Updated at 6:25 p.m. ET House intelligence committee Chairman Adam Schiff vowed Thursday he is willing to sue the Trump administration over a dispute about the content of an as-yet-unknown complaint to the intelligence community's official watchdog. Schiff told reporters after a closed-door meeting with the inspector general, Michael Atkinson, that the Justice Department has opined that the material is shielded by privilege and can be withheld from lawmakers. Not so, Schiff argued, and "if we...

Updated at 4:10 p.m. ET Swaths of southeast Texas were underwater Thursday after Tropical Depression Imelda caused catastrophic flooding. Scores of residents had to be carried through the floodwaters and motorists needed to be rescued from submerged vehicles. Children were forced to shelter in place at schools in Houston. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott declared a state of disaster in 13 counties Thursday, saying the severe weather "has caused widespread and severe property damage and threatens loss...

Updated on Sept. 19 at 2:00 p.m. ET to reflect the latest information from federal agencies. An outbreak of severe lung disease among users of electronic cigarettes continues to spread to new patients and states, and public health officials say it's too soon to point to a cause. According to the latest report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a total of 530 confirmed and probable cases have been identified in 38 states and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The CDC has confirmed...

There is nostalgia, and there is Downton Abbey . Nostalgia bathes the past in a golden light that falls patchily, shining clear and steady on what was tidy and genteel, while leaving an era's ugliest, most brutal recesses sunk in shadow. The light thrown by Downton Abbey over the course of its six televised seasons proved even more fitful; creator Julian Fellowes illumined a past where rigid class distinctions existed to make everyone, high-born and low-, know their place and keep to it...

An explosion this week in a Russian lab , one of only two labs in the world known to store live samples of the variola virus, which causes smallpox, has raised anew questions that have been asked since the disease was eradicated in 1980. Should humankind hold on to the live virus to conduct research on treatments, tests and vaccines in case smallpox were to reemerge? Or is it more prudent to destroy all samples of the live virus to avoid any accidental or intentional release and instead rely...

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is apologizing for having worn brownface makeup at a 2001 costume party. "I should have known better then, but I didn't and I did it and I'm deeply sorry," he said to reporters in his campaign plane in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The revelation was first reported by Time magazine late Wednesday which published a picture of Trudeau wearing a turban and robe with dark makeup on his face, neck and hands for an Arabian Nights-themed party at a private school where...

Updated 1:35 p.m. ET A Pennsylvania state senator has stepped down following his arrest on charges of possession of child pornography. Sen. Mike Folmer submitted his letter of resignation on Wednesday to Republican colleagues in Harrisburg, according to leadership in the state chamber. "We are sickened and disturbed by the charges brought against Mike Folmer," the Pennsylvania lawmakers said in a statement . After reviewing the charges and speaking to Folmer, they said they insisted that he...

Six volunteer firefighters use machetes to cut a path through the vines and underbrush of the Chiquitano forest in Bolivia's eastern lowlands. They're approaching the leading edge of a fire that's been burning for hours. They attempt to smother it with shovelfuls of dirt and water they carry on their backs in tanks normally used to fumigate crops. But the smoke is getting thicker, the heat stronger and swirling winds push the flames forward. Realizing they are overmatched, José Zapata, the...

With its austere surfaces and jaundiced view of humanity's interplanetary destiny, James Gray's stirring sci-fi epic Ad Astra can't help but evoke Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, the paterfamilias of all "serious" space movies. But in fact it's a closer cousin to another long-delayed, wildly over-budget spectacle that initially fared better with ticket-buyers than critics, only to be revealed in time as a masterpiece: Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now . Like Coppola's surreal...

Former wives and partners of servicemen who survived domestic abuse told their harrowing stories before the House Armed Services military preparedness subcommittee as they pressed for more attention to and resources for the growing problem within the armed forces. "We are here today because domestic violence has become a forgotten crisis in our military," chairwoman Jackie Speier, D-Calif., said in her opening remarks before the military preparedness subcommittee. "The [Department of Defense]...