U.S. News

Following an alarming rise in fentanyl deaths in recent years, President Donald Trump is taking another step in cracking down on the deadly drug seeping its way onto American streets by designating it a weapon of mass destruction.

American authorities have detained “a person of interest” following a deadly shooting at Brown University in the U.S. state of Rhode Island that officials said killed two students and wounded nine others, prompting a campus lockdown and renewed debate over security at the nation’s universities.

President Donald Trump on Thursday signed a sweeping executive order aimed at preventing states from regulating artificial intelligence, asserting that a fragmented regulatory landscape threatens U.S. innovation and global competitiveness—particularly against China.

A federal appeals court delivered a major victory to the Trump administration and the pro-life movement on Friday, ruling that Planned Parenthood is unlikely to succeed in its legal challenge against a key provision of President Donald Trump’s signature domestic-policy law that cuts off federal Medicaid funding to abortion providers.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Dec. 8 declined to hear the case of a California Christian baker who was prosecuted for refusing, on religious grounds, to create a custom wedding cake celebrating a same-sex marriage. The unsigned order in Miller v. Civil Rights Department came without comment or recorded dissent, leaving in place a California ruling against the baker.

Students, staff and anxious parents faced an uncertain Sunday and several leaders urged prayers after a shooter killed at least two people and wounded nine others at Brown University in the U.S. state of Rhode Island.

The Trump administration has prevented more than $1 billion in attempted federal student-loan fraud this year after reinstating strict identity-verification requirements that officials say were weakened under the Biden administration.

The man accused of assassinating born-again Christian activist Charlie Kirk, the founder of the Turning Point USA movement, was to make his first in-person court appearance Thursday, nearly three months after he was taken into custody.

As expected, lawmakers failed to pass either of the competing partisan health care bills in the Senate on Thursday.

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday approved its third consecutive interest rate cut, lowering the benchmark federal-funds rate by a quarter percentage point to a range of 3.5% to 3.75%, the lowest level since early 2022. But the decision—passed in a 9–3 vote, the most divided in six years—exposed unusually sharp disagreements over the path forward as policymakers wrestle with a slowing labor market and stubborn inflation.

U.S. House members advanced the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, the must-pass annual Pentagon funding bill, in a 312-112 vote Wednesday.

In a major victory for religious liberty and parental rights, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday reversed a lower court ruling that had upheld New York State’s strict vaccine mandates for schoolchildren, directing the appeals court to reconsider the case under newly strengthened constitutional protections.

A Hindu nonprofit organization is moving forward with plans to construct a massive 155-foot Hindu idol of Lord Murugan in rural Chatham County—an enormous structure that, once completed, would stand taller than the Statue of Liberty’s figure.

President Donald Trump on Monday unveiled a $12 billion bailout package aimed at supporting U.S. farmers who have absorbed the brunt of global market disruptions and retaliatory tariffs stemming from the administration’s ongoing trade war with China.

Federal agencies have canceled or significantly scaled back 43 wasteful government contracts worth a combined ceiling value of $3.5 billion, saving taxpayers $222 million, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) announced in a Dec. 6 post on X.

Following the assassination of Charlie Kirk, half of the nation’s college students report feeling less comfortable attending controversial public events on campus and nearly half are less comfortable voicing opinions on controversial subjects in class.

White House border czar Tom Homan said on Dec. 7 that the Trump administration has located more than 60,000 children who were illegally smuggled into the United States—many of whom were rescued from sex trafficking, forced labor, and other forms of abuse.

Hawaii’s Kīlauea volcano has roared back to life, hurling red-hot lava nearly 1,000 feet (about 300 meters) into the air and sending a towering plume of ash and volcanic gases to more than 20,000 feet (over 6,000 meters), officials and eyewitnesses said Sunday.

U.S. President Donald J. Trump expressed outrage Saturday about “illegal migrants” after a Honduran man was accused of stabbing a passenger on a light rail train in the city of Charlotte in the U.S. state of North Carolina — the second such attack there in less than a year.

The U.S. Department of Justice offered few details in the ongoing investigation that led to the arrest of a suspect related to pipe bombs planted outside the Democratic and Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 5, 2021.