President Donald Trump says it "certainly looks" as though missing Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi is dead. Trump did not say Thursday what he based his conclusion on. But he says the consequences for the Saudis "will have to be very severe" if they are found to have killed him. Get More

A high-level meeting to lay out security plans for Afghanistan's upcoming parliamentary elections had just concluded when an elite Afghan guard turned his gun Thursday on the departing delegation in an attack that killed the powerful Kandahar police chief but missed the top U.S. commander in the country, Gen. Scott Miller. The audacious assassination strike, which killed at least one other senior Afghan official and was claimed by the Taliban, underscored the harrowing lack of security in Afghanistan just two days before national elections and more than 17 years after the militant group was driven from power. A Taliban spokesman said Miller was the intended target. Get More

Their home full of soggy furniture and mosquitoes, Wilmer Capps was desperate to find shelter for his wife and their son Luke, born just three days after Hurricane Michael ravaged the Florida Panhandle. So Capps, wife Lorrainda Smith and little Luke settled in for the longest of nights in the best spot they could find: The parking lot of a Walmart store shut down by the storm. On a starry night, mother sat in the bed of the family's pickup truck; her child sat in a car seat beside her. Dad sat in the dark and pondered how it could be that his son's first night out of a hospital could be spent outside a big-box retailer because of a lack of help. Get More

If it's an "America First" presidency, where does that rank human rights? President Donald Trump's refusal to put public pressure on Saudi Arabia over the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi is raising a question that has dogged his foreign policy. In dealing with Russia, across Asia and, this week, in the Mideast, Trump has often appeared comfortable downplaying concerns about rights abuses and dismissing the importance of U.S. moral leadership. The onetime real estate mogul is as likely to let U.S. financial or security interests guide his choices and his words. In an Associated Press interview Tuesday, Trump repeated the Saudi royals' denials of any involvement in Khashoggi's apparent killing and suggested he trusted them. Get More

In Stephen Hawking's final book "Brief Answers to Big Questions," published Tuesday (Oct. 16) by Bantam Books, the Cambridge professor begins a series of 10 intergalactic essays by addressing life's oldest and most religiously fraught question of all: Is there a God? Hawking's answer — compiled from decades of prior interviews, essays and speeches with the help of his family, colleagues and the Steven Hawking Estate — should come as no surprise to readers who have followed his work, er, religiously. "I think the universe was spontaneously created out of nothing, according to the laws of science," Hawking, who died in March, wrote. "If you accept, as I do, that the laws of nature are fixed, then it doesn't take long to ask: What role is there for God?" Get More at NBC News

Winning the $970 million Mega Millions jackpot may sound like a dream come true. But if you purchase a lottery ticket, buyer beware: Coming into that much wealth can easily become a nightmare, NBC News reported. "You assume money makes you happy or takes care of all your problems. But money doesn't do that," warned financial planner Jim Shagawat, president of Windfall Wealth Advisors in Paramus, New Jersey, a firm that specializes in helping people navigate large sums of money they have received. "And it can cause friction with family and friends." Friday's Mega Millions drawing is the second-largest lottery prize in U.S. history. With odds at one in 302.6 million, chances of winning are slim — but if you do somehow manage to correctly pick all six numbers and claim that jaw-dropping prize, you can bet your life will be different, although not necessarily for the better. Get More at NBC News

Pushy midday shoppers nose their carts through the Korean market, stocking up on bottled kimchi and seaweed spring rolls. A few doors away, customers grab pho to go at a Vietnamese takeout counter. Across the street, lunchtime diners line up for tacos "al pastor" — spit-roasted pork — at a Mexican-style taqueria. It's a snapshot of how much Orange County, California, has changed. Get More

As some 3,000 Hondurans made their way through Guatemala, attention — and pressure — turned to Mexico, after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened Thursday to close the U.S.-Mexico border if authorities there fail to stop them — a nearly unthinkable move that would disrupt hundreds of thousands of legal freight, vehicle and pedestrian crossings each day. With less than three weeks before the Nov. 6 midterm elections, Trump seized on the migrant caravan to make border security a political issue and energize his Republican base. Get More

Another Manhattan building has stripped the big, brassy Trump name from its entrance. Workers removed the letters spelling "Trump Place" Thursday from the 46-story condominium on the Upper West Side. Get More

A healthy dose of job growth has long been seen as a likely cure for poverty. But new research suggests that poor Americans are frequently left behind even when their cities or communities benefit from hiring booms. When such cities as Atlanta and Charlotte enjoyed a job surge in the 20 years that began in 1990, for example, the job gains mostly bypassed residents — often African-American — who had been born into poverty. That is among the findings of a study led by Raj Chetty, a Harvard economist whose newly launched Opportunity Atlas found no association between job growth and economic mobility for poor residents of the affected areas. Get More

President Donald Trump's lawyers hope to persuade an appeals court to dismiss or delay a former "Apprentice" contestant's claim that he defamed her by calling her a liar after she accused him of unwanted kissing and groping. Arguments are set for Thursday afternoon in a New York state appellate court weighing Summer Zervos' lawsuit. It concerns remarks Trump made as a candidate in 2016 after Zervos came forward to say he'd subjected her to unwanted advances nearly a decade earlier. Get More

The U.S. Justice Department has opened an investigation of child sexual abuse inside the Roman Catholic Church in Pennsylvania, using subpoenas to demand confidential files and testimony from church leaders, according to two people familiar with the probe. The subpoenas, served last week, follow a scathing state grand jury report over the summer that found that 301 "predator priests" in Pennsylvania had molested more than 1,000 children over seven decades and that church leaders had covered up for the offenders. Now federal prosecutors are bringing the Justice Department's considerable resources to bear, according to two people who were not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. Get More