Upon touring the damage in several towns along Florida's Panhandle, Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Brock Long called the destruction left by Hurricane Michael some of the worst he's ever seen. On Monday, President Donald Trump plans to visit Florida and Georgia and see the recovery effort for himself. Trump declared a state of emergency for Georgia late Sunday. In hurricane-flattened Mexico Beach, crews with backhoes and other heavy equipment scooped up splintered boards, broken glass, chunks of asphalt and other debris Sunday as the mayor held out hope for the 250 or so residents who may have tried to ride out the storm. Get More

Sears has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, buckling under its massive debt load and staggering losses. Sears once dominated the American retail landscape. But the big question is whether the shrunken version of itself can be viable or will it be forced to go out of business, closing the final chapter for an iconic name that originated more than a century ago. The company, which started out as a mail order catalog in the 1880s, has been on a slow march toward extinction as it lagged far behind its peers and has incurred massive losses over the years. The operator of Sears and Kmart stores joins a growing list of retailers that have filed for bankruptcy or liquidated in the last few years amid a fiercely competitive climate. Some like Payless ShoeSource have had success emerging from reorganization in bankruptcy court but plenty of others haven't, like Toys R Us and Bon-Ton Stores Inc. Both retailers were forced to shutter their operations this year soon after a Chapter 11 filing. Get More

Saudi Arabia has threatened to retaliate for any sanctions imposed against it after President Donald Trump said the oil-rich kingdom deserves "severe punishment" if it is responsible for the disappearance and suspected murder of Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi. The warning from the world's top oil exporter came after a turbulent day on the Saudi stock exchange, which plunged as much as 7 percent at one point Sunday. That fear appeared to spread Monday to Japan's SoftBank, which has invested large sums of Saudi money. The statement was issued as international concern grew over the writer who vanished on a visit to the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul over a week ago. American lawmakers threatened tough punitive action against the Saudis, and Germany, France and Britain jointly called for a "credible investigation" into Khashoggi's disappearance. Get More

Freed American pastor Andrew Brunson fell to one knee in the Oval Office and placed his hand on President Donald Trump's shoulder in prayer before asking God to provide Trump "supernatural wisdom to accomplish all the plans you have for this country and for him. Trump welcomed Brunson to the White House to celebrate his release from nearly two years of confinement in Turkey, which had sparked a diplomatic row with a key ally and outcry from U.S. evangelical groups. Brunson returned to the U.S. aboard a military jet shortly before meeting the president. He was detained in October 2016, formally arrested that December and placed under house arrest on July 25 for health reasons. Get More

Veteran Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi disappeared over a week ago while on a visit to the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, sparking an international uproar involving the kingdom, Turkey and the United States that remains unresolved until today. Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributor, had written columns critical of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom's stalemated war in Yemen and its crackdown on activists and businessmen. Turkish officials say they fear a team of Saudi agents killed and dismembered Khashoggi, and have released surveillance footage of the alleged perpetrators and mysterious movements outside the consulate on Oct. 2, the day he entered. The kingdom says the allegations are "baseless," but has offered no evidence Khashoggi ever left the consulate. Get More

Republicans have begun to concede defeat in the evolving fight to preserve the House majority. The party's candidates may not go quietly, but from the Arizona mountains to suburban Denver to the cornfields of Iowa, the GOP's most powerful players this midterm season are actively shifting resources away from vulnerable Republican House candidates deemed too far gone and toward those thought to have a better chance of political survival. And as they initiate a painful and strategic triage, the early Republican-on-Republican blame game has begun as well. Get More

A makeshift memorial to Hispanic Civil War Union soldiers in an isolated part northern New Mexico is a typical representation of sites linked to U.S. Latino history: It's shabby, largely unknown and at risk of disappearing. Across the U.S, many sites historically connected to key moments in Latino civil rights lie forgotten, decaying or endanger of quietly dissolving into the past without acknowledgment. Scholars and advocates say a lack of preservation, resistance to recognition and even natural disasters make it hard for sites to gain traction among the general public, which affects how Americans see Latinos in U.S. history. The birthplace of farmworker union leader Cesar Chavez sits abandoned in Yuma, Arizona. The Corpus Christi, Texas, office of Dr. Hector P. Garcia, where the Mexican-American civil rights movement was sparked, is gone. And no markers exist where pioneering educator George I. Sanchez captured images of New Mexico poverty for his 1940 groundbreaking book "Forgotten People." Get More

