Month: October 2021

By ADAM BEAM Associated Press SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A California insurance pool is appealing a judge’s order that it offer homeowners more options for coverage. Private insurance companies sometimes won’t sell policies to people who live in wildfire prone areas. The California Fair Access to Insurance Requirements Plan sells fire insurance to these people.

By SARAH RANKIN Associated Press RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Virginia’s Republican candidate for governor is calling it “weird and wrong” that attendees at a right-wing election rally recited the Pledge of Allegiance to a flag said to have been flown at a rally before the Capitol riot in January. First-time candidate Glenn Youngkin didn’t attend

By SYLVIA HUI Associated Press LONDON (AP) — Britain’s government says it will allow up to 800 more foreign butchers work in the U.K. on temporary visas, after farmers said a labor shortage in meat processing has caused them to cull thousands of healthy pigs. Earlier, the pork industry warned that up to 150,000 pigs

By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN Associated Press ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Scientists and other workers at one of the nation’s premier nuclear weapons laboratories face a deadline Friday — be vaccinated or prepare to be fired. Dozens of workers at Los Alamos National Laboratory are suing over the mandate, saying exemptions have been unduly denied and

By MEAD GRUVER Associated Press CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — A mask-wearing mandate will continue for at least another month in a Wyoming school district where a student who wouldn’t wear a mask got arrested for allegedly refusing to leave her high school. The mask requirement in the southeastern Wyoming city of Laramie was set to

SANDERSVILLE, Ga. (AP) — Jurors have heard opening arguments in the trial of three former Georgia sheriff’s deputies charged with murder in the 2017 death of a Black man. Eurie Martin died after being stunned repeatedly by then-deputies Henry Lee Copeland, Michael Howell and Rhett Scott. All three are white. A resident called deputies because

By PAUL J. WEBER Associated Press AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A federal appeals court is once again allowing Texas to continue banning most abortions. The decision Thursday night keeps the law known as Senate Bill 8 in place as the Justice Department tries to halt the law. The Biden administration is suing Texas over the

By MATTHEW DALY Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Protesters occupied the lobby at the main Interior Department building in downtown Washington for several hours Thursday. Multiple arrests were reported.  An Interior Department spokeswoman says protesters rushed the lobby, injuring at least one security officer who was taken to a nearby hospital. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland

By MARK PRATT Associated Press BOSTON (AP) — A shipwreck 260 miles east of Boston has been identified as that of the storied Coast Guard ship U.S. Revenue Cutter Bear. Government officials said Thursday in Boston that the wreck found two years ago is almost certainly the Bear. It was built in 1874 and sank

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — A New York man characterized as a leader of the Pagans motorcycle gang was sentenced to 33 months, or more than two and a half years, in prison on Thursday for illegal gun possession. The U.S. attorney’s office in Newark described Keith Richter, 62, as the national president of the Pagans

MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) — The U.S. State Department says next month’s presidential elections in Nicaragua “have lost all credibility” because of President Daniel Ortega’s arrests of critics and seven potential challengers. Starting in May, Ortega began arresting almost any public figure who disagreed with him, including people who fought alongside him in the country’s 1979

By The Associated Press Qatar says female soccer players have been evacuated from Afghanistan on a flight to Doha. Qatar’s assistant foreign minister Lolwah Alkhater says “around 100 footballers and their families including female players are on board.” Qatar worked with FIFA to coordinate the evacuation of players, who were taken to a compound with

By ANDREW DeMILLO Associated Press LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Former White House press secretary Sarah Sanders has raised $2.1 million over the past three months in her bid for Arkansas governor. Sanders’ campaign on Thursday said the latest contributions brought her total fundraising since she announced her bid in January to $11 million. Sanders

By SETH BORENSTEIN AP Science Writer Federal meteorologists say there’s another La Nina, which can be bad news for parts of the parched West. It also could mean a more active Atlantic hurricane season. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Thursday announced that a La Nina has formed. It’s a double-dip La Nina because there

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — A white man serving a life sentence for fatally stabbing a Black college student at a bus stop at the University of Maryland has asked the state’s second highest court to throw out his murder conviction. WTOP-FM reports Sean Urbanski’s attorneys argue the trial judge shouldn’t have allowed jurors to see

BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) — A Vermont man is facing up to life in prison after pleading guilty to federal charges that he commissioned a Venezuelan woman to make videos of the torture of a boy and the torture and killing of a man. The Vermont U.S. Attorney’s office says that 37-year-old Sean Fiore of Burlington

By GRANT PECK Associated Press BANGKOK (AP) — The main lawyer for Myanmar’s ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi says he has been issued a gag order barring him from talking about her cases. Suu Kyi, whose elected government was overthrown by the army in February, is being tried on several criminal charges that supporters

By LYNN ELBER AP Television Writer LOS ANGELES (AP) — The title of the new CBS sitcom “Ghosts” seems to be a dead giveaway. But there’s more to the series than things that go bump in the night. A producer describes it as a blend of the vampire satire “What We Do in the Shadows”

CHICAGO (AP) — A 24-year-old man has been charged in an August shooting that killed a 7-year-old Chicago girl and seriously wounded her younger sister. Chicago police charged Aireon Luster Wednesday with first-degree murder and attempted murder in the death of Serenity Broughton. He was ordered held without bond during a Thursday court hearing. Authorities

By EDITH M. LEDERER Associated Press UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United States has won a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council that former president Donald Trump denounced and quit. Thursday’s election for 18 seats in all was uncontested and criticized for guaranteeing spots to countries with abysmal rights records. The 193-member U.N. General

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER AP Economics Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — The International Monetary Fund is warning of rising threats to a global recovery posed by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and an outbreak of inflation. The lending agency says the Federal Reserve and other central banks must respond quickly if current inflation pressures prove not to be

BANNING, Calif. (AP) — Authorities say police shot and killed a man who was armed with a rifle in Southern California. The man’s name was not immediately released by the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department. No officers were injured in Thursday’s shooting. The incident began around 12:30 a.m. when the man shot at a police officer

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — A U.S. judge has set a two-week deadline for a Libyan military commander to answer questions in a lawsuit accusing him of war crimes. Khalifa Hifter, commander of the self-styled Libyan National Army, is a defendant in multiple federal lawsuits in Virginia accusing him of killings and torture in that country’s

By MARYCLAIRE DALE Associated Press PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A prominent Bill Cosby accuser has filed suit Thursday against the actor over a 1990 hotel room encounter in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Lili Bernard’s lawsuit comes just before the state’s two-year window to file older sexual assault claims expires. Bernard tells The Associated Press she was

By ELLEN KNICKMEYER Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States and Greece are expanding a defense cooperation deal that will grant American forces broader use of bases in that country. Thursday’s deal comes as Greece deals with tensions with its neighbor and fellow NATO member, Turkey. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken signed the