Month: June 2022

By MARCIA DUNN AP Aerospace Writer CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — SpaceX has cleared a key hurdle for its plan to launch a gigantic, futuristic rocketship into orbit from Texas. The Federal Aviation Administration concluded an environmental review Monday of Elon Musk’s Starship base. The agency saw no significant environmental concerns, but is requiring more

By BRUCE SCHREINER Associated Press FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — A new state report says fatal drug overdoses rose nearly 15% in Kentucky last year. The report says the increased use of fentanyl was a common contributor to the record death toll. Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opioid that was identified in nearly 73% of 2021

By CLAUDIA LAUER The Associated Press PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Philadelphia prosecutors asked a judge on Monday to hold a Virginia man in contempt of court over video that shows him meeting with top leaders of two-far right extremist groups in Washington D.C. the day before the Jan. 6 riot. The request from Philadelphia District Attorney

By DARLENE SUPERVILLE Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has signed a bill creating a commission to study establishing a national museum on the history of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States. The eight-member commission that will be created by the new law will also study whether such a museum

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — A Texas judge has again delayed the murder trial of an ex-police officer who fatally shot a Black woman through a window of her Fort Worth home in 2019. State administrative Judge George Gallagher delayed Aaron Dean’s trial until another judge decides on a defense motion to recuse state District

By REBECCA BOONE Associated Press BOISE, Idaho (AP) — A few weeks before 31 members of a white supremacist group were arrested for allegedly planning to riot at a northern Idaho LGBTQ pride event, a fundamentalist Idaho pastor told his Boise congregation that gay, lesbian and transgender people should be executed by the government. Around

LENOIR, N.C. (AP) — Investigators say a suspect has been fatally wounded in a shootout with a trooper and a deputy along a highway in western North Carolina. The Highway Patrol said authorities were called to a report of a crash involving an overturned vehicle and an armed man on a highway in Caldwell County

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — An autopsy says a Missouri teenager died of blunt force trauma after falling from a 430-foot (130-meter) Florida drop-tower amusement park ride. The report Monday by the Orange County Medical Examiner’s Office also ruled that 14-year-old Tyre Sampson’s death in March was an accident. Sampson slipped out of his seat about

By DEE-ANN DURBIN AP Business Writer Coca-Cola Co. says it’s partnering with Brown-Forman Corp., the maker of Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey, to sell premixed cocktails. Canned Jack and Coke will be sold globally after a launch in Mexico late this year. The move comes amid strong global sales of of ready-to-drink alcohol blends, including hard

BOSTON (AP) — A city councilor in Boston is proposing the Massachusetts capital acknowledge and apologize for its role in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson has also proposed in the resolution she’ll introduce this week that Boston commit to repairing slavery’s harm through a variety of methods. Among them would be removing

By OLEKSANDR STASHEVSKYI Associated Press BUCHA, Ukraine (AP) — The lush green beauty of a pine forest with singing birds contrasted with the violent deaths of newly discovered victims of Russia’s war in Ukraine, as workers exhumed bodies from another mass grave near the town of Bucha on Kyiv’s outskirts. The hands of several victims

By The Associated Press Here’s a collection curated by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists of what’s arriving on TV, streaming services and music platforms this week. MOVIES — The streamers have an embarrassment of riches to offer film fans this week, starting with a few charming highlights from this year’s Sundance Film Festival: “Good Luck

Associated Press OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso (AP) — Gunmen killed at least 55 people over the weekend in northern Burkina Faso, authorities said Monday, the latest attack in the West African country where mounting violence is blamed on Islamic extremists. Suspected militants targeted civilians in Seytenga in Seno province, government spokesman Wendkouni Joel Lionel Bilgo said

YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, Calif. (AP) — Yosemite National Park officials are seeking witnesses who saw vandals tag more than 30 sites in the California park with graffiti. Park officials said in a social media post on Sunday that vandals last month used white and blue spray paint to draw graffiti on boulders and other sites

By TOM MURPHY Associated Press President Joe Biden’s top health official has again tested positive for COVID-19, less than a month after he came down with virus symptoms while on a trip to Germany. U.S. Health Secretary Xavier Becerra woke up with symptoms again Monday morning and tested positive afterward, spokeswoman Sarah Lovenheim said. She

By AL-HADJI KUDRA MALIRO and JUSTIN KABUMBA Associated Press GOMA, Congo (AP) — Congo’s military is accusing Rwanda of “no less than an invasion” after a rebel group captured a key town in eastern Congo. The military confirmed late Monday that Bunagana had fallen into rebel hands earlier in the morning. Rwanda, however, has repeatedly

By ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS and MARK GILLISPIE Associated Press COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Ohio school districts could begin arming employees as soon as this fall under a bill signed into law Monday by GOP Gov. Mike DeWine. The law, as enacted, requires up to 24 hours of training before an employee can go armed, and up

BERLIN (AP) — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz declined to comment Monday on reports that he is planning to visit Ukraine together with his counterparts from France and Italy soon. The weekly Bild am Sonntag had reported that Scholz would travel to Kyiv with French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Premier Mario Draghi Berlin before the

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A self-published romance novelist who once wrote an online essay called “How to Murder Your Husband” was sentenced Monday to life in prison with the possibility of parole for murdering her husband at his workplace in Portland four years ago. Nancy Crampton Brophy, 71, was convicted of second-degree murder on May

By MICHAEL RUBINKAM Associated Press The FBI either lied to a federal judge about having video of its secretive 2018 dig for Civil War-era gold, or illegally destroyed the video to prevent a father-son team of treasure hunters from gaining access to it, an attorney for the duo asserted in new legal filings that allege

NEW YORK (AP) — The New York Philharmonic is restoring salaries of musicians to pre-pandemic levels as it prepares to return to Lincoln Center’s Geffen Hall for the 2022-23 season. A four-year contract agreed to in December 2020 during a season canceled due to the coronavirus had called for players to earn 75% of minimum

By JAKE COYLE AP Film Writer NEW YORK (AP) — Philip Baker Hall, the prolific character actor of film and theater who starred in Paul Thomas Anderson’s first movies and who memorably hunted down a long-overdue library book in “Seinfeld,” has died. He was 90. Holly Wolfle Hall, the actor’s wife of nearly 40 years,