Month: January 2024

By JACK DURA Associated Press BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — A North Dakota Republican lawmaker has been sentenced to serve nearly a year of unsupervised probation to pay $1,000 in fines and fees after pleading guilty to a drunken driving charge earlier this month. The charge is connection to a traffic stop least month, during which

By JONEL ALECCIA AP Health Writer Aleph Farms of Israel has received the preliminary green light from health officials to produce and sell the world’s first steaks made from cultivated beef cells, not the entire animal. The move follows approval of lab-grown chicken in the U.S. last year. The firm based in Rehovot, Israel, received

By JULIE CARR SMYTH Associated Press COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The Ohio Supreme Court has reinstated a judge’s order allowing the state to freeze $8 million in personal assets belonging to a former top Ohio utility regulator. It’s the latest development in a yearslong fight over property belonging to Sam Randazzo, a one-time chair of

By LISA MASCARO AP Congressional Correspondent WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans are laying the groundwork for impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. In its second impeachment hearing, the House Homeland Security Committee heard Thursday from parents whose tearful testimony seeks to link government border policy to their daughters’ deaths and from a law professor

BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) — Ice cream maker Ben & Jerry’s has reached its first contract agreement with workers at a retail shop in the Vermont city where the company was founded after the employees petitioned to unionize last year. About 40 workers at the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream shop in Burlington announced last April

By SOPHIA TAREEN and KATHLEEN FOODY Associated Press CHICAGO (AP) — A Texas transportation company is taking the nation’s third largest city to federal court, ratcheting up a legal battle over the migrant crisis that’s left U.S. cities struggling. Since 2022, Texas has sent more than 100,000 migrants to Democrat-led “sanctuary cities,” as it has

By STEVE LeBLANC Associated Press BOSTON (AP) — Police arrested an American Airlines flight attendant on Thursday on suspicion of trying to secretly record a 14-year-old female passenger using a bathroom aboard an airplane he was working on last September. Police also allege Estes Carter Thompson III, 37, of Charlotte, North Carolina, had recordings of

By ALEX VEIGA AP Business Writer LOS ANGELES (AP) — The average long-term U.S. mortgage rate fell this week to its lowest level since May, welcome news for prospective homebuyers facing rising home prices and intense competition for relatively few properties on the market. The average rate on a 30-year mortgage dropped to 6.6% from

By ADAM BEAM Associated Press SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A California judge has ruled that the state does not have permission to borrow billions of dollars for a water project. The decision by Sacramento Superior Court Judge Kenneth C. Mennemeier could threaten a key source of funding for a plan to build a tunnel to

By AARON BEARD AP Basketball Writer The arrival of the 3-point shot created more volatility at the top for The Associated Press men’s college basketball poll. The shot became an official part of the game for the 1986-87 season. It’s led to more upsets as even the best teams became vulnerable to hot-shooting upstarts. As

VALLEJO, Calif. (AP) — The ordeal of a Northern California woman whose kidnapping from her boyfriend’s home was first dismissed as a hoax by law enforcement is getting renewed attention as the subject of a new Netflix docuseries. “American Nightmare” details the March 23, 2015, abduction of Denise Huskins by a masked intruder who broke

By MATTHEW BARAKAT Associated Press LEESBURG, Va. (AP) — A judge has postponed the sentencing of a former Virginia school system superintendent, saying he needed more time to consider setting aside the guilty verdict altogether. Former Loudoun County Superintendent Scott Ziegler was convicted in September on a misdemeanor count of violating the state’s conflict of

By FARNOUSH AMIRI Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Hunter Biden has agreed to appear before House Republicans for a private deposition next month, ending months of defiance from the president’s son, who had insisted on testifying publicly. The House Oversight Committee announced Thursday that the two parties have come to an agreement for Hunter Biden

By R.J. RICO Associated Press ATLANTA (AP) — Officials say the longstanding and at times violent protests against Atlanta’s planned police and firefighter training center are partially responsible for a nearly $20 million rise in costs connected with the project. Atlanta Deputy Chief Operating Officer has told City Council members on Wednesday that the 85-acre

