ORLANDO, Fla. — Tropical Storm Helene gained strength Wednesday and is forecast to become a hurricane later in the day as it moves into the Gulf of Mexico where the National Hurricane Center said it will intensify into a major Category 3 storm.

As of the NHC’s 8 a.m. advisory, Helene had increased sustained winds to 70 mph and was located ...Read more

Israel stepped up its heaviest air attacks on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon since 2006 after shooting down the first missile ever fired by the militant group at Tel Aviv.

Air sirens were activated in Israel’s commercial capital early on Wednesday as the projectile flew over central parts of the country, the military said. Hezbollah, an ...Read more

MIAMI — Local governments across Florida are bracing for Oct. 1, the effective start date of a ban on sleeping in public that could upend how the state deals with homelessness.

Signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis in March, House Bill 1365 holds counties and cities legally responsible for enforcing a ban on public camping. If they don’t, ...Read more

The entire coast of Florida is under various warnings from Tropical Storm Helene, which is expected to intensify rapidly into a hurricane and grow in size as it moves north along the state’s Gulf coast during the day Wednesday.

Helene is forecast to make landfall in Florida’s Big Bend region early Thursday as a major hurricane — Category ...Read more

LAS VEGAS — Las Vegas resident Bobby McDowell received a call Monday afternoon from someone saying he owed taxes, and if he didn’t pay them, he wouldn’t be allowed to vote. The nearly 90-year-old Las Vegas resident knew it was a scam and hung up, but he worries others could fall for it.

“I felt violated,” McDowell said. “Telling me ...Read more

NEW YORK — Two months before his 2022 suicide in a Rikers Island jail, Erick Tavira told a doctor that killing himself would give him “real liberty,” records show. One month before his death, Tavira poured scalding water on his body, “just to feel something.”

Neither incident nor a litany of other red flags led jail officials to ...Read more

The Nicaraguan government recently shut down more than 1,500 nonprofits – many of them civic and religious groups doing humanitarian work in a country long mired in political violence, economic upheaval and social strife.

The August 2024 closures were the latest in a long-running crackdown on civil society, including religious ...Read more

Supporters of both major U.S. political parties tend to claim their presidential candidate is the “real” Christian or the “better” Christian or just the “true” Christian.

For a majority of white evangelical protestants, Trump is the good Christian. Christians for Kamala, a newly created group of self-identified Christians ...Read more

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed a pressing issue: The U.S. health care system is increasingly dependent on immigrant physicians, but it’s becoming harder for aspiring ones to work and settle in the U.S.

Today, 1 in 4 doctors are foreign-born, international medical graduates. Their numbers are even larger in underserved areas – ...Read more

On television shows like “Grey’s Anatomy,” “The Resident” and “Chicago Med,” physicians seem to always have the right answer.

But when it comes to nutrition and dietary advice, that may not be the case.

One of us is an assistant professor of nutrition and dietetics; the other is a medical student with a master’...Read more

“All politics is local” is a common refrain – and yet, it is also true that the president has some unique powers.

I am an expert on state policymaking, and I’m teaching presidential politics at Auburn University during this election season. Researching and teaching about both state and national politics has made me keenly ...Read more

Every campaign season brings renewed attention to the amount of money influencing American politics, and who is spending it, and for what purposes. In particular, people are concerned about what is called “dark money.” For instance, recent media coverage has pointed to escalating dark money spending on both the Democratic and Republican ...Read more

For many people, especially those leaning left, Donald Trump’s disqualifications to be president seem obvious, prompting some to question: How could anyone still vote for Trump?

Some of the evidence Trump’s critics cite include his two impeachments, multiple criminal indictments at the state and federal levels and a felony ...Read more

Israel stepped up its heaviest air attacks on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon since 2006 after shooting down the first missile ever fired by the militant group at Tel Aviv.

Air sirens were activated in Israel’s commercial capital early on Wednesday as the projectile flew over central parts of the country, the military said. Hezbollah, an ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Clashes in the last year between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group in southern Lebanon have largely been confined to a tit-for-tat border conflict — until now. In recent days, Israel assassinated several top Hezbollah leaders in the Lebanese capital of Beirut and bombarded sites across the country, claiming more lives in a...Read more

WASHINGTON — A bipartisan Senate committee report released Wednesday found numerous Secret Service failures related to the July 13 near assassination of former President Donald Trump and recommended ways to help prevent another incident.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, in its ongoing investigation into the ...Read more