CONCORD, N. H. (AP) — Heat as oppressive as British colonial rule is bearing down on the eastern U. S. heading into the long Fourth of July weekend, prompting some communities to cancel, postpone or otherwise alter their Independence Day plans. Dangerous, record-breaking heat will continue across much of the central and eastern U. S. through Friday and will continue along the East Coast through the weekend, the National Weather Service said Thursday. Temperatures in the high 90s Fahrenheit a...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Consultants tied to President Donald Trump may have engaged in financial fraud, tricking donors who wanted to support the nation’s bipartisan 250th anniversary organizer into sending their money instead to a rival group set up by his administration, according to a report released Thursday by House Democrats. The report draws in part on interviews by Democratic staffers of the House Committee on Natural Resources. Those interviews suggest that donors seeking to celebrate a...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A rush rescue mission to save a NASA space telescope remains grounded, this time because of a last-minute launch problem. Northrop Grumman ’s rocket-launching plane took off from the Marshall Islands in the Pacific on Thursday, following weather delays all week. While in flight, the team observed a warning in the stream of data and decided against releasing the Pegasus rocket strapped to the plane’s belly, the company said. It was not immediately clear whether...