Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen is drafting an order to end family separations at the border, sources told The Associated Press. But it wasn't immediately clear if President Donald Trump would sign it. Earlier, Fox News' John Roberts reported that Trump was considering executive action to allow children to stay with parents in detention centers and that Nielsen was encouraging Trump to support a standalone bill in Congress to fix the issue. Get More

The controversy surrounding family separations at the U.S. Southern border has prompted outrage, opinions and finger-pointing. It has also raised a number of questions, including from our readers. “Are there really children being separated from their parents at the border and being kept in cages?” one reader asked. We answer that and other questions here. Get More

Some critics of the forced separation of Latino children from their migrant parents say the practice is unprecedented. But it's not the first time the U.S. government has split up families, detained children or allowed others to do so. Throughout American history, during times of war and unrest, authorities have cited various reasons and laws to take children away from their parents. Before abolition, children of black slaves were born into slavery and could be sold by owners at will. Black women could do little to stop the sale of children and often never saw them again after they were sent away. During the early 1900s, states sometimes pulled children from poor families and placed them in orphanages. Get More

A Bridgewater man accused of sexually assaulting and trying to abduct a jogger over the weekend, in an attack captured by surveillance video, faced a judge Tuesday from his Boston Medical Center hospital bed. Gordon Lyons, 57, was allowed to hide his face behind a hospital bed sheet as he was arraigned on charges of kidnapping and indecent assault and battery. Get More

Canada's Senate gave final passage Tuesday to the federal government's bill to legalize cannabis, though Canadians will have to wait at least a couple of months to legally buy marijuana as their country becomes the second in the world to make pot legal nationwide. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government had hoped to make pot legal by July 1, but the government has said provincial and territorial governments will need eight to 12 weeks following Senate passage and royal assent to prepare for retail sales. Trudeau's government is expected to decide a date that would legalize it in early or mid-September. "It's been too easy for our kids to get marijuana — and for criminals to reap the profits. Today, we change that. Our plan to legalize & regulate marijuana just passed the Senate," Trudeau tweeted. Get More

Trump administration officials have been sending babies and other young children forcibly separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border to at least three "tender age" shelters in South Texas, The Associated Press has learned. Lawyers and medical providers who have visited the Rio Grande Valley shelters described play rooms of crying preschool-age children in crisis. The government also plans to open a fourth shelter to house hundreds of young migrant children in Houston, where city leaders denounced the move Tuesday. Since the White House announced its zero tolerance policy in early May, more than 2,300 children have been taken from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border, resulting in a new influx of young children requiring government care. Get More

It costs $775 per person per night to hold migrant children separated from their parents in new "tent cities," an official at the Department of Health and Human Services told NBC News. The urgency of bringing in security, air conditioning, medical workers and other government contractors is the reason for the high cost, which far surpasses that of routinely staffed structures, according to the official and several former officials. It costs $256 per person per day to keep children in permanent HHS facilities like Casa Padre in Brownsville, Texas, and $298 per resident per day to keep children with their parents in detention centers like Customs and Immigration Enforcement facility in Dilley, Texas. HHS is "aggressively looking for potential sites" for more "tent cities" to accommodate the surge of migrant children separated from their parents under the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy on illegal border crossing, the source said. Get More at NBC News

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow broke down late Tuesday while reading an Associated Press report that the Trump administration has been sending babies and other young children forcibly separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border to at least three "tender age" shelters in South Texas. Maddow began to read from the new report, but paused as she appeared to choke up. "This has just come out from The Associated Press. This is incredible. The Trump administration has been sending babies ... and other young children ... hold on," the host said, bowing her head for a few seconds while she apparently tried to regain her composure. Get More

In what Facebook is calling its single largest fundraiser ever, a couple from Silicon Valley raised more than $5 million to help reunite migrant families being separated at the border. The issue has created a national firestorm about the Trump administration’s immigration policies, with many calling the separation of children from their parents at the southern U.S. border barbaric. Nearly 2,000 children have been separated from their families over a six-week period. Get More

Starbucks says it will accelerate its store closings in the U.S. next year as it tries to boost sluggish sales. The Seattle-based company announced Tuesday that it will close 150 underperforming stores in heavily penetrated markets, up from the usual rate of 50 closings a year. Get More

The American military command in South Korea is preparing for the North Koreans to turn over the remains of an unknown number of U.S. or allied service members who have been missing since the Korean War, U.S. officials said Tuesday. Officials say the timing of a ceremony is uncertain but could be very soon. The officials weren't authorized to discuss the preparations before an official announcement so spoke on condition of anonymity. Get More

Disney is upping the ante for Fox, making a $70.3 billion counterbid for Fox's entertainment businesses following Comcast's $65 billion offer for the company. The battle for Twenty-First Century Fox reflects a new imperative among entertainment and telecommunications firms. They are amassing ever more programming to better compete with technology companies such as Amazon and Netflix for viewers' attention — and dollars. The bidding war comes after AT&T bought Time Warner for $81 billion, after a federal judge rejected the government's antitrust concerns. Get More

The United States announced Tuesday it was leaving the United Nations' Human Rights Council, with Ambassador Nikki Haley calling it "an organization that is not worthy of its name." It was the latest withdrawal by the Trump administration from an international institution. Haley, Trump's envoy to the U.N., said the U.S. had given the human rights body "opportunity after opportunity" to make changes. She lambasted the council for "its chronic bias against Israel" and lamented the fact that its membership includes accused human rights abusers such as China, Cuba, Venezuela and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Get More