Illinois drivers caught using their cellphones will soon face harsher penalties that could ultimately lead to a license suspension. Beginning July 1, drivers caught using an electronic device will no longer be issued just a warning ticket on their first offense. Instead, drivers will be issued a moving violation. Three moving violations in a year will result in a license suspension.

The Federal Reserve has cut its benchmark interest rate again, big news for the U.S. economy but something that will likely have a muted impact on Americans' personal finances, experts say. That's because the reduction doesn't offset the increases of recent years. And as the key rate creeps closer to zero, financial institutions are less eager to pass borrowing benefits along. Lower rates could also further dampen the perks of savings.

A visit from friend and fellow former president, Bill Clinton, inspired him to wear a pair emblazoned with Clinton's face. He wore Houston Texans' socks when meeting with the head coach. At the funeral for his wife, Barbara Bush, former President George H.W. Bush wore socks featuring books as a tribute to her work promoting literacy. Bush, who was a naval aviator in World War II, will be buried this week wearing socks featuring jets flying in formation — a tribute, his spokesman says, to the former president's lifetime of service.

The mother of a 9-year-old Illinois boy who is charged with murder in connection with a mobile home fire that killed five people says the child is "not a monster." During interviews Thursday with local and national media organizations, the woman said her son "made a terrible mistake," adding that "he's a child."

President Donald Trump has picked budget director Mick Mulvaney to be his acting chief of staff, ending a chaotic search in which several top contenders took themselves out of the running for the job. It was not immediately clear why the president decided to make Mulvaney's appointment temporary. One senior White House official said there was no time limit on the appointment and Mulvaney would fill the role of chief of staff indefinitely, regardless of the "acting" title.

A report compiled by private researchers and released by the Senate intelligence committee Monday says that "active and ongoing" Russian interference operations still exist on social media platforms, and that the Russian operation discovered after the 2016 presidential election was much broader than once thought.

The reputed boss of New York's Gambino crime family was shot to death in front of his home by a gunman who may have staged a car accident to lure him outside, dying a virtual unknown compared with his swaggering 1980s-era predecessor, John Gotti. Police said Thursday they were reviewing surveillance-camera video of the attack on Francesco "Franky Boy" Cali, 53, who was gunned down Wednesday night at his red-brick colonial-style house in a quiet Staten Island neighborhood. The assailant sped off in a pickup truck, police said. No immediate arrests were made.

President Donald Trump challenged France, Germany and other countries on Wednesday to take back citizens captured fighting for the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq. Otherwise, he warned, the U.S. "will have no choice but to release them into the countries from which they came."

Lawmakers in at least 22 states are considering legislation to legalize sports gambling this year. Seven states joined Nevada and legalized it last year after the Supreme Court's decision. An Associated Press review of all sports gambling bills introduced this year — more than 100 so far — found high interest among lawmakers, primarily as a source of revenue, but also many questions about how legalized sports betting would be handled. Casino companies, sports leagues, fantasy sports companies and others are lobbying lawmakers in the hopes of getting the legislation tailored to their liking.

Monica Blake watched closely as a Texas jury weighed the case against a white police officer charged in the fatal shooting of a black neighbor, wondering whether the panel would render a different decision than so many others in recent years. C.J. Lawrence, a Jackson, Mississippi-based civil rights attorney and founder of the advocacy website Black With No Chaser, said the verdict offered one clear message: "Black people won't become criminals in their own homes."