By JIM VERTUNO Associated Press AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is seeking to end a whistleblower lawsuit by former top staff members. He announced Thursday that his agency would not contest the facts of the case and would accept any judgement. The lawsuit brought by a group of former top deputies

By MARCIA DUNN AP Aerospace Writer CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — SpaceX has launched Turkey’s first astronaut along with a Swede and Italian to the International Space Station. It’s the third private flight to the space station arranged by a Houston company. The Falcon rocket blasted off from Florida on Thursday, carrying the three aviators

By JONATHAN MATTISE, ADRIAN SAINZ and KRISTIN HALL Associated Press NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — At least 14 deaths in Tennessee have been linked to a snowy, frigid storm, as bitterly cold weather continued impacting the U.S. from Oregon to the Northeast. Tennessee officials updated the state’s death toll at midweek after more than 9 inches

By JEFF AMY Associated Press ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp is telling world business leaders that the state must increase its supply of electricity produced without burning fossil fuels to meet industries’ demand for clean energy. The Republican spoke Thursday on a panel focused on electric vehicles at the World Economic Forum in

ELLSWORTH, Maine (AP) — A wealthy attorney who twice ran for governor in Maine is out of jail after completing his sentence for possessing thousands of images of child sexual abuse. Eliot Cutler was sentenced to nine months under a plea agreement and was released Thursday about a month-and-a-half early for good behavior. The criminal

UVALDE, Texas (AP) — A scathing Justice Department report into law enforcement failures during the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas, includes a minute-by-minute accounting of missteps by police at the scene. Heavily armed officers did not kill the 18-year-old gunman until about 77 minutes after the first officers arrived at the school. During

By The Associated Press Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have externally attached a pig liver to a brain-dead human body and watched it successfully filter blood. The experiment is a step toward one day trying the technique in patients with liver failure. It’s also a different spin on animal-to-human organ transplants, which is also

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico and Chile have asked the International Criminal Court to investigate possible crimes against civilians in Gaza and the Oct. 7 Hamas attack in Israel. Mexico’s Foreign Relations Department said in a statement that it filed the request “because of a growing concern about the recent escalation in violence, especially against

By MARGERY A. BECK Associated Press LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen covered everything from the state’s response to recent winter storms to his support for a bill to limit transgender students’ access to bathrooms in his state of the state address. But it was the Republican’s plan to slash local government property

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A New Hampshire man who pleaded guilty to making a threatening phone call to a member of Congress has been sentenced in federal court to three years of probation. Twenty-four-year-old Allan Poller was a Keene State College student when he was accused of calling the office of a U.S. House member

By JAMEY KEATEN Associated Press DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) — The International Committee of the Red Cross has been losing influence, funding and staff. Now, disparaging remarks from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are the latest headache for the Geneva-based humanitarian aid group. It did arrange the release of 109 Israeli hostages last fall. Netanyahu has

By MELANIE LIDMAN Associated Press TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Hundreds of people gathered in Tel Aviv to mark the first birthday of Kfir Bibas, the youngest Israeli hostage held in Gaza. Relatives called the occasion on Thursday the “saddest birthday in the world.” Israeli children’s music stars performed a song written in his honor,

ST. LOUIS (AP) — A former professional basketball player whose ex-girlfriend was sentenced to prison last year for fraud is now facing his own federal indictment, accusing him of falsifying applications for pandemic relief loans. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that the indictment of 40-year-old Lorenzo Gordon comes three months after his former girlfriend, Brittish

By KEVIN FREKING Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — A bill to create a bipartisan commission that would tackle the nation’s soaring debt and make policy recommendations to Congress has won approval from a House committee. House Republicans are making the bill a priority. The chairman of the House Budget Committee says “everything’s on the table”

By MICHAEL GOLDBERG Associated Press/Report for America JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi’s State Health Officer says even as the state improves some of its poor health outcomes, more of its people die preventable deaths than residents of any other state. State Health Officer Dr. Daniel Edney called for state leaders to work with health officials

By PAT GRAHAM AP Sports Writer Shawn Barber, the Canadian pole vault record holder and 2015 world champion, has died from medical complications. He was 29. Barber died Wednesday at home in Kingwood, Texas, his agent, Paul Doyle, confirmed to The Associated Press. A cause of death was not known yet. Barber had been experiencing

WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal judge overseeing the 2020 election interference against Donald Trump has rejected his lawyers’ bid to hold special counsel Jack Smith’s team in contempt for actions prosecutors took after the judge put the case on hold. But the judge said Thursday that no further “substantive” court filings should be submitted without

By ALANIS THAMES AP Sports Writer MIAMI (AP) — A breakaway team of Cuban players who defected from the country had their club debut delayed this week when the Colombian government canceled a tournament there. Players with the Cuban Professional Baseball Federation, or FEPCUBE, say Colombia nixed the tournament over opposition to the Cuban team’s

By CHRISTINA LARSON AP Science Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists have mapped the largest coral reef deep in the ocean, stretching hundreds of miles off the U.S. coast. Researchers have known since the 1960s that some coral were present off the Atlantic coast, but the reef’s size remained a mystery until new technology made it

By KATE BRUMBACK Associated Press ATLANTA (AP) — The judge presiding over the Georgia prosecution of former President Donald Trump and others for efforts to overturn the 2020 election has set a hearing on a motion alleging Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has been romantically involved with a special prosecutor she hired for the

NEW YORK (AP) — More than a half a million beds sold at retailers like Walmart and Wayfair are under recall because they can break during use, which has resulted in dozens of injuries. The recall impacts several different models and sizes of upholstered low profile standard and platform beds from Home Design, Inc. The

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida will seek to streamline regulations and offer incentives to help make health care more accessible under two bills unanimously passed by the Senate. The votes on Thursday quickly pushed forward Republican Senate President Kathleen Passidomo’s top session priority. The bills would make it easier for foreign doctors and out-of-state health

By AMY TAXIN Associated Press SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — A prosecutor has told jurors that a murder defendant acted callously in killing a 6-year-old boy in a car-to-car shooting on a Southern California freeway in 2021. Twenty-six-year-old Marcus Eriz is charged with killing Aiden Leos while the boy’s mother was driving him to kindergarten

By MICHAEL HILL Associated Press FORT EDWARD, N.Y. (AP) — The boyfriend of a 20-year-old woman fatally shot in the neck when they pulled into the wrong driveway described to a jury the moment when he heard a shot pierce the car, and then saw his girlfriend slumped over in the passenger seat. Blake Walsh

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia (AP) — Thousands of people have rallied across Slovakia as protests intensify against a plan by the new government of populist Prime Minister Robert Fico to amend the penal code. The protests in 24 cities and towns Thursday took place hours after President Zuzana Čaputová voiced her strong opposition to the changes, saying they could

By ISABELLA VOLMERT Associated Press INDIANPOLIS (AP) — The Indiana state House of Representatives has unanimously passed bill that defines antisemitism as religious discrimination in education code. Opponents to the bill say it could be used to shut down support for Palestinians and criticism of Israel in classrooms and on campuses. The bill now advances

By STEVE KARNOWSKI Associated Press ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Early voting in Minnesota’s Super Tuesday presidential primary begins Friday. The state’s chief elections officer said at a news conference Thursday that his office is prepared to face the challenges of disinformation, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and physical threats and intimidation against poll workers. Secretary of

By AYANNA ALEXANDER and JONATHAN J. COOPER Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — A top No Labels leader says Nikki Haley “would deserve serious consideration” for the group’s nomination if it decides to run a third-party candidate for president. No Labels co-chair and former Sen. Joe Lieberman said Thursday that Haley’s record as governor of South

By JEFF AMY Associated Press ATLANTA (AP) — A billionaire couple is giving $100 million to Atlanta’s Spelman College, which the women’s school says is the largest-ever single donation to a historically Black college or university. Thursday’s donation is by Ronda Stryker and her husband. She’s the billionaire granddaughter of the founder of medical device

By CHRISTINA A. CASSIDY Associated Press When New Hampshire voters cast their ballots in Tuesday’s first-in-the-nation primary, many will do so using scanners that are at least 15 years old — with some potentially dating back to Bill Clinton’s presidency. Election experts say the aging AccuVote ballot tabulators in use across roughly half the state’s