President Donald Trump said Wednesday he’s considering trying to change the name of the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Arabia or the Arabian Gulf.

Trump said he’s going to make a final decision on the issue after a briefing by advisers and before leaving on a three-day trip to the Middle East next week.

“They’re going to ask me about that...Read more

NEW YORK — Dozens of pro-Palestinian protesters at Columbia University have taken over the campus’ Butler Library on Wednesday, just days before final exams.

Videos on social media showed the activists, who wore masks, pushing through security at the entrance of Butler, the main campus library, shortly after 3 p.m., steps away from where ...Read more

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Fed up with the thousands of abandoned shopping carts dumped on city streets and in its waterways, San Jose is moving ahead with new regulations and a cart retrieval pilot program to solve the longstanding problem.

Earlier this year, the City Council voted to explore changes to the municipal code and advocate for less ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — A magnitude 3.2 earthquake hit a few miles south of Malibu on Wednesday, sending a gentle jolt through the beachside city.

The earthquake struck at 9:33 a.m. Pacific time, and weak shaking was felt as far away as Los Angeles' Westside, according to reports submitted to the U.S. Geological Survey's crowdsourcing website. The ...Read more

Kansas City’s PrideFest — which each June draws some 22,000 people to a parade and weekend celebration of LGBTQIA+ pride to Frank A Theis Park — is, this year, seeing both a loss in corporate sponsors and a reduction in their level of giving.

Organizers place the blame for what currently is a $200,000 shortfall directly on the anti-DEI (...Read more

California and 17 other state attorneys general have filed a lawsuit attempting to stop the Trump administration’s efforts to thwart the development of wind energy projects.

The complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts comes in response to a Jan. 20 executive order by President Donald Trump that issued a temporary withdrawal of...Read more

The Michigan House on Wednesday voted 107-1 to approve a $75 million appropriation to aid northern Michigan residents and communities in their recovery from the late March ice storm.

The $75 million appropriation for the Michigan State Police would be distributed to local governmental units and used to assist "individual residents, businesses, ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — President Donald Trump says the U.S. government will not pay for California’s high-speed rail project, fueling growing concerns that the bullet train will not have stable federal funding for the foreseeable future.

“That train is the worst cost overrun I’ve ever seen,” Trump said during a Tuesday news conference ...Read more

NEW DELHI — Pakistan said it reserves the right to retaliate after India launched targeted strikes, signaling a potential further escalation in hostilities between the nuclear-armed rivals following last month’s deadly Kashmir attacks.

Just hours after India hit nine targets in Pakistan, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s office said in a ...Read more

RALEIGH, N.C. — After spending over six months vigorously contesting his narrow loss in the 2024 North Carolina Supreme Court election, Jefferson Griffin conceded the race on Wednesday following a federal judge’s ruling against him.

Griffin, a Republican judge on the state Court of Appeals, lost the election to Democratic incumbent Allison ...Read more

ATLANTA — A Warren County High School teacher was recently arrested after he allegedly threatened to shoot students and his boss, officials said Wednesday.

During the April 24 incident, 22-year-old Mason Garrett “made verbal threats to shoot both staff and students at the school,” according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. The high...Read more

It’s been nearly 70 days since U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi promised the public a release of the files in the Jeffrey Epstein case.

It took a skeptical remark from a top Republican congressman to force her to explain why she hasn’t followed through.

“There are tens of thousands of videos of Epstein with children or child porn and ...Read more

WASHINGTON — House Energy-Water Appropriations Chair Chuck Fleischmann told Energy Secretary Chris Wright on Wednesday that he wanted to see more money in fiscal 2026 for the Office of Science, a sharp contrast to the administration’s request for a cut of more than $1 billion.

In Wright’s debut in the House on Wednesday to defend the ...Read more

NEW YORK — The estranged sister of Harvey Weinstein accuser Kaja Sokola told jurors her sibling appeared “extremely tense” after a 2006 post-lunch meeting with the movie mogul in a Tribeca hotel room — but nothing about the encounter led her to think Weinstein sexually assaulted her.

Ewa Sokola added that she didn’t even know her ...Read more

PHILADELPHIA — A Temple student suspended for his alleged involvement in an antisemitic incident at a Barstool sports bar in Philadelphia over the weekend is speaking out.

In a post on X shared Tuesday evening, Mohammed Adnan Khan said he had “nothing to do” with an antisemitic sign displayed inside Barstool Sansom Street in ...Read more

The year’s first moon landing was a big success. The second not so much. Now a third commercial lunar lander has entered orbit around the moon ahead of its chance for glory next month.

Japanese company ispace’s Hakuto-R lander Resilience looks to touch lunar dirt following the landings of American companies Firefly Aerospace with its Blue ...Read more

An urgent request appeared last July on the Facebook page of Trans Heartland, a Kansas-based transgender advocacy group. A young trans adult needed $289 after getting a traffic ticket for not having vehicle insurance.

“Donate if you can please,” the post said, followed by a heart emoji. Nearly $300 in contributions arrived.

But Kansas ...Read more

DEDHAM, Mass. — Jennifer McCabe searched for “hos long to die in cold” after John O’Keefe’s body was already discovered, according to a second prosecution digital forensics expert called in the Karen Read case.

“What I can state with a scientific degree of certainty is that that search occurred at 6:24 a.m. and was the last search ...Read more

TAMPA, Fla. — Gov. Ron DeSantis said Wednesday he would sign a bill into law to prohibit doing exactly what his administration had proposed last year: building golf courses, hotels and other destructive amenities on state park land.

His signature would represent another step in an extraordinary — and rare — reversal of course for DeSantis...Read more