Faisal Rashid and his wife jumped out of bed at 3 a.m. in a scramble to secure spots for this year’s Hajj before packages sold out. Adrenaline was running high as he tried to navigate the digital booking platform from their Pasadena, California, home.

NEW YORK (AP) – One person has died after a fire and two explosions Friday at a New York City shipyard, officials say. Officials said 36 people were injured, most of them firefighters and other first responders, and one civilian died at the scene.

When Dev Shah won the Scripps National Spelling Bee in 2023 and Faizan Zaki took the title last year, they posed for remarkably similar photos on the confetti-strewn stage. Standing next to them, beaming, was a bespectacled man in an aloha shirt, holding up a copy of his book “Words of Wisdom.”

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – It looked like progressive Chris Rabb had a mountain to climb to win the Democratic nomination for a congressional district in Philadelphia.

SpaceX launched its biggest, most powerful Starship yet on a test flight Friday, an upgraded version that NASA is counting on to land astronauts on the moon.

NEW YORK (AP) – One day after the Democratic National Committee released its botched autopsy report on the 2024 election, party leaders continued limping toward the midterm elections – even as other prominent Democrats demanded major changes at the very top of the organization.

WASHINGTON (AP) – The Trump administration’s strategy against Cuba is looking a lot like the playbook for Venezuela: An oil blockade, a growing U.S. military presence, federal charges and repeated threats of intervention.

WASHINGTON (AP) – A bipartisan group of senators is pushing back on delays by the Department of Defense in sending $600 million in security aid to Ukraine and other allies in eastern Europe, dispatching a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Friday that calls for the funding to be disbursed.