press for answers about why the officer's body camera was off.

Federal Jury Convicts Gary Man of Running Violent Sex-Trafficking Operation

Prosecutors say Anthony Mayers used beatings, firearms and a fatal drug overdose to control women he forced into commercial sex at his Indiana home; he now faces a mandatory minimum of 15 years in prison.

CDC data show more than 3,400 confirmed cases in 2026, with nearly all involving unvaccinated people, as outbreaks continue in dozens of states.

Federal judge halts warrantless ICE raids on Alabama construction sites after citizen detained three times

A federal judge in Mobile has temporarily barred agents from entering private construction sites without a warrant, after a U.S. citizen said he was wrongly detained three times despite showing valid identification.

Texas set to execute Ker'Sean Ramey for 2005 triple murder, a week after codefendant's execution

The state parole board denied clemency for Ker'Sean Olajuwa Ramey, who is scheduled to die Wednesday evening for a 2005 triple killing in Edna. No physical evidence tied him to the crime scene, and his jury included no Black jurors.

Vermont Jury Convicts Jason Eaton of Attempted Murder in Shooting of Three Palestinian Students

A Burlington jury rejected an insanity defense and found Jason Eaton guilty on all three counts nearly three years after he shot three Palestinian college students, one of whom was left paralyzed.

California attorney general drops final charges from 2024 Stanford protest occupation

The five remaining defendants in the case over the occupied Stanford University president's office will avoid felony convictions after paying nearly $52,000 in restitution, closing out a prosecution that survived a hung jury and a disqualified district attorney.

Two Hikers Die in Falls Days Apart on Washington's Sauk Mountain Trail

A 78-year-old man and a 66-year-old man died in separate falls within 48 hours of each other on a popular North Cascades day hike, adding to a trail fatality count local hiking guides have warned about for years.

CDC moves to standardize measles death counts after Pennsylvania accuses agency of undercounting

The nation's worst measles outbreak in a generation has produced a new fight over how a death gets counted, after federal officials excluded four state-confirmed fatalities from the national tally.

Third body recovered in Grand Canyon flash flood as park's only water line stays crippled

Three weeks after a flash flood tore through Bright Angel Canyon, rangers have identified the last of three missing hikers, while the park's sole drinking-water pipeline remains only partially repaired.

Trump extends $100,000 H-1B visa fee for another year, deepening legal fight

A new proclamation keeps the fee in place through September 2027 even as a federal appeals court weighs whether the charge is an unlawful tax, and as the policy's first year already cut applications from outsourcing firms by more than 90 percent.

Seven shot in East Baltimore mass shooting, no arrests two days later

A barrage of gunfire outside a public housing complex in East Baltimore's Washington Hill neighborhood wounded seven people, the youngest just 3 years old, in a city that had spent most of 2026 reporting some of its lowest violence levels in decades.

Two federal lawsuits seek to keep armed agents away from polling places as early voting begins

As Virginia, South Dakota and Minnesota opened in-person early voting for the November midterms, civil rights groups, unions and Denver's city government asked federal courts to block the Trump administration from stationing immigration officers at polling sites, citing a Civil War-era law.

ICE Agent Arrested in Minneapolis, Ending Four-Month Extradition Standoff With Texas

Christian Castro, accused of shooting a Venezuelan immigrant through a closed door and lying to the FBI about it, was booked into a Minnesota jail this week after Texas's governor spent months blocking his extradition.

ICE says five-day Indiana sweep netted 426 arrests, drawing scrutiny over who was detained

Federal agents arrested 426 people across Indiana in a five-day operation this summer that local officials say they were never told about, reviving questions about how closely the agency's public-safety framing matches who actually gets detained.

Wichita Boil-Water Order Leaves Half a Million Waiting on Lab Results After Plant Power Failure

A backup-generator malfunction at the city's more-than-80-year-old treatment plant cut water pressure for 45 minutes early Wednesday, triggering an advisory that state regulators say could stay in place for nearly 500,000 Kansans into Thursday night.

An autopsy has ruled that Gary "Bubba" Blair died of dehydration after months alone in a Chesterfield County, South Carolina jail cell awaiting mental health treatment that never came, reviving scrutiny of jail conditions and the state's backlogged competency-restoration system.

