Month: June 2023

By MAYSOON KHAN Associated Press/Report for America ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New Yorkers who commit crimes could have their records automatically sealed if they stay out of trouble for a certain number of years after they have finished serving their sentences under a bill passed by state lawmakers Friday. The “clean slate” legislation would automatically

By RONALD BLUM Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — The Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra will tour for the second straight summer, appearing in eight cities in Europe and Britain in support of the nation’s war effort against Russia. Keri-Lynn Wilson, the Canadian-Ukrainian wife of Metropolitan Opera general manager Peter Gelb, will conduct the tour, which runs

By ASHRAF KHALIL Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — A young black bear gave residents of a quiet northeast Washington neighborhood a start Friday morning when they woke to find a furry interloper wandering backyards and sniffing around garbage cans. Pictures of the bear and its capture touched off a frenzy on social media. It also

By THALIA BEATY Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — A new philanthropic funding initiative announced Friday will support campaigns for reparations for Black Americans. The Decolonizing Wealth Project is committing $20 million over five years to boost campaigns for reparations run by nonprofits across the country. The project’s founder and CEO Edgar Villanueva announced the

By ADRIAN SAINZ Associated Press MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — A Tennessee man pleaded guilty Friday to helping two other men charged with fatally shooting rapper Young Dolph in a daytime ambush at a Memphis bakery. Jermarcus Johnson, 26, pleaded guilty to three counts of accessory after the fact. Judge Lee Coffee approved a plea deal

By MATTHEW LEE AP Diplomatic Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Antony Blinken is planning to travel to China next week as the Biden administration pushes to improve badly deteriorated ties with the Chinese that hit a new low in February after a Chinese surveillance balloon was shot down over U.S. airspace. U.S. officials

By ZEKE MILLER AP White House Correspondent WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden next week is set to attend his first political rally since launching his 2024 reelection bid in April, as he steps up his political activity before the end of the fundraising quarter. Biden will attend the rally in Philadelphia on June 17,

By MOLLY QUELL Associated Press THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The United Nations’ highest court says it has accepted requests from 32 countries to back Ukraine in a genocide complaint against Russia. Ukraine’s government filed the case at the International Court of Justice days after Russia invaded its neighbor in February 2022. The Kremlin snubbed

By LOLITA C. BALDOR Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon says it will provide an additional $2.1 billion in long-term weapons aid for Ukraine. The new assistance package includes funding for more Patriot missile battery munitions, Hawk air defense systems and missiles, and small Puma drones that can be launched by hand. The latest

By JIM SALTER Associated Press The Missouri Supreme Court has turned aside an appeal by a man scheduled to be executed in August for killing a 6-year-old girl. Johnny Johnson was convicted of first-degree murder in in the 2002 death of Casey Williamson in suburban St. Louis. He faces execution Aug. 1 unless the courts

MILAN (AP) — Italian media are reporting that former Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi has been admitted to a Milan hospital where he spent 45 days this spring being treated for a lung infection and chronic leukemia. Italian news agency LaPresse reported Friday that the 86-year-old media mogul and former three-time premier was readmitted to San

By KIM CHANDLER Associated Press BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — Joran van der Sloot, the chief suspect in Natalee Holloway’s 2005 disappearance, pleaded not guilty Friday in Alabama to charges he tried to extort money from the missing teen’s mother in exchange for revealing where to find her daughter’s remains. Although he’s not on trial for

By AAMER MADHANI Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Iran is providing Russia with materials to build a drone manufacturing plant east of Moscow as the Kremlin looks to lock in a steady supply of weaponry for its ongoing invasion of Ukraine, according to a U.S. intelligence finding released by the White House on Friday. National

By JAKE COYLE AP Film Writer NEW YORK (AP) — When Troy Kotsur made history as the first Deaf male actor win an Oscar at the Academy Awards, he was thinking about his father. To Kotsur, his persistence comes directly from his father. At the Oscar podium, Kotsur called his dad his hero. In “To

By SUZAN FRASER Associated Press ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey’s president has appointed a former U.S.-based bank executive to head the central bank. The appointment Friday is sending the strongest signal yet that Recep Tayyip Erdogan might pivot from his unusual economic policies that many blame for a worsening cost-of-living crisis. The 41-year-old Erkan is

ELMONT, N.Y. (AP) — The New York Racing Association has announced that live racing will resume at Belmont Park on Friday following significant improvement in air quality conditions in the state. Both Belmont and Saratoga reopened for training Friday morning, and the 11-card race will start at 12:50 p.m. The NYRA said in a statement

By SUMAN NAISHADHAM Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Thick, smoky air from Canadian wildfires made for days of misery in New York City and across the U.S. Northeast this week. But for much of the rest of the world, breathing dangerously polluted air is an inescapable fact of life — and death. Almost the entire

By MICHAEL BIESECKER Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — A grainy black-and-white gunsight video Russia released this week to bolster a claim its military blew up some of Ukraine’s most fearsome tanks actually documented the destruction of a tractor, according to a visual analysis by The Associated Press. The Russian Embassy in Washington announced Monday on

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — A far-right party banned from participating in Greece’s upcoming election has pledged support for a newly founded political group that received Supreme Court approval to field candidates. Greece’s top court this week upheld an earlier election ban on the Greeks Party. The ruling was based on legislation that denies political groups

By DAVID SHARP Associated Press PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Advocates for survivors of child sexual abuse say momentum is growing for completely removing the statute of limitations for such crimes. Maryland followed Maine and Vermont to become the only three states to have eliminated all time limits on lawsuits. Maryland’s governor signed the law after

By MOLLY QUELL Associated Press THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The Supreme Court of the Netherlands has ordered that a Dutch museum’s trove of historical treasures from Crimea be sent to Ukraine. The collection was on loan to the Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam when Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014, sparking

The Associated Press DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A cartoonist’s lawyer says Iranian authorities have summoned and arrested her over posts on her Instagram account. Mohammad Moghimi said in a tweet Friday that his client, Atena Farghadani, a painter, cartoonist and former political prisoner, was summoned to the Evin courthouse in Tehran and arrested.

By PETER SMITH Associated Press PITTSBURGH (AP) — One by one over the past two weeks, members of Jewish congregations in Pittsburgh have come to the witness stand in federal court and relived the horror of that October morning, when a gunman used high-powered weapons to kill 11 worshippers and badly injure others. Police officers

MADRID (AP) — A Spanish government official says the bodies of two migrants were found on a beach in southeastern Spain after 132 other people arrived in two boats. The official in the city of Almería says the two died while trying to swim to the coast and were victims of criminal human smuggling gangs.