Vanessa Romo

The U.S. Postal Service is experimenting with self-driving trucks to move mail across state lines.

The USPS has partnered with San Diego-based TuSimple on a two-week pilot program focusing solely on a 1,000-mile route between Dallas and Phoenix.

Dressbarn, the women's clothing chain founded in the 1960s as a place where women in need of career-wear "could find fashion at a value," is closing all its stores.

Ascena Retail Group announced the closure of about 650 stores late Monday, saying the "wind-down" would help the company focus on its more profitable brands.

A Guatemalan toddler died in a hospital Tuesday night, just over a month after he and his mother crossed the southwest border and were apprehended, according to the Guatemalan consul in Del Rio, Texas.

The family entered the U.S. from the border city of Juárez, Mexico, in early April. They were apprehended on April 3 on the north bank of the Rio Grande in central El Paso, Texas, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Guatemalan Consul Tekandi Paniagua told NPR that the 2½-year-old boy "had a high fever [and] difficulty breathing."

A former University of Southern California soccer coach who created phony athletic profiles for the sons and daughters of wealthy parents pleaded guilty to a racketeering conspiracy charge on Tuesday.

Laura Janke had previously denied taking bribes for writing the fake sports biographies, but she is now the fourth corrupt coach to plead guilty in the ongoing college admissions scandal conceived by mastermind William "Rick" Singer.

Bazillions of adult Game of Thrones fans may currently be preoccupied with dragons, and the mother of dragons and that giant dragon-killing-dart machine — but one girl in New Zealand is trying to get serious about the real-life study of dragons.

So much so that the 11-year-old recently tried to tempt Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern into launching a dragon research program, with a little bit of telekinesis studies on the side.

It's so she can grow up to be a dragon trainer. And she included some seed money with her request: a $5 New Zealand note.

Fundraising efforts to spare kids from from lunchtime humiliation in a Rhode Island school district have resulted in tens of thousands of dollars in donations over a couple of days, including nearly $50,000 by New York-based yogurt-maker Chobani.

A new round of powerful storms is causing more flooding in multiple states, with parts of the Deep South likely on the receiving end of some of the most severe weather through the end of the week that will impact about 40 million Americans.

The Pakistani Christian woman who spent years on death row after being convicted of blasphemy has left the country where she has been living in hiding as one of the nation's most reviled figures.

Asia Bibi's lawyer, Saif-ul Malook, told NPR the practicing Catholic and her husband arrived in Canada on Tuesday, where they have reunited with their children.

"I am happy that she has been allowed to leave the country," Malook said.

Updated at 1:30 p.m. ET

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed controversial legislation Tuesday that bans abortions in the state as soon as heartbeat activity is detectable, which typically occurs about six weeks into a pregnancy — before many women know they're pregnant.

At the signing ceremony, Kemp said he is grateful to those "throughout Georgia who refused to be silent on this issue, who rejected the status quo, who believe, as I do that every baby has a right to life."

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Sunday that the Trump administration is preparing to pull the trigger on a broad range of options to oust Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, and demanded that interfering countries end their involvement in the beleaguered nation's affairs.

In a string of television appearances, Pompeo suggested the fall of Maduro's government is imminent and that the support for opposition leader Juan Guaidó remains strong despite his failed attempt last week to lead a large-scale defection against the socialist leader.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered "massive strikes" against militant groups in Gaza on Sunday in response to a barrage of rocket fire, stretching hostilities into a third day and leading to mounting casualties on both sides.

At a cabinet meeting on Sunday Netanyahu said he also instructed military leaders to boost tank artillery and infantry forces around the Gaza Strip.

"Hamas bears responsibility not only for its own attacks and actions but also those by Islamic Jihad, for which it pays a very high price," he said.

Venezuela's top court issued an arrest warrant Thursday for Leopoldo López, a prominent opposition figure who appeared at a key rally Tuesday next to Juan Guaidó, leader of the movement against President Nicolás Maduro.

After Guaidó appeal to the military to revolt, López, who had escaped house arrest after two years, sought refuge along with his family at the Spanish embassy in Caracas.

Guaidó is regrouping amid signs that his U.S.-backed campaign to oust Maduro is losing momentum.

The only two fraternities at Swarthmore College have unanimously agreed to disband and give up their houses, ending a four-day sit-in and weeks of protest by outraged students after the publication of documents chronicling years of misogynist, racist and homophobic remarks, as well as jokes alluding to sexual assault by members.

The decisions to dissolve Phi Psi and Delta Upsilon were announced on Facebook on Tuesday night, after what both said were weeks of deliberation.