After fatal Highway 30 crash injured 13 Guard members, an Oregon community pushes for a safety fix

A wrong-way driver's fatal crash on a rural Oregon highway sent 13 National Guard soldiers to the hospital last weekend. Days later, neighbors are asking the state to formally designate the road a safety corridor.

Five charged in alleged Russian scheme to finance terrorism and kill a US-based dissident

Federal prosecutors say a Kremlin-linked network offered a Brooklyn recruit $40,000 to kill a dissident believed to live near Washington; all five defendants remain in Russia, beyond the reach of US authorities.

Bus crash and news helicopter crash kill five in one Los Angeles evening

A red-light collision between an SUV and a Metro bus killed two people in Chatsworth on Tuesday; less than two hours later, a television news helicopter covering that crash went down nearby and killed three more, including its pilot and reporter.

Wildfire Forces Evacuation of Central Texas Town, With Another Possible This Week

The Hydra Fire has burned an estimated 1,100 acres of drought-parched ranchland in Bosque County, emptying the town of Meridian for a night and leaving residents on notice that they may have to leave again.

Construction Rig Collapse Injures Four at Ken Griffin's Miami Tower Site

An 85-foot piling rig toppled onto a Miami street Monday morning, crushing vehicles and trapping two workers in a storage container, in the second crane-related failure at a Brickell construction site in roughly five weeks.

Twelve charged in $10 million scheme involving ghost home daycares in San Diego

Prosecutors say a dozen home childcare operators billed taxpayer-funded subsidy programs for children who were rarely, if ever, in their care, in the newly created Justice Department fraud unit's first case.

Six BNSF rail cars carrying propane and fuel derail in Montana town, forcing school evacuation

No one was hurt and no hazardous materials leaked when a multi-car freight derailment inside a BNSF rail yard in Shelby, Montana, shut down roads and sent schoolchildren to a nearby airport for pickup.

Space Force confirms first-ever US weapon deployed in orbit

Air Force Secretary Troy Meink said the United States now has "on-orbit space control weapons," the most direct acknowledgment yet of an armed U.S. presence in space — though officials declined to say what the system is or when it was launched.

Third Pennsylvania measles death reported as CDC and state clash over national tally

A 40-year-old unvaccinated woman in Jefferson County has died of measles complications, the third such death in Pennsylvania this year, as the state's outbreak deepens the nation's worst measles year since 1991 and fuels a dispute with federal health officials over how deaths are counted.

Judge rules Trump administration's FEMA staffing cuts violated federal law

A federal judge found the Department of Homeland Security unlawfully stripped FEMA of control over its own staffing, and faulted officials for using disappearing Signal messages to discuss the cuts.

Miami Crash Data Puts Amazon Contractor 21 Air's Safety Record Under Scrutiny

New flight-recorder data show the Boeing 767 that overran a Miami runway last week was traveling nearly 30 mph too fast at touchdown, reviving years of internal warnings about the safety culture at 21 Air, the small carrier Amazon hired to fly the route.

Wind-driven wildfire near Lake-Mendocino county line reaches 3,500 acres, 15 percent contained

The Lucas Fire has forced evacuations across roughly a dozen zones in Northern California and prompted a national forest closure, with a red flag warning threatening to complicate containment efforts through the weekend.

Lil Durk acquitted of all charges in murder-for-hire trial

A Los Angeles jury cleared the Grammy-winning rapper of conspiracy and murder-for-hire counts tied to a 2022 shooting, though he still faces a separate racketeering trial next month.

Bay Shore deli-food plant recalls its entire product line after third Listeria find in a year

Made Fresh Salads Inc. halted production and pulled all 68 of its ready-to-eat deli salads and cream cheese products from New York City shelves after FDA inspectors found Listeria monocytogenes in its Bay Shore, N.Y., plant for the third time since October.

CDC declares record cyclospora outbreak tied to Taylor Farms lettuce officially over

The outbreak infected nearly 13,000 people across 21 states and killed two in Michigan, the largest cyclosporiasis outbreak in U.S. history, before petering out by late summer.