Month: April 2023

By ROD McGUIRK Associated Press CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia has suspended a complaint to the World Trade Organization in a bid to reopen the Chinese market to Australian barley for the first time in three years. It’s the new government’s latest step toward repairing relations with Beijing. China effectively closed its doors to Australian

By TOM KRISHER, MATTHEW DALY and HANNAH FINGERHUT Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Many Americans aren’t yet sold on going electric for their next cars, a new poll shows, with high prices and too few charging stations the main deterrents. About 4 in 10 U.S. adults are at least somewhat likely to switch, but the

By ANTHONY IZAGUIRRE Associated Press TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has advanced elements of his aggressive conservative agenda though the use of executive power, drawing on appointees, state boards and the state Constitution as he builds toward an expected presidential candidacy. The approach displays the Republican’s willingness to leverage the powers of

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — An Oregon State Police trooper exchanged gunfire with a man who was holding the driver of a semitrailer at gunpoint Monday morning along Interstate 5 in Salem, leaving the suspect dead, authorities said. Trooper Andrew Tuttle stopped to help the driver of the disabled semitrailer at about 8:45 a.m. when he

By ROD McGUIRK Associated Press CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A senior lawmaker has split from Australia’s opposition party leadership by supporting a proposal to create a so-called Indigenous Voice to Parliament. Australians are expected to vote in a referendum this year on whether to create the elected group to advocate Indigenous interests to Parliament. Julian

By ROHIT THAYYIL and MOJUDAN GADHAVI, Press Trust of India KOCHI, India (AP) — Eloor smells like it is dying. Once it was an island of rich farmland on the Periyar River, 17 km (10.5 miles) from the Arabian sea, teeming with fish. Now, a stench of putrid flesh permeates the air. Most of the

By ZEKE MILLER AP White House Correspondent WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. national emergency to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic has ended. On Monday, President Joe Biden signed a bipartisan congressional resolution to bring the national emergency to a close after three years — weeks before it was set to expire alongside a separate public

LAS CRUCES, N.M. (AP) — Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy attended a rally in southern New Mexico on Monday for former U.S. Rep. Yvette Herrell as the GOP tries to flip a congressional swing seat back to GOP control in 2024. Herrell lost her 2022 reelection bid to Democratic Congressman Gabe Vasquez in the majority-Hispanic

By STEVE LeBLANC Associated Press BOSTON (AP) — A growing number of states led by Democratic governors are stockpiling doses of drugs used in medication abortions, amid fears that a court ruling could restrict access to the most commonly used method of abortion in the U.S. Massachusetts has purchased enough doses of the drug mifepristone

By JIM GOMEZ Associated Press MANILA, Philippines (AP) — American and Filipino forces on Tuesday launched their largest combat exercises in decades in the Philippines and its waters across the disputed South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait, where Washington has repeatedly warned China over its increasingly aggressive actions. The annual drills by the longtime

By KIM TONG-HYUNG Associated Press SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has vowed to enhance his nuclear arsenal in “practical and offensive” ways. State media said Tuesday he made the remarks while meeting with military officials to discuss war preparations in the face of their rivals’ “frantic” military exercises. Both

By DOUG FEINBERG AP Basketball Writer NEW YORK (AP) — The Indiana Fever made the most of the first No. 1 draft pick in franchise history, selecting Aliyah Boston. The South Carolina star had a stellar college career, leading the Gamecocks to a national championship her junior year, losing only nine games total and helping

By JONATHAN MATTISE Associated Press NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A panel of judges has temporarily blocked a new requirement passed by state Republican lawmakers that would cut the Democratic-leaning city of Nashville’s Metropolitan Council in half, from 40 members to 20. GOP state officials pursued the change after the council rejected hosting the 2024 Republican

By NOMAAN MERCHANT Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — A major leak of classified U.S. documents that’s shaken Washington and exposed new details of its intelligence gathering may have started in a chatroom on a social media platform popular with gamers. Held on the Discord platform, which hosts real-time voice, video and text chats, a discussion

By CLAIRE GALOFARO and BRUCE SCHREINER Associated Press LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Tributes are growing for the five people slain in a shooting at a Louisville bank. Friends shared details of their lives and mourners gathered at vigils Monday. Details were also emerging about some of the wounded, including a rookie officer who was just

