Month: June 2023

PEORIA, Ill. (AP) — A woman has pleaded guilty to federal charges stemming from the straw purchase of a gun used to fatally shoot one central Illinois police officer and wound another in 2021. Twenty-nine-year-old Ashantae Corruthers entered the plea Thursday to a charge of conspiracy to defraud the government. She is accused of buying

OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) — Canada’s Senate on Thursday passed a bill that will require Google and Meta to pay media outlets for news content that they share or otherwise repurpose on their platforms. The bill, which is set to become law, was passed amid a standoff between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government and Silicon Valley

By FARNOUSH AMIRI Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans have released testimony from two IRS whistleblowers who allege that the Justice Department interfered with their yearslong investigation into President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter. It was a charge the department swiftly denied. The testimony from the two IRS agents detailed what they called a pattern

AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — Maine lawmakers have launched into an emotional debate over expanding abortion access, delivering impassioned appeals. The proposal being debated Thursday would allow abortions any time before birth if deemed necessary by a medical provider. But there was a late amendment restricting post-viability abortions to a narrower set of circumstances. Current state

By COLLEEN LONG Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Three top reproductive rights groups are endorsing President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for reelection in 2024. Planned Parenthood Action Fund, NARAL Pro-Choice America and Emily’s List are throwing their early support behind the reelection effort in part to highlight the importance of the issue

By JOHN FLESHER AP Environmental Writer TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) — Chemical manufacturer 3M Co. will pay at least $10.3 billion to settle lawsuits over contamination of many U.S. public drinking water systems with potentially harmful compounds used in firefighting foam and a host of consumer products, the company said Thursday. The deal would compensate

By STEPHEN WHYNO AP Sports Writer A person with knowledge of the sale tells The Associated Press the Qatar Investment Authority is buying a roughly 5% stake of Monumental Sports & Entertainment as part of a $4.05 billion deal. Monumental is the parent company of the NBA’s Washington Wizards, NHL’s Washington Capitals and WNBA’s Washington

By BRIAN MAHONEY AP Basketball Writer NEW YORK (AP) — Victor Wembanyama was the presumed No. 1 pick for months, the rare certainty in an NBA draft process that’s often a guessing game. Yet as the clock above the stage he was facing ticked all the way down to zero, butterflies set in. “Longest five

By EDITH M. LEDERER Associated Press UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Somalia’s “dire hunger emergency” is spiraling upward with one-third of the population expected to face crisis or worse levels of food needs. But Cindy McCain, head of the World Food Program, said the U.N. has been forced to drastically cut food assistance because of a

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva offered Thursday to help try to gain the release of a Roman Catholic bishop imprisoned in Nicaragua. Lula made the comments after visiting with Pope Francis at the Vatican. Bishop Rolando Álvarez was jailed by the regime of President Daniel Ortega for supposedly helping

By SOPHIE AUSTIN and FRANK BAJAK Associated Press SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California’s public pension fund says the personal data of more than 769,000 retired workers and beneficiaries including Social Security numbers has been stolen in the breach of a popular file-transfer application by a Russian ransomware gang that is extorting victims. Cybersecurity experts estimate

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Police say two people were found dead following a shooting outside a McDonald’s restaurant in the Florida Panhandle. Tallahassee police said in a Facebook post that they were conducting a double homicide investigation. When officers responded to the fast-food restaurant Thursday afternoon, they reported finding two men dead in the parking

By MATTHEW BARAKAT Associated Press LEESBURG, Va. (AP) — A jury has acquitted the longtime spokesman for a northern Virginia school system of perjuring himself during a high-profile investigation of two school-based sexual assaults. The jury took only about 2 hours of deliberation Thursday before acquitting Loudoun County Public Schools Public Information Office Wayde Byard

By ANDREW DALTON AP Entertainment Writer The weapons supervisor charged with involuntary manslaughter in the shooting death of a cinematographer on the New Mexico set of the Alec Baldwin film “Rust” was charged Thursday with evidence tampering for allegedly passing drugs to someone else on the day of the shooting. Hannah Gutierrez-Reed “did transfer narcotics

