Month: August 2021

By ANDREA RODRÍGUEZ Associated Press HAVANA (AP) — Cuba’s government has spelled out laws against using social media or the internet to stir up protests or insult the state. And it’s offering people a form to report offenders. The decrees published Tuesday follow the largest protests Cuba has seen in years, which broke out last

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Acting United States Attorney Jennifer Arbittier Williams has announced Tuesday that a former United States Golf Association employee has been charged in relation to a scheme to embezzle funds from the unauthorized sale of U.S. Open Championship tickets. According to a statement released by Williams, Robert Fryer faces conspiracy, wire fraud, and

By PATTY NIEBERG Associated Press/Report for America DENVER (AP) — Colorado Gov. Jared Polis has rescinded a 19th century proclamation that called for citizens to kill Native Americans and take their property. Polis signed the executive order Tuesday on Denver’s Capitol steps. The 1864 order by Colorado’s second territorial governor, John Evans, led to the

By BRIAN MELLEY Associated Press LOS ANGELES (AP) — Robert Durst has testified he would lie to get out of trouble and had lied during sworn testimony in the past, but said he told the truth during five days of testimony at his murder trial. The comments Tuesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court threw

GREENSBURG, Pa. (AP) — A former relief pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates has been sentenced to two to four years behind bars for statutory sexual assault and other charges in a case involving a girl who was 13 when the encounters began. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported Tuesday that 30-year-old Felipe Vazquez has already served almost

By JONATHAN MATTISE and ADRIAN SAINZ Associated Press NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — An order by the Tennessee governor letting parents opt their children out of following mask rules at school has drawn defiance from officials in Memphis and Nashville. Nashville District Attorney Glenn Funk offered an assurance Tuesday to a school board member that he

KALAMAZOO, Mich. (AP) — The family of a man identified as a suspect in the fatal shooting of a deputy in southwestern Michigan said he had been “tormented by invasive and irrational thoughts.” Gary Goidosik and Kim Goidosik referred to themselves in a statement Tuesday as the family of the shooter in the weekend death

By JAKE COYLE AP Film Writer CANNES, France (AP) — Sean Penn is sort of done with movies. He’s still making them, here and there. But Penn is mostly seeing out commitments he made years earlier. After those? He’s not so sure how much more he’s going to be acting or directing.  The 61-year-old maverick

By RICK CALLAHAN Associated Press INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana health officials say they are notifying nearly 750,000 residents that a cybersecurity company “improperly accessed” their personal data from the state’s online COVID-19 contact tracing survey. The Indiana Department of Health said Tuesday the state was notified July 2 that a company gained “unauthorized access” to

By MOGOMOTSI MAGOME Associated Press JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Health activists in Africa have slammed Johnson & Johnson for exporting vaccines produced in South Africa to countries in Europe, which have already immunized a large proportion of their populations and often have a surplus of vaccines. The J&J doses were exported from South Africa, where they

By CARLOS VALDEZ and JOSHUA GOODMAN Associated Press LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) — Bolivia’s past interim government came to power by sidestepping constitutional rules for presidential succession and relied on systematic torture to persecute opponents in the tumultuous aftermath of Evo Morales’ resignation in 2019. That’s according to a new report by independent human rights

By ZEINA KARAM and AYA BATRAWY Associated Press Many women in Afghanistan remain at home because they are too terrified to venture into a new world ruled by the Taliban. The extremist group that once stoned women and restricted their every move is now back in power. In Afghanistan’s third-largest city, Herat, girls joined boys

WASHINGTON (AP) — Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has announced that he and husband Chasten have become parents.  Buttigieg, the first openly gay Cabinet secretary confirmed by the Senate, posted the news Tuesday  on Twitter.  He says he and Chasten are “overjoyed” and that had wanted to grow their family for some time.  He says the

By STEPHEN GROVES Associated Press SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — A witness to an incident last week involving MyPillow chief executive Mike Lindell says he saw no reason for Lindell to claim he was attacked at a South Dakota hotel. Lindell, who was in Sioux Falls hosting an election fraud symposium, told the crowd last

By MATTHEW LEE, ASHRAF KHALIL and GARY FIELDS Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Multiple federal agencies that operated in Afghanistan and worked with Afghan citizens have been hastily purging their websites, removing articles and photos that could endanger the Afghan civilians who interacted with them out of fear of retribution from the Taliban. The concern

BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian state TV says Israel carried out a missile attack, targeting a military position in southern Syria. There was no immediate word on casualties in the Tuesday night attack. State TV said two missiles were fired toward the position near the southern town of Quneitra, on the edge of Syria’s Israeli-occupied Golan

By CURT ANDERSON AP Legal Affairs Writer ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — A Florida judge has refused to close pretrial hearings to the media and public in the case of the man accused of killing 17 people in a 2018 high school mass shooting. Broward County Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer on Tuesday rejected a motion

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — A ship that sank four decades ago off Kodiak Island has suddenly started leaking diesel fuel, and last month’s magnitude 8.2 earthquake off the Alaska Peninsula might be the cause. The Saint Patrick was hit by a rogue wave in 1981. Only two of the 12 people on board survived. The

By MEAD GRUVER Associated Press CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — A Missouri family alleges in a federal lawsuit that Yellowstone National Park rangers and Wyoming sheriff’s deputies seeking a murder suspect held them at gunpoint without adequate cause for an hour. Brett and Genalyn Hemry, of Independence, Missouri, seek unspecified damages to be determined at trial.

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Serbia’s autocratic leader Aleksandar Vucic has challenged Twitter to close his account like it did with Donald Trump’s, after several media outlets under his control have been labeled state-affiliated by the social media site. Vucic said Tuesday that “I can’t wait for them (Twitter) to close my account so I become

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — A jury has acquitted a Little Rock police officer who was accused of using excessive force in the 2016 fatal shooting of a man holding a BB gun. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports jurors deliberated for about three hours on Monday before returning with a not guilty verdict for officer Dennis