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are expecting their first child this coming spring, Kensington Palace announced Monday. "Their Royal Highnesses The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are very pleased to announce that The Duchess of Sussex is expecting a baby in the Spring of 2019," the palace wrote in a tweet. "Their Royal Highnesses have appreciated all of the support they have received from people around the world since their wedding in May and are delighted to be able to share this happy news with the public," a second tweet said. Get More

Pope Francis on Sunday praised two of the towering figures of the 20th-century Catholic Church as prophets who shunned wealth and looked out for the poor as he canonized the modernizing Pope Paul VI and martyred Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero. Francis declared the two men saints at a Mass in St. Peter's Square before tens of thousands of pilgrims, a handful of presidents and some 5,000 Salvadoran pilgrims. Tens of thousands more Salvadorans stayed up all night at home to watch it on giant TV screens outside the San Salvador cathedral where Romero's remains are entombed. In a sign of the strong influence Paul and Romero had on history's first Latin American pope, Francis wore the blood-stained rope belt that Romero wore when he was gunned down in 1980 and also used Paul's staff, chalice and pallium vestment. Get More

Wildlife officials in Maryland tracked a black bear cub for three days in order to tranquilize it and remove a bucket that had gotten stuck on its head. The 100-pound cub was freed near the Wisp Resort in McHenry, Maryland, during an annual autumn festival, the Cumberland Times-News reported Sunday. A Facebook post shows the cub lying on the grass with a large plastic jar-style bucket over his head. Get More

For 35 years, Ruth D'Eredita tried to dismiss her former professor's behavior — the way he touched her, groped her and kissed her. But last year, as dozens of women came forward to share similar encounters with powerful men, she started to see her memories differently. "It made me look at that incident and say, no, it was wrong," said D'Eredita, a 1984 graduate of Mount Holyoke College, a women's school in Massachusetts. "I went there with a heart full of passion, eager for scholarship, just to throw myself into it, and this man looked at me as a potential sexual partner." She's now among a wave of women inspired by the #MeToo movement to report past sexual misconduct to their colleges, breaking sometimes decades of silence in an attempt to acknowledge the wrongdoing, close old wounds and, in some cases, seek justice. Get More

It was once argued that the trees would help save Florida's Panhandle from the fury of a hurricane, as the acres of forests in the region would provide a natural barrier to savage winds that accompany the deadly storms. It's part of the reason that tighter building codes — mandatory in places such as South Florida — were not put in place for most of this region until just 11 years ago. And it may be a painful lesson for area residents now that Hurricane Michael has ravaged the region, leaving sustained damage from the coast inland all the way to the Georgia border. Get More

President Donald Trump gazes out over his rally crowd and looses a stream of insults with a theatrical flourish and playful grin. He jabs at Cory Booker the "disaster" mayor, Elizabeth Warren the "Pocahontas" pretender and "sleepy" Joe Biden. "I want to be careful," Trump tells the crowd, feigning a confession. He doesn't want to hit his potential challengers too badly, he says, because then the Democrats may find "somebody that's actually good to run against me. That would not be good." The venue may be Council Bluffs, Iowa, or Erie, Pennsylvania, or Topeka, Kansas, but the formula is largely the same. Get More

President Donald Trump is backing off his claim that climate change is a hoax but says he doesn't know if it's manmade and suggests that the climate will "change back again." In an interview with CBS' "60 Minutes" that aired Sunday night, Trump said he doesn't want to put the U.S. at a disadvantage in responding to climate change. "I think something's happening. Something's changing and it'll change back again," he said. "I don't think it's a hoax. I think there's probably a difference. But I don't know that it's manmade. I will say this: I don't want to give trillions and trillions of dollars. I don't want to lose millions and millions of jobs." Get More