MEXICO CITY - Hurricane Erick strengthened rapidly into a major Category 3 hurricane on Wednesday as it churned toward Mexico's southern Pacific Coast, where it is expected to make landfall early Thursday, authorities said. Erick is expected to bring potentially destructive winds and life-threatening flash flooding to parts of southern Mexico tonight and Thursday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said in a report....
Democrats Want New Leaders, Focus on Pocketbook Issues, Reuters/Ipsos Poll Finds
WASHINGTON - Democrats want new leaders for their party, which many feel isn't focusing enough on economic issues and is over-emphasizing issues like transgender rights and electric vehicles, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found. The poll identified a deep disconnect between what Democrats say their priorities are and the issues they believe party leaders care about most ahead of next year's midterm elections, when they hope to crack Republican control of Congress....
SpaceX Starship Rocket Explodes in Setback to Musk’s Mars Mission
SpaceX's massive Starship spacecraft exploded into a dramatic fireball during testing in Texas late on Wednesday, the latest in a series of setbacks for billionaire Elon Musk’s Mars rocket program. The explosion occurred around 11 p.m. local time while Starship was on a test stand at its Brownsville, Texas Starbase while preparing for the tenth test flight, SpaceX said in...
Israel Hits Nuclear Sites, Iran Strikes Hospital as War Escalates
TEL AVIV/DUBAI - Israel bombed nuclear targets in Iran on Thursday and Iranian missiles hit an Israeli hospital overnight, as the week-old air war escalated with no sign yet of an off-ramp. Following the strike that damaged the Soroka medical centre in Israel's southern city of Beersheba, Prime Minister Benjamin...
Trump Says He Signed Executive Order Extending Deadline for TikTok Closing
President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he has signed an executive order extending the June 19 deadline for China-based ByteDance to divest the U.S. assets of short-video app TikTok for 90 days. "I've just signed the Executive Order extending the Deadline for the TikTok closing for 90 days (September...
Afghan Ally Detained by ICE After Court Hearing in San Diego, CBS Reports
Sayed Naser, an Afghan man who worked with U.S. troops, was detained by ICE officers on June 11 after attending a mandatory immigration hearing in San Diego, CBS reported on Wednesday. An Afghan ally who served alongside U.S. forces was legally paroled into the U.S. and showed up for his...
Xi Says China ‘Deeply Worried’ About Israel-Iran Conflict, Urges De-Escalation
BEIJING - China is "deeply worried" about Israel's military operation against Iran that has escalated tensions in the Middle East, President Xi Jinping said on Tuesday, in his first public comments on the conflict that erupted last Friday. Xi, speaking on the sidelines of a summit with five Central Asian nations in...
US Strike on Iran Would Bring Risks at Every Turn
WASHINGTON — It sounds so surgical, so precise, exactly the kind of air attack that only the U.S. Air Force can execute. A series of B-2 bombers lifts off from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri or the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. Refueled in the air,...
Trump Says ‘Nobody Knows’ His Plans on Iran
President Donald Trump refused to say explicitly Wednesday whether he would order U.S. forces to attack Iran’s nuclear sites, suggesting the possibility that he had not yet decided whether to join in the war between Iran and Israel. “I may do it,” he told reporters on the White House lawn....
‘Amber Waves of Grain’ Recede in America’s Heartland as Wheat Farmers Struggle
COLBY, Kansas - On a foggy morning in May, Dennis Schoenhals drove a carload of crop scouts around the wheat fields of northern Oklahoma, part of an annual tour to evaluate the health of the crop. But on some fields, Schoenhals and other farmers had already abandoned plans to harvest...