Month: February 2023

By DAVE COLLINS Associated Press HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — A former University of Connecticut student has pleaded guilty to murder and other charges for killing a man and severely wounding another with a sword in 2020 — one of two deadly attacks that led to a six-day manhunt in several states. Peter Manfredonia agreed to

By JULIE WATSON Associated Press SAN DIEGO (AP) — Two U.S. Army veterans who were deported to Mexico a decade ago won their long battle to return to the United States and become U.S. citizens. Mauricio Hernandez Mata and Leonel Contreras were sworn in as U.S. citizens Wednesday at a special naturalization ceremony in downtown

By JUAN A. LOZANO Associated Press HOUSTON (AP) — Police are investigating possible vandalism at the Houston Zoo after workers discovered a four-inch gap cut into the mesh that covers a habitat with brown pelicans. The damage to the habitat comes after a series of thefts and incidents of vandalism at zoos around the country,

By SEAN MURPHY Associated Press Writer OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Republican attacks on gender affirming medical care for young people continued Wednesday in several conservative states that are among more than two dozen considering similar bans nationwide. Lawmakers in Nebraska, Oklahoma and South Dakota considered bills Wednesday that would prohibit gender affirming treatments, like the

By ANDREW DeMILLO Associated Press LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders is proposing an education overhaul that includes a 39% increase in starting teacher pay and a new voucher-like program directing public money to private schools. Sanders unveiled details of the bill Wednesday. She’s called the bill her priority during this

By MATT O’BRIEN AP Technology Writer REDMOND, Wash. (AP) — Nearly a quarter-century after Google’s search engine began to reshape how we use the internet, big tech companies are racing to revamp a familiar web tool into a gateway to a new form of artificial intelligence. This week saw several newly announced AI search chatbots

By LISA MASCARO, ZEKE MILLER and FATIMA HUSSEIN Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — When President Joe Biden suggested that Republicans want to slash Medicare and Social Security, the GOP howls of protest during his State of the Union address showcased a striking apparent turnaround for the party that built a brand for years trying to

By ANDREW SELSKY Associated Press SALEM, Ore. (AP) — A thirst for rare bottles of bourbon appears set to cost the executive director and other top officials of Oregon’s liquor and marijuana regulating agency their jobs. An internal investigation by the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission, obtained by The Associated Press via a public records

MITCHELL, Ind. (AP) — A sheriff says the second of two southern Indiana police officers shot during a weekend traffic stop has been released from a hospital. Lawrence County Sheriff Greg Day says in a post on Facebook Wednesday that Mitchell Police Officer Christian Anderson has been released from IU Health Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis.

By GARY D. ROBERTSON Associated Press RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A federal appeals court has sided again with North Carolina’s attorney general in a lawsuit involving a libel law that a district attorney sought to use to attempt to prosecute Josh Stein over a 2020 campaign commercial. A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland’s lower house of parliament has given final approval to a new law on judicial accountability that the government believes will meet European Union expectations and help unfreeze billions of euros in pandemic recovery funds. Brussels has not released the funds amid a dragging dispute over Poland’s regulations that give the

LONDON (AP) — Five climate change protesters have been fined for gluing themselves to the frame of a copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” in the Royal Academy of Arts. The five activists from the group Just Stop Oil glued their hands to the painting’s border and one sprayed graffiti on the wall

OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso (AP) — The aid group Doctors Without Borders says two of its employees have been killed in an attack on their vehicle in northwestern Burkina Faso. The organization, which is also known by its French acronym MSF, said gunmen fired on an MSF vehicle as it was traveling between  Dedougou and Touga.

By TARA COPP and LOLITA C. BALDOR Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon says the Chinese balloon shot down off the South Carolina coast was part of a large surveillance program that China has been conducting for “several years.” The Pentagon press secretary says when similar balloons passed over U.S. territory on four occasions

By TRAVIS LOLLER, JONATHAN MATTISE and ADRIAN SAINZ Associated Press MEMPHIS, Tennessee (AP) — The officer who pulled Tyre Nichols from his car before police fatally beat him never explained why he was being stopped, newly released documents show, and emerging reports from Memphis residents suggest that was common. The Memphis Police Department blasted Demetrius

MEXICO CITY (AP) — One year after the Super Bowl season was marred by a ban on Mexican avocado shipments, another threat has emerged: An environmental complaint that avocado growers are illegally destroying forests that provide critical habitat for monarch butterflies and other creatures. The complaint filed with the Commission for Environmental Cooperation that’s part

By LINDSEY TANNER AP Medical Writer A devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria has raised questions about how long people can survive in the rubble. Experts say up to a week or more, though it depends on their injuries, how they are trapped and weather conditions. Search teams from around the world have joined local

By BASSEM MROUE and KAREEM CHEHAYEB Associated Press BEIRUT (AP) — For years, the people of Aleppo bore the brunt of bombardment and fighting when their city, once Syria’s largest and most cosmopolitan, was among the civil war’s fiercest battle zones. Even that didn’t prepare them for the devastation and terror wreaked by this week’s

By MIKE SCHNEIDER Associated Press ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Facing blowback, the director of Florida’s high school sports governing body is backing away from using an eligibility form that requires female athletes to disclose their menstrual history in order to compete. Instead, the executive director of the Florida High School Athletic Association is recommending that

By EDDIE PELLS AP National Writer DENVER (AP) — More than two years since it was greenlighted by Congress, the panel established to probe the inner workings of the U.S. Olympics has yet to conduct a formal interview because of bureaucratic red tape in Washington. The Commission on the State of U.S. Olympics and Paralympics

By STEFANIE DAZIO Associated Press LOS ANGELES (AP) — California voters could decide whether to reinstate voting rights to people in prison on felony convictions under a newly proposed constitutional amendment. It would be a major expansion of suffrage for incarcerated people if passed. California would join Maine and Vermont, as well as the District

By JUSTIN SPIKE Associated Press ADANA, Turkey (AP) — They lifted slabs of cement with enormous cranes and smashed rubble with jackhammers. Then, they stopped. Silence. Key to detecting the faintest noise, which could be a sign of a survivor buried beneath rubble from Monday’s quake in Turkey and Syria. Among the wreckage of a