National News at a Glance

Supreme Court Signals Support for a Travel Ban

A 15-month legal battle over President Donald Trump’s efforts to impose a ban on travel to the United States from several predominantly Muslim countries reached a final stage on Wednesday at the Supreme Court, with its five-member conservative majority signaling it was ready to approve a revised version of the plan. The justices appeared ready to discount Trump’s campaign promises to impose what he repeatedly described as a “Muslim ban,” while giving him the benefit of the doubt traditionally afforded to presidents. Some expressed worry about second-guessing executive branch determinations about who should be allowed to enter the United States.

New Allegations Emerge Against Trump Nominee to Lead Veterans Affairs.

Dr. Ronny L. Jackson, the White House physician nominated to lead the Veterans Affairs Department, provided such “a large supply” of Percocet to a White House Military Office staff member that he threw his own medical staff “into a panic” when it could not account for the missing drugs, according to a summary compiled by the Democratic staff of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee. A nurse said Jackson had written himself prescriptions, and when caught, simply asked a physician assistant to provide him with the medication. And at a party, the doctor got intoxicated and “wrecked a government vehicle.”

For the Poor, the Old and the Disabled, the Government Proposes Higher Rents

The Trump administration has proposed legislation that could triple rents on the poorest tenants in federally subsidized housing as part of a push to redefine housing assistance as a temporary benefit instead of the permanent source of shelter it has become for millions of poor people. The legislation would also allow local governments to impose work requirements on tenants in public housing. The plan would also increase rents for elderly and disabled people after six years, agency officials said. Minimum monthly rents in public housing developments for recipients of Section 8 vouchers would rise to $150 a month from $50.

Scandals and Investigations, but Few Arrests, for Air Marshals Program

It is supposed to be a last line of defense against a Sept. 11-style attack on the United States. But a federal program that puts armed undercover guards on commercial airliners is in such disarray that it does little to deter terrorists, many of its employees say. Alcohol abuse among some in the Federal Air Marshal Service is so rampant that the Transportation Security Administration, which oversees the program, has had to monitor whether the armed guards show up for their flights sober. Female and minority air marshals said in court documents and interviews that they faced discrimination at works.

Giving Voice to the Victims of Racist Terror

The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, which opens Thursday on a 6-acre site overlooking the Alabama State Capitol, is dedicated to the victims of American white supremacy. And it demands a reckoning with one of the nation’s least recognized atrocities: the lynching of thousands of black people in a decadeslong campaign of racist terror. At the center is a grim cloister, a walkway with 800 weathered steel columns, all hanging from a roof. Etched on each column is the name of an American county and the people who were lynched there, most listed by name, many simply as “unknown.”

Decadeslong Hunt for ‘Golden State Killer’ Leads to Ex-Police Officer

It was a rash of sadistic rapes and murders that spread terror throughout California. The attacks in the 1970s and 1980s went unsolved for more than three decades. But on Wednesday, law enforcement officials said they had arrested the Golden State Killer in a suburb of Sacramento. Joseph James DeAngelo, 72, was taken into custody Tuesday and charged with six counts of murder. He was described as a former police officer, and his time in uniform partly overlapped with many of the crimes he is accused of committing. Investigators were able to match his DNA to two murders in 1980.

First Day of Deliberations for Cosby Jury Stretches Into the Evening

Jurors in the Bill Cosby sexual assault trial in Norristown, Pennsylvania began their deliberations Wednesday, sifting through evidence they heard during 12 days of testimony in an effort to determine whether Andrea Constand had been molested by the once-popular entertainer. Last summer jurors spent six days deliberating that question at the Montgomery County Courthouse before Judge Steven T. O’Neill agreed they were hopelessly deadlocked and sent them home. O’Neill, who is presiding at this retrial, charged the jury in the morning. Deliberations began around 11 a.m. and dragged into the night.