BY DEEPA BHARATH The Associated Press The California Civil Rights Department has voluntarily dismissed its case alleging caste discrimination against two Cisco engineers, while still keeping alive its litigation against the Silicon Valley tech giant. The two Cisco supervisors, Sundar Iyer and Ramana Kompella, were accused in the department’s lawsuit of discriminating and harassing an

By WAYNE PARRY Associated Press ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — Three years after the coronavirus pandemic erupted, Atlantic City’s casinos are collectively struggling to get back to where they were before COVID-19 in terms of profitability. Figures released Monday by the New Jersey gambling regulators show the city’s nine casinos collectively had a gross operating

CLIVE, Iowa (AP) — At first, the recent winner of a $40 million jackpot says he couldn’t believe he won the lottery — after all, he bought the ticket on April Fools’ Day. “I thought it was a joke,” said Earl Lape, a 61-year-old retired mechanic from Dubuque, Iowa. Only after confirming his Lotto America

By PAUL J. WEBER and JAKE BLEIBERG Associated Press AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is moving fast to pardon a U.S. Army sergeant convicted in the 2020 killing of an armed protester. So fast, the judge hasn’t even handed down a sentence. Sgt. Daniel Perry faces up to life in prison after

By JONATHAN J. COOPER Associated Press PHOENIX (AP) — A former Arizona Supreme Court justice says changes to the paper caused an issue with ballot printers that led to long lines at some Phoenix-area polling places last year. Retired Justice Ruth McGregor concluded that longer ballots on thicker paper pushed some printers to the edge

By YURI KAGEYAMA Associated Press TOKYO (AP) — Temperatures are rising in Japan and summer is coming fast. As fossil fuel use that feeds climate change is creeping up around the world, Japan is set for another sweltering summer following last year’s dangerous heat waves and is at growing risk of flooding and landslides. It’s

By HILLEL ITALIE AP National Writer NEW YORK (AP) — Al Jaffee, Mad magazine’s award-winning cartoonist and ageless wise guy who delighted millions of kids with the sneaky fun of the Fold-In and the snark of “Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions,” has died. He was 102. Jaffee died Monday in Manhattan from multiple organ failure,

By SAMY MAGDY Associated Press CAIRO (AP) — Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Yemen says his trip to the Houthi-held capital of Sanaa was aimed at reviving a cease-fire and re-starting political talks to end the nine-year conflict. Mohammed bin Saeed Al-Jaber met with Houthi officials in Sanaa on Sunday for talks also attended by Omani

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican ballad singer Julián Figueroa has died at the age of 27, his mother confirmed Monday. Figueroa was the son of actress Maribel Guardia and singer Joan Sebastian, who died in 2015. Guardia wrote that Figueroa died of a heart ailment. Like his father, Figueroa sang northern-inspired ballads backed by a

By ARLEIGH RODGERS Associated Press/Report for America INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana schools may soon be required to notify parents if their children request a name or pronoun change at school. The Republican-dominated state Senate voted 37-12 on Monday to advance a House bill that some worry could out transgender kids to their families. The vote

By CARLA BRIDI and MAURICIO SAVARESE Associated Press BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva finishes the first 100 days of his third term as Brazil’s president on Monday and his return to power has been marked by efforts to reinstate his past social policies and undo his predecessor’s legacy. Lula unseated Jair

By TOM KRISHER and MATTHEW DALY Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration will propose strict new automobile pollution limits this week that would require at least 54% of new vehicles sold in the U.S. to be electric by 2030 and as many as two of every three by 2032, according to industry and

By PATRICK WHITTLE Associated Press PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Hundreds of asylum seekers have filed into a basketball arena in Portland as Maine’s largest city deals with a months-long surge in immigration that has taxed its already limited housing market. It’s the second time in recent years that Portland has repurposed the Portland Exposition Building

By MATTHEW LEE AP Diplomatic Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration formally determined Monday that a Wall Street Journal arrested in Russia on espionage charges has been “wrongfully detained.” The designation elevates the case of Evan Gershkovich in the U.S. government hierarchy and means that a dedicated State Department office will take the lead

CHRISTIANA, Del. (AP) — Authorities are searching for three suspects in a shooting at a Delaware mall that wounded three people and prompted an evacuation. Two friends of the victim began fighting with them, and one of the suspects pulled out a handgun and fired multiple rounds. The original target of the attack and a