Month: January 2023

By GENE JOHNSON Associated Press SEATTLE (AP) — Jack Smith, an Associated Press photographer who captured unforgettable shots of the eruption of Mount St. Helens, the Exxon-Valdez oil spill, boxer Mike Tyson biting off part of Evander Holyfield’s ear, and weeping figure skater Tonya Harding at the Olympics during a 35-year career with the news

By STEFANIE DAZIO and KRYSTA FAURIA Associated Press LOS ANGELES (AP) — Lisa Marie Presley — the only child of Elvis Presley — died Thursday after being hospitalized earlier that day, her mother said in a statement. The singer was 54. “It is with a heavy heart that I must share the devastating news that

By JOHN HANNA AP Political Writer TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly and the Republican-controlled Kansas Legislature are headed toward big fights over budget issues. They are likely to clash over spending on special education programs, pay raises for government workers and how much the cash-flush state should sock away for worse economic

By ELLIOT SPAGAT Associated Press SAN DIEGO (AP) — The Biden administration has launched an online appointment system for migrants as the only way to be exempt from limits on seeking asylum, its latest major step to overhaul border enforcement. U.S. Customs and Border Protection began making appointments up to two weeks out at eight

By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN Associated Press ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — The U.S. agency in charge of jumpstarting the production of key components for the nation’s nuclear arsenal is falling short when it comes to having a comprehensive schedule for the multibillion-dollar project. The Government Accountability Office says the National Nuclear Security Administration’s plans for reestablishing

By WILL WEISSERT Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Robert Hur, a former U.S. attorney for Maryland nominated by then-President Donald Trump, will serve as special counsel to investigate the presence of documents with classified markings found at President Joe Biden’s home in Delaware and at an office in Washington. Hur is taking the job from

NEW YORK (AP) — A New York man has pleaded guilty to a hate-crime manslaughter charge for attacking a Chinese immigrant who was collecting cans to earn money. Jarrod Powell is expected to get a 22-year prison sentence for the 2021 death of Yao Pan Ma. The attack drew national attention as part of a

CURT ANDERSON and MARTA LAVANDIER Associated Press MIAMI (AP) — The Coast Guard returned another 177 Cuban migrants who were caught at sea off Florida to the island on Thursday, while a group of about two dozen Haitians swam ashore in Miami. The Cuban migrants were all intercepted separately off the coast earlier this month,

By SCOTT BAUER Associated Press MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin and North Carolina have joined at least 22 other states in banning the popular social media app TikTok on state-owned devices, including Mississippi, Indiana, Louisiana and South Dakota. Congress also recently banned TikTok from most U.S. government-issued devices over bipartisan concerns about security. TikTok is

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (AP) — Officials say a 29-year-old Connecticut man has pleaded guilty to a federal terrorism charge, more than three years after he was arrested at an airport while trying to travel to Syria to help the Islamic State group. The U.S. attorney’s office says Kevin McCormick, of Hamden, entered the plea Thursday in

By MEG KINNARD Associated Press The appointment of a special counsel to oversee the Justice Department probes into the discovery of classified documents at the home and former office of President Joe Biden has focused renewed attention on the role such prosecutors have played in modern American history. A special counsel is an attorney appointed

By ADAM BEAM Associated Press SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California says it will sue the companies that make and promote much of the nation’s insulin. Democratic Attorney General Rob Bonta announced the lawsuit Thursday. The lawsuit accuses insulin manufacturers Eli Lilli, Novo Nordisk and Sanofi of keeping prices too high. It also blames pharmacy benefit

By MATTHEW BARAKAT Associated Press ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — A federal jury has heard testimony from a woman whose civil lawsuit accuses a former police chief in Virginia and three other officers of protecting a sex-trafficking ring they had used as clients. The woman, identified only as Jane Doe, sobbed uncontrollably Thursday as she testified

By SYLVIA HUI Associated Press LONDON (AP) — Irish premier Leo Varadkar says after meeting with political leaders in Northern Ireland he remained hopeful that an agreement can be reached between the European Union and the U.K. over post-Brexit trade disputes in the region. Varadkar and Keir Starmer, leader of Britain’s main opposition Labour Party,

