Reid Jones

Iran halted indirect talks with the United States over Israel's intensifying military campaign in Lebanon, according to Iranian media reports, signaling a possible breakdown in diplomatic efforts to end the three-month-old war. The Iranian semi-official Tasnim news agency said on June 1 that Tehran's negotiating team would stop communicating with Washington through mediators in protest of Israel's widening ground invasion and bombardment of Lebanon, where it is battling Iran-backed Hezbollah. The reported breakdown comes after President Donald Trump and his top cabinet officials expressed optimism about a possible deal to end the conflict, which has killed thousands across the Middle East and surged global energy prices. In an early morning social media post, Trump said "Iran really wants to make a deal and it will be a good one for the U.S.A." The White House has not commented on the reported breakdown in talks. Iranian officials have not publicly confirmed a hal...

Hurricane season starts June 1 and the staff at the National Hurricane Center faces one major task in the months to come. Their mission? Provide consistent and accurate information that stands out above a flood of conflicting and confusing social media messages to convince you to take action when a storm comes knocking. Center director Michael Brennan and his colleagues within the National Weather Service, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, are keenly aware of their challenges. They've got a new forecast map and are launching a suite of new or updated products for this season. As Brennan prepares for his fourth season as center director, he shared with USA TODAY five key things he hopes the tens of millions at-risk from hurricanes will do in the weeks ahead. Brennan has sharpened his message over the years, though it remains consistent. This season he's placing more emphasis on preparing for lengthy power outgages and other deadly conditions after the ...

After prominent artists pulled out of a series of planned concerts on the National Mall celebrating the nation's 250th anniversary, President Donald Trump nixed the musical performances and now plans to give a speech himself instead, according to a White House official. In a social media post on May 30, the president criticized the musicians, whom he did not name specifically, for getting what he called "the yips." He appeared to be referencing the collapsing lineup of superstars for the Great American State Fair, a 16-day event organized by the president's nonprofit, Freedom 250. Country star Martina McBride and R&B group The Commodores were among the latest cancellations for the concert, which is slated to run June 25 through July 10. Both said they were initially under the impression the event would be entirely nonpartisan.

A federal judge ordered the removal of President Donald Trump's name from the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, ruling the Trump administration's rebranding of the iconic institution is illegal. U.S. District Court Judge Christopher Cooper, in a opinion issued May 29, said the Kennedy Center must remove Trump's name from the institution's title within 14 days. That includes taking down the recently installed signage on the center's facade and stripping Trump's name from the center's website other official materials. Cooper, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, also overturned Trump's planned two-year closure of the Kennedy Center that was set to begin in July to accommodate massive renovations to the building.

A U.S. judge declined to block President Donald Trump's executive tightening rules on mail-in voting in a loss for the Democratic Party, whose lawyers argued that it could disenfranchise millions of voters. The decision May 28 comes as Trump's Republicans are locked in a tight battle keep control of both houses of Congress in the November midterm elections. Trump has four years pushed the claim that his 2020 election defeat was the result of widespread voter fraud and has criticized voting by mail. The executive order signed by Trump on March 31 directed his administration to compile a list of confirmed U.S. citizens eligible to vote in each state and to use federal data to help state election officials verify who is eligible to vote.

Two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Kyle Busch was cremated in Mooresville, North Carolina, following his death last week, according to his death certificate first obtained by US Weekly. The certificate revealed that Busch, 41, had been battling bacterial pneumonia for "days to weeks" before he died May 21 at 4:37 pm of natural causes. The pneumonia progressed into sepsis, which set in roughly one day before his death. The sepsis triggered disseminated intravascular coagulation, which is abnormal clotting throughout blood vessels that cuts off flow to organs. That was followed by hemorrhagic shock caused by severe bleeding. The DIC and hemorrhagic shock lasted for hours. Busch's family announced Saturday that severe pneumonia had progressed into sepsis, "resulting in rapid and overwhelming associated complications."

The U.S. men's national team World Cup roster is out - for real this time. Three days after the team's squad was fully leaked, USMNT head coach Mauricio Pochettino officially revealed his 26-man roster for the 2026 tournament on Tuesday, May 26. The release confirmed the leak was, in fact, accurate, as the 26 names matched the 26 The Guardian first reported over the weekend. The names didn't feature too many surprises, though there were still one or two decisions that could be characterized as head-scratching.

As President Donald Trump faced mounting pressure Monday to finalize a peace deal with Iran, the U.S. military carried out strikes in the southern region of the Middle Eastern country. The renewed strikes came after Trump began lowering expectations that a deal was near. In a statement from U.S. Central Command, military officials said the strikes were designed "to protect our troops from threats posed by Iranian forces." U.S. forces targeted boats attempting to lay mines and missile launch sites, in what a CENTCOM spokesperson described as defensive actions amid the "ongoing ceasefire." Nearly three months since the start of the war, Trump is bound by expectations to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which has sent oil prices skyrocketing due to its closure, while also pushing to remove Iran's enriched uranium as a part of the country's nuclear program. Over the weekend, Trump said an agreement with Iran was near before adding that American negotiators could tak...

Outgoing Rep. Thomas Massie slammed his fellow Republican members of Congress and President Donald Trump during the May 24 edition of "Meet the Press," less than a week after losing to a Trump-backed primary challenger in his Kentucky district. After serving seven terms in the House, the maverick Massie was defeated in a May 19 race by Ed Gallrein, a former Navy SEAL. The incumbent told NBC host Kristen Welker that he believes he was unseated because of his support for releasing the government's Epstein files, including his Epstein Transparency Act legislation. The Kentucky lawmaker authored the bill - which sought to shed light on federal materials about convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein - with Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna.

Fans continue to mourn Kyle Busch two days after the NASCAR legend's sudden and shocking death at age 41. The two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion was hospitalized in Charlotte, North Carolina, earlier this week with what his family and the auto racing series termed a "severe illness." Busch was scheduled to compete in two NASCAR races at Charlotte Motor Speedway over Memorial Day weekend: a Craftsman Truck Series race that was rescheduled for the morning of Saturday, May 23, and the annual Coca-Cola 600, the Cup Series' longest race of the seaon on Sunday, May 24. Busch won 63 Cup Series races, which ranks ninth on the all-time list, and season championships in 2015 and 2019. He holds the record for most wins in the second-tier O'Reilly Auto Parts Series with 102 and the Truck Series with 69. His most recent Trucks win came last weekend at Dover Motor Speedway, and his post-race interview has now taken on a whole new layer.

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.