ORLANDO, Fla. — The National Hurricane Center said Tropical Storm Sara formed in the Caribbean on Thursday, and long-term forecast models show it could enter the Gulf of Mexico and turn toward Florida’s Gulf Coast.

As of the NHC’s 10 a.m. advisory, Sara was located about 205 miles east of Isla Guanaja, Honduras and 50 miles northeast of ...Read more

NEW YORK — Ex-Rep. Matt Gaetz faced rising skepticism on Thursday about his nomination to be President-elect Donald Trump’s attorney general as a congressional ethics report reportedly was set to accuse him of drug use and sexual misconduct.

Republican lawmakers suggested Gaetz, who abruptly resigned from his House seat Wednesday, would ...Read more

ATLANTA — Fulton County is violating the civil rights of the people housed at the county jail by allowing “abhorrent, unconstitutional” conditions at the Rice Street facility in Atlanta, according to a U.S. Department of Justice investigation.

Federal officials who spent the last 16 months studying the conditions there said authorities ...Read more

Evidence of as many as 20 human skulls was located in New Mexico property after a witness gave a ride to had an “unsettling encounter” with a man he offered a ride.

Lea County Sheriff’s Office said while the witness drove Cecil Villanueva to his destination last week, the man “made alarming statements and discarded objects” that ...Read more

NEW YORK — Two Bronx gang members busted in a takedown last year now face federal charges for carjacking a man at gun and knifepoint — and they may be responsible for a string of similar robberies, federal prosecutors allege.

Abdoul Azika, 20, and Jaquell Blackwell, 19, both members of the “5zzly Crew,” an offshoot of the Blood Hound ...Read more

Haiti was in the throes of political chaos. Opponents of President Jovenel Moïse were marching through the streets of Port-au-Prince demanding his removal from office. U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, who had been railing against Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro at a Coral Gables conference, was asked about the deepening crisis.

The United States, he ...Read more

A group of allegedly powerful men implicated in a Greater Boston and in the DC suburbs of Virginia sex-trade case lost their appeal to the state’s highest court to keep their names secret.

The Supreme Judicial Court rejected the johns’ latest appeal to keep the proceedings and records at Cambridge District Court under wraps in a decision ...Read more

BALTIMORE — Police are seeking the identity of a person believed to be the suspect in a shooting that wounded a 15-year-old student Monday afternoon near two East Baltimore schools.

Police said Wednesday that they were seeking the person, whose features are muddled in blurry surveillance footage, in connection with the shooting near Paul ...Read more

BALTIMORE — President-elect Donald Trump is sending a clear message with his lightning round of political appointments: He knows who his friends are.

From his recent appointment of Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz as attorney general to Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy leading a new Department of Government Efficiency, Trump is rewarding those who...Read more

MIAMI — His wife’s corpse has still not been found in Europe.

But on Wednesday, federal prosecutors obtained a grand jury indictment accusing David Knezevich of killing Ana Knezevich Henao, in addition to a previous charge of kidnapping her in Madrid in early February.

Knezevich, 36, a Fort Lauderdale businessman from Serbia who has been ...Read more

CHICAGO — In the latest development in a monthslong battle between the Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union, the school board will convene for a special meeting to address the impending closures of several charter schools.

The meeting, scheduled for Thursday afternoon, will also allow audience members to closely watch another...Read more

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Forecasters expect Tropical Storm Sara to form in the western Caribbean Sea in the next 24 hours, but there is a great deal of uncertainty about what, if any, impacts it will have in Florida or other parts of the U.S. Gulf coast.

As of Thursday morning, the system was a tropical depression off the coast of Honduras and...Read more

DETROIT — A Detroit man convicted of leading a drug-trafficking operation in the Bay City and Saginaw area has been sentenced to 60 years in prison, officials said.

Ricardo Delgado II, 51, was sentenced Wednesday in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, U.S. Attorney Dawn Ison said.

"This defendant endangered...Read more

CAMARILLO, Calif. — Stanley Jensen worked with firefighters to break open a melted safe amid the rubble of his family’s home.

As Jensen used a window screen to sift the safe’s ashen contents for diamonds and stones, his wife Dawn DaMart wandered the blackened foundation searching for tokens of the couple’s life before the Mountain fire...Read more

ORLANDO, Fla. — Tropical Depression Nineteen formed in the Caribbean early Thursday with the National Hurricane Center forecasting it to grow into Tropical Storm Sara. Long-term forecast models show it could enter the Gulf of Mexico and then turn toward Florida’s Gulf Coast.

As of the NHC’s 7 a.m. advisory, TD 19 was located about 250 ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — With a sterling record of busting down doors and arresting armed suspects over her decade in SWAT, Los Angeles police Lt. Jennifer Grasso figured she had a strong case to become the tactical unit's next leader when the position opened up this year. Grasso — the department's first woman to serve in SWAT — said she felt even ...Read more