One police officer is dead and a second is injured after a hostage situation in Brandon, Mississippi, ended in gunfire, officials said Thursday.  The Associated Press reported that an unnamed person was holding a second unidentified person hostage inside a home in Brandon, a suburb of Jackson, Mississippi’s capital city. …

Mortgage rates are climbing again, raising the cost of a home loan to its highest level in seven months. The average rate on a typical 30-year mortgage is now 6.91%, up from 6.69% a week ago, the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said Wednesday. The average rate on a 15-year home loan …

Washington — House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries expects Democrats will vote on a deal between House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Biden to increase the debt ceiling, but would not say how much support from his caucus he expects. “I do expect that there will be Democratic support once we …

Authorities say they’ve foiled an elderly businessman’s plan to escape a Florida jail and return to France where he had previously fled in an attempt to avoid child pornography charges. A tip from outside the jail sparked a two-month investigation of John Manchec, 78, and people he had enlisted in …

A series of corporate events aimed at promoting diversity, equity and inclusion at Uber appear to have done just the opposite, resulting in the company’s diversity chief being placed on a leave of absence.  Top executives at Uber last week asked Bo Young Lee, the company’s head of diversity, “to …

Gut health has become a huge — and important — wellness topic, and if you’ve heard anything about it, chances are you’ve heard another keyword too: the gut microbiome. Turns out, gut health all boils down to this more mysterious, less talked about piece of the digestive puzzle. “When people …

Elon Musk has tapped Linda Yaccarino, until this week the head of advertising at NBCUniversal, to replace him as CEO of Twitter, he announced in a tweet Friday.  “@LindaYacc will focus primarily on business operations, while I focus on product design & new technology,” the tweet read, in part.  Yaccarino made …

The driver in the crash that killed a bride on her wedding night on a South Carolina beach road was three times over the drinking limit, a blood test shows. The toxicology report processed and released by the forensic laboratory at South Carolina’s State Law Enforcement Division shows the alleged …

A Delta Air Lines flight was delayed for several hours on Wednesday after a swarm of bees clustered on the plane’s wing, prompting the airline to postpone the flight while it attempted to convince the insects to buzz off. The flight was initially set to leave Houston at 12:25 p.m. …

One or more shooters opened fire on a child playing in the front yard of a Kansas home, killing him, authorities said. The attack Wednesday evening in Kansas City, Kansas, when it was still daylight, doesn’t appear to have been a “random act,” police Maj. Violeta Magee told reporters at …