Reid Jones

Kyle Busch died on Thursday, May 21 at the age of 41. The NASCAR legend was hospitalized earlier in the week with what the motorspot series and his family called a "severe illness." He did not recover. Tributes poured in from across social media to honor the two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion, husband, father and friend. Busch's formal rival, Dale Earnhardt Jr., was among those who mourned the loss of the Richard Childress Racing driver, who was known as "Rowdy." "Our entire NASCAR family is heartbroken by the loss of Kyle Busch," Busch's family, NASCAR and RCR said in a joint statement. "A future Hall of Famer, Kyle was a rare talent, one who comes along once in a generation. He was fierce, he was passionate, he was immensely skilled and he cared deeply about the sport and fans. Throughout a career that spanned more than two decades, Kyle set records in national series wins, won championships at NASCAR'S highest level and fostered the ne...

The Trump administration is preparing to fine tens of thousands of migrants for the cost of arresting, detaining and deporting them, under a new policy that will also make it harder for them to return legally to the United States. Department of Homeland Security officials acknowledge they will likely never collect most of the new $18,000 fines to be levied on each of more than 23,000 people annually. Among the reasons: The annual per capita household income in Mexico is only $5,000, according to the London-based analysis and data firm ISI Markets. But White House officials have previously said such fines are intended to encourage people to voluntarily self-deport.

If President Donald Trump's approval rating is sinking into dangerous territory - and it is - how does he manage to keep vanquishing Republican critics and imposing his will on a generally compliant Congress? Call it the political dichotomy of he 47th president: Millions of the voters who helped elect him in 2024 now disapprove of the job he's doing in office, a warning of weakness. But the guts of his base remain unshaken, the most solid of any president in decades, a source of strength. Just ask Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie. The seven-term congressman lost the Republican nomination for an eighth term May 19 in the most expensive House primary in history. After Massie crossed Trump on issues from war to taxes to the Jeffrey Epstein files, the president helped recruit challenger Ed Gallrein. Gallrein won.

In a political blow to President Donald Trump, the Senate on May 19 moved forward for the first time with a measure to end the war in Iran. After several key Republican senators didn't vote - and another key GOP bloc defeated - the war powers resolution advanced, 50-47. Though the vote was largely procedural, and faces an uphill battle actually becoming law, the resolution's progress was a bad omen for the White House about potentially waning support in Congress for the war. Rising gas prices, spiking inflation and the president's sinking polling numbers have become political liabilities for battleground GOP lawmakers as the November midterm elections approach.

Two teenagers opened fire at an Islamic center in San Diego on May 18, killing three people in what police say was a targeted assault now being investigated as a hate crime. Shortly after the noon shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego, the two attackers, 17 and 18, were found dead in a vehicle nearby. They died from what appeared to be self-inflicted gunshot wounds and there is no further threat to the public police said. When scores of law enforcement arrived at the mosque, they found three men dead, including a security guard. San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl said in a news briefing that the security officer likely helped prevent further bloodshed.

Recent election cycles have been bleak for Florida Democrats, as the state morphed from key battleground to reliably Republican, but Emily Gregory wasn't deterred from trying to flip a GOP seat in the seat legislature. Gregory believes the "branding" of her native Florida as a red state is overblown, and decided to test her "theory" on the campaign trail. Gregory, 40, lives in Palm Beach County, the home of President Donald Trump. Once strongly favoring Democrats, the county moved toward Republicans in recent elections, but there are signs the political winds may be shifting again. In March Gregory won a Palm Beach state House seat that Trump had carried by 11 percentage points, where his Mar-a-Lago estate is located. Her takeaway: "Florida was never as red as advertised."

Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni abruptly reached a legal settlement earlier this month in their nearly two-year-long battle over their dueling allegations of misconduct and smear campaigns around "It Ends with Us." The news broke just as Lively, 38, was about to step onto the Met Gala red carpet May 4, beaming for the cameras as she ascended the iconic steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in a flowing, pastel-hued Atelier Versace gown. It was a glitzy return to normalcy for the embattled "Gossip Girl" actress, who has been engaged in messy public mudslinging with Baldoni over claims of sexual harassment and retaliation. "It's no coincidence that Lively was on the red carpet just hours after the settlement was announced - it was a tactical effort to being the rebranding process in the minds of Hollywood and homes across America," says Doug Eldrige, founder of Achilles PR. But just three days later on May 7, attorneys for Lively said that she will con...

Congressional Democrats are accusing Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr of leveraging merger reviews and broadcast licensing decisions to push companies to scrap diversity initiatives, raising alarms about political pressure inside a powerful independent regulator. "The FCC holds significant authority over the communications marketplace," the 18 lawmakers wrote in a letter provided exclusively to USA TODAY. "Congress granted this authority to ensure communications services serve the public interest...not to influence the internal governance decisions of private companies." The dispute reflects a broader escalation in the fight over corporate diversity programs, with Carr emerging as one of the most aggressive regulators testing whether federal agencies can influence internal business policies through routine approvals and oversight.

El Niño is coming "soon" and it could reach "very strong" levels later this year, according to a May 14 forecast released by climate scientists from NOAA's Climate Prediction Center. This and other forecasts are raising alarms globally because of the pattern's powerful influence over the world's weather. This includes its often dramatic impact on hurricanes, where it can suppress the number of storms that form in the Atlantic basin but boost those in the Pacific. NOAA's forecast said that El Niño is likely to emerge soon (with an 82% chance the next 2-3 months) and continue through the Northern Hemisphere winter of 2026-27 (a 96% chance by December 2026 - February 2027).

The voice in the recording is tense, fuzzy and hard to make out amid a riot of background chatter. Inmates yell to one another in Spanish. Someone slams a door. Maykel "Osborbo" Castillo Pérez, 42, hunched over the phone in a hallway inside Kilo 8, a maximum-security prison in Pinar del Rio, Cuba, recounting the past few weeks. On April 15, five days after U.S. and Cuban officials held secret talks and delivered an ultimatum in Havana, two Cuban state security agents visited Castillo in his jail cell, according to audio recordings of phone calls with inmates obtained by USA TODAY. The agents made him an offer: Leave Cuba or stay in prison.