MOORE, Okla. — Dan Garland could feel the latch on the shelter door begin to turn in his hand. It was as if the storm outside were a living, breathing thing — and it was trying desperately to get in. Huddled beside him in the darkened 5-foot-by-6-foot hole were not just his wife and 91-year-old [...]

LONDON — Two men with butcher knives hacked another to death Wednesday near a London military barracks and one then went on video to explain the crime — shouting political statements, gesturing with bloodied hands and waving a meat cleaver. Soon after, arriving police shot and wounded the unidentified assailants and took them into custody. [...]

MOORE, Okla. — The tornado that tore through an Oklahoma City suburb destroyed or damaged as many as 13,000 homes and may have caused $2 billion in overall damage, officials said Wednesday. State authorities meanwhile said two infants were among the 24 people who perished in the twister. Oklahoma Insurance Department spokeswoman Calley Herth told [...]

MOORE, Okla. — With its single-story design and cinder-block walls, Plaza Towers Elementary School may have seemed sturdy when it was built a couple of generations ago. But a powerful tornado revealed the building’s lack of modern safety standards, destroying the school and killing seven students. Unlike several other schools in the Oklahoma City area, [...]

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration acknowledged for the first time Wednesday that four American citizens have been killed in drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen since 2009. The disclosure to Congress comes on the eve of a major national security speech by President Barack Obama in which he plans to pledge more transparency to Congress [...]

SAN JOSE — A high-tech startup is wading into the gun control debate with a wireless controller that would allow gun owners to know when their weapon is being moved — and disable it remotely. The technology, but not an actual gun, was demonstrated Tuesday at a wireless technology conference in Las Vegas and was [...]

MOORE, Okla. — The principal’s voice came on over the intercom at Plaza Towers Elementary School: A severe storm was approaching and students were to go to the cafeteria and wait for their parents to pick them up. But before all of the youngsters could get there, the tornado alarm sounded. The plan changed quickly. [...]

MOORE, Okla. — Helmeted rescue workers raced Tuesday to complete the search for survivors and the dead in the Oklahoma City suburb where a mammoth tornado destroyed countless homes, cleared lots down to bare red earth and claimed 24 lives, including those of nine children. Scientists concluded the storm was a rare and extraordinarily powerful [...]

WASHINGTON — Wind, humidity and rainfall combined precisely to create the massive killer tornado in Moore, Okla. And when they did, the awesome amount of energy released over that city dwarfed the power of the atomic bomb that leveled Hiroshima. On Tuesday afternoon, the National Weather Service gave it the top-of-the-scale rating of EF-5 for [...]

A deadly tornado hit suburban Oklahoma City on Monday. A quick look at some basic facts: Q. Is global warming to blame? A. You can’t blame a single weather event on global warming. In any case, scientists just don’t know whether there will be more or fewer twisters as global warming increases. Tornadoes arise from [...]

Customers of Lifeline, a federal program for low-income Americans, benefit by getting discounted phone service. But tens of thousands also face a liability: an increased risk of identity theft. While looking into companies participating in the program, The Scripps News investigative team discovered more than 170,000 records posted online listing sensitive information such as Social Security [...]

While researching companies participating in the federal Lifeline program that subsidizes phone service for low-income Americans, Scripps News this spring discovered a data breach. Among the key findings: – Tens of thousands of Lifeline applicants were put at heightened risk for identity theft. More than 170,000 sensitive records — many of which include full Social Security numbers or financial [...]

Last fall, when Linda Mendez was offered discount phone service through a federal program for the poor, the San Antonio mom thought it was too good to be true. She signed up anyway. Mendez, 51, works the graveyard shift at a university gym. She uses many of her cellphone’s 250 minutes a month to check [...]

MOORE, Okla. — A monstrous tornado at least a half-mile wide roared through the Oklahoma City suburbs Monday, flattening entire neighborhoods and destroying an elementary school with a direct blow as children and teachers huddled against winds up to 200 mph. At least 51 people were killed, including at least 20 children, and officials said [...]

DES MOINES, Iowa — Is the tea party getting its groove back? Shouts of vindication from around the country suggest the movement’s leaders certainly think so. They say the IRS acknowledgement that it had targeted their groups for extra scrutiny – a claim that tea party activists had made for years – is helping pump [...]

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Do your kids love chocolate milk? It may have more calories on average than you thought. Same goes for soda. Until now, the only way to find out what people in the United States eat and how many calories they consume has been government data, which can lag behind the rapidly [...]

SACRAMENTO — California businesses would be prohibited from firing or retaliating against employees who take advantage of the state’s paid family leave program under a job-protection bill moving through the Legislature. The legislation would protect workers who use the California Paid Family Leave insurance program, which allows qualified employees to take up to six weeks [...]