After more than three decades, University of North Carolina women's basketball coach Sylvia Hatchell has resigned from leading the celebrated program. Her resignation followed an external review that found she made "racially insensitive" remarks, exercised "undue influence" on athletes to play while injured and lacked a connection with her players.

The Department of Justice issued an order on Tuesday that could keep thousands of asylum-seekers detained while they wait for their cases to be heard in immigration court — a wait that often lasts months or years.

The ruling by Attorney General William Barr is the latest step by the Trump administration designed to discourage asylum-seekers from coming to the U.S. hoping for refuge.

Thieves in Northern Ireland have taken the idea of a smash and grab to a whole new level in a recent spate of brazen robberies.

With the help of a stolen excavator and a van with an ATM-size hole cut out of its roof, teams of thieves are clawing entire cash boxes out of local businesses and disappearing into the night.

A day after a historic election, Chicago Mayor-elect Lori Lightfoot laid out what she sees as some of the city's most pernicious problems: entrenched segregation, gun violence and economic inequality.

Lightfoot, the first black woman chosen to hold the position, emphasized the "fractured relationship" between the Chicago Police Department and the public as a critically important safety issue.

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on Sunday instituted a plan to ration electricity as the troubled government scrambles to repair the country's electrical system amid worsening economic and political conditions.

Maduro pleaded with the public to remain calm and resist violence as what he called "specialists, scientists and hackers" work to put an end to power and water outages.

Saudi Arabian authorities have released three female activists who were jailed last year after campaigning to lift the driving ban and dismantle restrictive guardianship laws, several human rights organizations and news outlets report.

Conditions of the women's release remain unknown and initial reports indicate it is temporary as their trials continue to move through the criminal court. According to Hala al Dosari, a Saudi author and activist, the families were told not to share information about the release.

Historic artifacts, including a copy of the proclamation of France's approval of the Louisiana Purchase and a yearbook from Fidel Castro's high school, were rescued Tuesday night from a four-alarm fire that damaged the Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum in St. Louis.

About 80 firefighters rushed in and out of the museum, housed in what was once the Third Church of Christ, Scientist, hauling out armloads of one-of-a-kind documents, manuscripts, statues and intricately carved wooden ship models, even as they battled 8-foot-high flames.

The first of three Hong Kong-based refugee families who helped shelter National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden when he was on the run, has been granted asylum in Canada.

Vanessa Rodel and her daughter, Keana, arrived in Montreal on Tuesday, eager to embrace their new lives as Canadians.

"I feel so great and I feel like I'm free," Rodel told reporters at Toronto Pearson International Airport shortly after landing in the country on Monday night.

Faith-based adoption agencies in Michigan that benefit from taxpayer funding will no longer be allowed to legally turn away same-sex couples or LGBTQ individuals based on religious objection, under the terms of a settlement in a lawsuit alleging the practice constituted discrimination.

After several hours of clawing through mountains of debris with bare hands, hammers and heavy equipment, approximately 37 people have been rescued from a building that collapsed Wednesday morning in the Nigerian city of Lagos. But many more are trapped under the rubble, including dozens of children.

Several news outlets reported at least eight people died, as of Wednesday night.

India's state-run airline has instructed flight crews to enthusiastically "Hail the Motherland" after every in-flight announcement.

"With immediate effect, all are required to announce 'Jai Hind' at the end of every announcement," Amitabh Singh, director of operations for Air India, said in a companywide newsletter that went viral.

The BBC reports the company "has not turned a profit since 2007 and a recent government offer to sell a controlling stake in it failed to attract any takers."

It is not easy to be married to a person in the military. Their spouses in 2017 experienced high levels of stress, anxiety, depression and unemployment, according to a survey sponsored by the Department of Defense and released Thursday.

Updated at 11:53 p.m. ET

A man armed with a handgun entered the Henry Pratt Co. in Aurora, Ill., on Friday afternoon and killed five civilians, officials announced at a news conference. Five police officers were also wounded.

Record-shattering cold, heavy snow and howling winds are descending on a broad swath of the U.S., the National Weather Service says. It's the result of one of the coldest arctic air masses to hit the country in recent memory, the agency says, forecasting bitter conditions in areas from the Upper Midwest to many Eastern states.

Warning of a "very dangerous and life-threatening arctic blast," the weather service predicts that the next several days could see "widespread record lows and low maximum temperatures from the Upper Midwest to the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley."

On Thursday, New York City's Law Department announced it had reached a $3.3 million settlement with Kalief Browder's family. The young man from the Bronx, who spent three years detained on Rikers Island without being tried or convicted, was accused of stealing a backpack.

Nearly two of Browder's three years in jail were spent in solitary confinement. He was released in 2013 after the charges were dropped. And in 2015, plagued by what he said was the mental anguish and trauma from his time in jail, he hanged himself in his mother's home.