Tens of millions of Americans braved Arctic-like temperatures as low as minus 56 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 49 Celsius) on Thursday that paralyzed the U.S. Midwest and were blamed for at least 21 deaths.

A Kentucky jury has awarded U.S. Senator Rand Paul more than $580,000 in damages against a next-door neighbor who broke six of the Republican lawmaker's ribs in a gardening dispute.

The U.S. government secretly shipped a large amount of deadly plutonium from a South Carolina site that produced the radioactive metal for nuclear bombs during the Cold War to Nevada, the Trump administration revealed on Wednesday.

A blast of icy polar air brought dangerously low temperatures to the U.S. Midwest on Wednesday, causing at least three more deaths while halting mail delivery and forcing residents who pride themselves on their winter hardiness to huddle indoors.

Chicago police said on Wednesday they would soon release images of "persons of interest" in the assault of "Empire" actor Jussie Smollett in which two men yelled racial and homophobic slurs and wrapped a rope around his neck.