Month: June 2022

By MICHAEL BALSAMO, ERIC TUCKER and FARNOUSH AMIRI Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department has declined to charge former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and another aide to former President Donald Trump, Dan Scavino, for contempt of Congress for their defiance of subpoenas in the Jan. 6 congressional investigation. That’s according

By SIGAL RATNER-ARIAS Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — Seven years ago, Moisés Kaufman was approached to direct the Broadway musical “Paradise Square” and, after reading it, he immediately said yes. “I did this show because it spoke to me,” the Venezuelan theater director and playwright says. Now “Paradise Square” — about unity and racism

By FARNOUSH AMIRI The Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Parents of victims and survivors of the mass shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde will appear before a House committee next week as Congress debates gun measures. The panel for Wednesday’s hearing will include the mother of a 20-year-old man shot in a racist mass shooting last

By GRANT PECK Associated Press BANGKOK (AP) — Myanmar’s military-installed government says it will go ahead with the executions of a former lawmaker from ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s party and a veteran pro-democracy activist convicted of violating the country’s Counter-Terrorism Law. Local media say two other men convicted of killing a woman they

By MICHAEL BALSAMO Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — A U.S. Capitol Police officer was indicted on federal civil rights charges after authorities say he was involved in an unauthorized high-speed chase, crashed into a motorcycle and then tried to cover it up. Prosecutors said Friday that Officer Thomas Smith was supposed to be checking on

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iranian media say security forces have arrested a young man following an assault on a top provincial cleric in the central city of Isfahan. The semiofficial Fars news agency says the unidentified man accosted prayer leader Yousef Tababaeinejad as he was talking with some worshipers after Friday prayers and attempted to

WHITERIVER, Ariz. (AP) — Arizona authorities say a tribal police officer was fatally shot during a traffic stop on a reservation and the suspect, who stole the officer’s vehicle, later died in a shootout that left another officer wounded. Officials say the events unfolded Thursday night on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation of the White

By DAVID CRARY AP National Writer The hardline stances of many conservative Catholic bishops in the U.S. are not shared by a majority of lay Catholics. Most of them say abortion should be legal, favor greater inclusion of LGBT people, and oppose the denial of Communion for politicians who support abortion rights, according to a

By MARC LEVY Associated Press HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — When Philadelphia’s election board prepared to count ballots last year that were mailed-in without the voter’s handwritten date, Republicans threatened impeachment. Before GOP Senate candidate David McCormick conceded his race Friday, he wanted counties to embrace the same approach. In a last-ditch bid to close a

By LISA MASCARO AP Congressional Correspondent WASHINGTON (AP) — Less than 48 hours after a gunman stormed an elementary school and killed 19 children and two teachers in his home state of Texas, Sen. John Cornyn walked straight from the floor of the U.S. Senate into Republican leader Mitch McConnell’s office. The Texas Republican had

MIDDLETOWN, Conn. (AP) — A federal appeals court has upheld part of a 2020 Connecticut police accountability law that allows public disclosure of state trooper personnel files and internal investigations. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York on Thursday rejected a challenge by the Connecticut State Police Union. The union argued the

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland’s authorities are reminding citizens they can rummage state forests for firewood to heat their homes. The go-ahead comes amid soaring energy costs exacerbated by Russia’s war against Ukraine. Opponents of the country’s populist right-wing government called the firewood reminder a sign that the right-wing populist government has failed to manage

By CHINEDU ASADU Associated Press ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — Nigeria’s police say the country’s security forces are still looking for suspects in the abduction of the head of the Methodist Church Nigeria who was freed in exchange for a ransom of 100 million naira ($240,600). Samuel Kanu Uche was freed on Monday, a day after

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Estonia’s center-right Prime Minister Kaja Kallas is set to start power-sharing talks with two small center-leaning parties after her governing coalition broke up due to a dispute over welfare policy amid soaring inflation. The Baltic country’s President Alar Karis approved Friday’s move by Kallas — Estonia’s first female prime minister —

MOSCOW (AP) — The chairman of the African Union, Senegal’s President Macy Sall, has told Russian President Vladimir Putin that the fighting in Ukraine and Western sanctions had worsened food shortages, and appealed to other countries to ensure grain and fertilizer exports aren’t blocked. Putin blamed the West after the meeting in the Black Sea

By GRANT PECK Associated Press BANGKOK (AP) — A court in Myanmar has ruled there is sufficient evidence for the trial of deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi on an election fraud charge to continue. The army seized power from Suu Kyi’s elected government in February last year, saying there was widespread fraud in the

By MICHAEL HILL Associated Press ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — The New York Legislature has approved a milestone environmental measure designed to tap the brakes on the spread of cryptocurrency mining operations that burn fossil fuels. Both supporters and opponents say the legislation is the first of its kind in the U.S. The Senate approved it

By SCOTT BAUER Associated Press Donald Trump’s endorsement of construction company co-owner Tim Michels in Wisconsin’s hotly contested governor’s race threatens to further divide Republicans and upend the race less than two months before the primary. Trump’s backing Thursday of Michels, a late entry into the race, comes after former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch has

By JANIE HAR Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Politically liberal San Francisco could vote out one of the most progressive prosecutors in the country not even three years after he was elected. Chesa Boudin’s time in office coincided with a pandemic in which brutal attacks against Asian seniors and viral footage of rampant shoplifting

By FREIDA FRISARO and CURT ANDERSON Associated Press FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Much of the Florida peninsula, along with parts of Cuba and the Bahamas, are under a tropical storm warning as a system that battered Mexico moves through the Gulf of Mexico, killing at least two in Cuba and bringing threats of heavy

By TOM KRISHER AP Auto Writer DETROIT (AP) — More than 750 Tesla owners have complained to U.S. safety regulators that cars operating on the automaker’s partially automated driving systems have suddenly stopped on roadways for no apparent reason. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration revealed the number in a detailed information request letter to