Federal Reserve officials left interest rates unchanged and continued to expect one rate cut this year as they acknowledged increased uncertainty due to war in the Middle East.

Chair Jerome Powell emphasized that to resume lowering rates, officials would have to see progress in reducing inflation, especially goods inflation that has been ...Read more

LEXINGTON, Ky. — Kentucky lawmakers’ current effort to remove a Lexington judge from the bench by impeachment is nearly unprecedented in the state’s history.

And in Kentucky’s modern court system, it’s never happened.

Fayette Circuit Judge Julie Muth Goodman faces impeachment after a petition was filed against her in January by a ...Read more

Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, on Wednesday removed Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López after more than a decade in the post and appointed Gen. Gustavo González López as his replacement, in a major shake-up of the country’s military leadership amid a fragile political transition.

The appointment of González López ...Read more

As Cuba adopts a more belligerent tone following President Donald Trump’s talk of “taking” the country, two tankers carrying Russian oil and gas are headed to the island, in defiance of de facto oil embargo the U.S. has imposed on the communist-run nation.

Cuban leader Miguel Diaz Canel replied to repeated comments from Trump’s about ...Read more

BOSTON — Massachusetts Senate President Karen Spilka compared President Trump’s nationwide crackdown on illegal immigration, and ICE carrying it out, to the Holocaust while speaking at an “Immigrant Day” celebration Wednesday at the State House.

“I’ve been open and honest that this moment, what is happening across our country, ...Read more

FORT WORTH, Texas — The funeral prayer for the 41-year-old Afghan father of six who died Saturday in ICE custody was held Tuesday while more questions arise about why he was picked up and what caused his death less than a day later.

Mohommad Nazeer Paktyawal and his family fled Afghanistan in 2021 through Operation Allies Refuge, which ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The Iranian government remains “intact but largely degraded,” National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard told Congress on Wednesday, as Israel continued to hunt down the Islamic Republic’s leadership with an overnight airstrike that killed the nation’s spy chief.

The death of Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib, ...Read more

NEW YORK — Former interim Police Commissioner Tom Donlon is taking another run at litigating Mayor Eric Adams' administration, on Wednesday filing charges in state court that he was retaliated against for sounding the alarm on corruption in the upper ranks of the Police Department.

The 40-page suit largely reiterates charges Donlon made in ...Read more

AUBURN HILLS, Mich. — Vice President JD Vance on Wednesday contended voters in Michigan should "double down" on President Donald Trump's policies, while acknowledging that a "rough road" lies ahead on gas prices for the next few weeks.

Vance, a Republican former senator from Ohio, made a pitch for Republican candidates in the battleground ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Cesar Chavez, the iconic labor leader, is accused of sexually assaulting two underaged girls in the 1970s as well as fellow farmworker leader Dolores Huerta in the 1960s, according to an investigation from The New York Times.

The allegations have sparked public outcry from elected leaders and spurred a wider reckoning of a ...Read more

MIAMI — A doctor examined George Pino, the Doral real estate developer who crashed his boat into a fixed channel marker, killing a teenage girl and seriously injuring her classmate, to determine if he suffered a traumatic brain injury that caused him to have amnesia and “false memories regarding the details of the accident,” according to a...Read more

ORLANDO, Fla. — At about 9:02 Wednesday morning, the arm of an excavator dug into the roof of the shuttered Pulse nightclub, and within two hours much of the building was a pile of concrete, wood and metal.

Dozens of city officials, media, mental health professionals and curious observers watched the demolition of the nightclub, where nearly ...Read more

Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., Wednesday faced unexpectedly harsh questioning at his confirmation hearing to be Department of Homeland Security secretary, with fellow Republican Sen. Rand Paul vowing to vote against his colleague over “anger issues.”

Paul, the chair of the Homeland Security Committee, called Mullin a liar and accused him ...Read more

NEW YORK — Dylan Lopez Contreras, the first known New York City student detained by federal immigration authorities as part of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda, has been released after nearly a year in custody, his lawyers said Wednesday.

Lopez Contreras, a Bronx high school student who fled persecution in Venezuela, was ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is nearing a key milestone in its “Make America Healthy Again” agenda — proposing a definition of ultraprocessed foods.

Stricter scrutiny of nutrition and food additives has been a focal point of the MAHA movement, gaining support from food policy experts as well as lawmakers across the political ...Read more

NEW YORK — An internal review of a little-known NYPD unit found that top police officials were driving around in souped-up vehicles meant to be used during undercover investigations, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Wednesday.

“The result of it was galling,” Tisch testified at a City Council budget hearing at City Hall. “We had ...Read more

Every major escalation in the Middle East sends shock waves far beyond the region. In the United States, those shock waves arrive not as distant tremors but as catalysts for domestic radicalization and violence, particularly against Jewish communities.

The data is unambiguous.

Following the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, ...Read more

Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., faced harsh questioning about the partial government shutdown that has roiled air travel and President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown at his confirmation hearing to be Department of Homeland Security secretary.

The former mixed martial arts fighter vowed to take a less partisan and confrontational ...Read more

Iran said the United States and Israel struck its giant South Pars gas field in the Persian Gulf, the latest attack on energy assets in the regionwide conflict.

Oil prices jumped after Iranian state TV reported the airstrike, which raised fears of further risks to global crude and gas supplies. Gulf producers have significantly reduced output ...Read more