By MATTHEW DALY Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The government’s traffic safety agency says it will require that heavy trucks and buses include potentially life-saving automatic emergency braking equipment within five years. Automatic braking systems in heavy vehicles would prevent nearly 20,000 crashes a year and save at least 155 lives, the National Highway Traffic

By GARY D. ROBERTSON Associated Press RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina Republican legislators have rolled out adjustments to the state’s new abortion restrictions set to take effect in days. The Senate voted on Thursday for what GOP lawmakers called clarifying and technical changes to a new law that as of July 1 will prohibit

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — The Florida Supreme Court has refused to reinstate a Florida prosecutor who was removed by Gov. Ron DeSantis after making comments opposing prosecutions for abortions or gender-affirming health care. Florida’s highest court said Thursday that Andrew Warren had waited too long to file a petition. In a 6-1 decision, the Florida

By BRUCE SCHREINER Associated Press FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — Attorney General Daniel Cameron’s office has asked the FBI to investigate an infusion of campaign donations linked to a credit card. The donations flowed to the Kentucky Democratic Party and Gov. Andy Beshear’s campaign. Cameron is the Republican nominee for governor in this year’s election. Media

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri woman imprisoned for more than four decades for a murder she says she didn’t commit will get a court hearing that could lead to her release. The Kansas City Star reported Thursday that the Missouri attorney general’s office has agreed to an evidentiary hearing for 63-year-old Sandra Hemme.

By DAVID BAUDER AP Media Writer NEW YORK (AP) — The two leading GOP presidential contenders had very different interview experiences with Fox News this past week. Donald Trump encountered pushback with Bret Baier while Ron DeSantis’s interview while former Trump press secretary Kayleigh McEnany stuck to mainly favorable topics for the Florida governor. Each

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Thursday that the state has filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration and the U.S. Department of Education over accreditation agencies, which control federal aid for students. The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Fort Lauderdale federal court, challenges a federal law that requires colleges and universities to

By KIMBERLEE KRUESI Associated Press NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Nearly three months after a shooter killed six people at her daughter’s school in Nashville, Katherine Heath watches the third-grader lie on her husband’s chest whenever her child has a “sad day.” After losing multiple classmates, Heath’s daughter is now visibly withdrawn, attending counseling, and learning

By MICHAEL MAROT AP Sports Writer INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Two Buffalo Bills trainers say they stuck to their pre-planned treatment when Damar Hamlin suffered cardiac arrest during an NFL game in January. Now they’re encouraging schools and youth leagues to also make their own potentially life-saving plans. Nate Breske and Denny Kellington described their experience

By THOMAS ADAMSON AP Fashion Writer PARIS (AP) — History, fashion, and star power came together at Givenchy’s latest menswear show at Les Invalides in Paris. Steeped in the martial aura of the former military hospital, the show was the first of its kind in this storied location — on the resplendent balcony. Among the

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s Supreme Court has overturned yet another set of electoral law changes favored by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. The 9-2 ruling Thursday is likely to further fan the growing dispute between the president and the courts, which have blocked some of his key legal overhauls, including a related change in

By MARK PRATT Associated Press BOSTON (AP) — A renowned Titanic expert, a world record-holding adventurer, two members of one of Pakistan’s wealthiest families and the CEO of the company leading an expedition to the world’s most famous shipwreck were killed when the Titan submersible imploded. It’s not known when exactly the catastrophic implosion occurred

By HALELUYA HADERO AP Business Writer NEW YORK (AP) — A Congressional report published Thursday offered a blistering critique of popular Chinese retailers Temu and Shein, with lawmakers accusing the latter of failing to maintain “even the façade of a meaningful compliance program” to deter forced labor from its supply chains. In the report, the

By ZANE IRWIN Associated Press DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — A lawyer for Senegal’s embattled opposition leader Ousmane Sonko has filed a lawsuit in a French court. Sonko’s attorney also called Thursday for the International Criminal Court to open an investigation into the deadly violence that has taken place in recent weeks. Sonko finished third in

By DARLENE SUPERVILLE and FATIMA HUSSEIN Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi brought his comedy game to Thursday’s big White House dinner in his honor, cracking jokes about his lack of singing chops, the time President Joe Biden wanted him to eat even though he was fasting and how well Indians