By FATIMA HUSSEIN Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The official start date of the 2023 tax filing season is Jan. 23, when the IRS will begin accepting and processing 2022 returns. The news comes after the National Taxpayer Advocate reported that the IRS watchdog is seeing “a light at the end of the tunnel” of

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden will host Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte at the White House for talks that are expected to center on the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, in announcing Tuesday’s meeting, called the Netherlands “a very key supporter of security assistance in Ukraine.” Kirby noted

By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS Associated Press JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Democrat Brandon Presley has announced that he’s running for Mississippi governor this year. He says Thursday that he believes state government and the current Republican governor are disconnected from the needs of working people. Presley is in his fourth term as a Mississippi utilities regulator,

By REBECCA SANTANA Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Fires are burning faster and becoming deadlier at the same time that fire departments across the country are struggling to retain and recruit firefighters. That was the message during a press conference Thursday in Washington designed to draw attention to the nation’s fire problems. The even comes

By SCOTT BAUER Associated Press MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin and North Carolina have become the latest states to ban the use of TikTok on state phones and other devices, a move that comes after nearly half of the states nationwide have blocked the popular social media app owned by a Chinese company. Democratic Wisconsin

TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — Libyan officials say the CIA chief has met with one of the country’s rival prime ministers in a rare visit by a senior U.S. official to the war-torn country, currently split between two rival administrations. The Tripoli-based government said Thursday that William Burns and Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah discussed economic

By JOHN ANTCZAK Associated Press LOS ANGELES (AP) — Atmospheric rivers pounding California since late last year have coated mountains with a full winter’s worth of snow and begun raising reservoir levels but experts say it will take much more to precipitation to reverse the effects of years of drought. The U.S. Drought Monitor’s weekly

By NOMAAN MERCHANT and ERIC TUCKER Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — A top U.S. intelligence official is urging Congress to renew sweeping powers granted to American spy agencies to surveil and examine communications. Army Gen. Paul Nakasone, the director of the National Security Agency, is opening what will likely be a contentious debate over provisions

By KIM CHANDLER and JEFF MARTIN Associated Press SELMA, Ala. (AP) — A giant, swirling storm system billowing across the South on Thursday killed at least six people in central Alabama, where a tornado ripped roofs off homes and uprooted trees in historic Selma, while another person was killed in Georgia, where severe winds knocked

By SETH BORENSTEIN and CATHY BUSSEWITZ Associated Press DENVER (AP) — A new study says Exxon Mobil’s scientists were remarkably accurate in their predictions about global warming. But at the same time, the company made public statements that contradicted its scientists’ conclusions. The study in the journal Science looked at research that Exxon funded. The

ATLANTA (AP) — CNN is moving out of the CNN Center, its longtime downtown Atlanta home by the end of this year. The cable channel’s weekday anchors are all already in New York or Washington, but CNN still has digital and CNN International operations in Atlanta. Spokeswoman Bridget Leininger confirmed in an email that the

SAINT-ROCH-DE-L’ACHIGAN, Quebec (AP) — An explosion has hit a propone facility in Quebec, and at least one worker is missing. Quebec provincial police said evacuations were underway in St-Roch-de-l’Achigan, a town about 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of Montreal. Municipal officials had earlier said three or four employees were unaccounted for, but provincial police Sgt.

CHICAGO (AP) — Fire officials say a worker has died after a Chicago building partially collapsed, trapping him beneath debris. The Chicago Fire Department says three workers were in the three-story building when a portion of the structure collapsed in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood Thursday morning. Firefighters pulled the worker from the rubble about an hour

NEW YORK (AP) — Steve Bannon’s lawyers want out of his border-wall fraud case and have told a judge he is unwilling to speak with them directly. They said Thursday that they have irreconcilable differences about how to proceed. Bannon is a conservative rabble-rouser and longtime ally of former President Donald Trump. His current lawyers