Month: February 2024

By JULIE CARR SMYTH Associated Press COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Stanley J. Aronoff has died at age 91 after a long career that included nearly four decades in the Ohio Statehouse. A partner at the law firm Aronoff founded says he died peacefully Wednesday. The Harvard-educated lawyer from Cincinnati was known as an artful negotiator

By CLAIRE RUSH Associated Press SALEM, Ore. (AP) — The Oregon Supreme Court said Thursday that 10 Republican state senators who staged a record-long walkout last year to stall bills on abortion, transgender health care and gun rights cannot run for reelection. The decision upholds the secretary of state’s decision to disqualify the senators from

By LAURAN NEERGAARD AP Medical Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — Women are far more likely than men to get autoimmune diseases, illnesses like lupus or rheumatoid arthritis that occur when the immune system mistakenly attacks their own bodies. That gender disparity has baffled scientists for decades but new research may finally explain why. Females have two

MOSCOW, Idaho (AP) — Attorneys for the man charged with stabbing four University of Idaho students to death in late 2022 are seeking a change of venue, saying he cannot receive a fair trial in the community where the killings occurred. Anne Taylor, Bryan Kohberger’s lead public defender, this week asked Judge John Judge of

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Authorities have captured a man accused of taking a gun from the scene of a shooting inside a Philadelphia store that left a man dead and a police officer wounded. Forty-two-year-old Jose Quinones-Mendez was arrested Wednesday night in Philadelphia. He’s charged with tampering with evidence, obstruction of justice, and a weapon offense.

By STEPHEN WHYNO AP Sports Writer The Washington Commanders have an agreement with Dan Quinn to hire him as coach, two people with  knowledge of the move tell The Associated Press. Quinn has been the Dallas Cowboys’ defensive coordinator for the past three seasons. He coached the Falcons to a Super Bowl appearance in his

By WAYNE PARRY Associated Press NORTH WILDWOOD, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey is refusing to allow a shore town whose sand dunes have washed away in places to build a bulkhead to protect itself, ruling that no one is in imminent danger. The state Department of Environmental Protection has told North Wildwood it cannot build

By LOLITA C. BALDOR and TARA COPP Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin says he never directed anyone on his staff not to tell the White House he’d been hospitalized and he takes full responsibility for keeping President Joe Biden in the dark for weeks that he had prostate cancer. Austin is

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Police and student protesters have clashed in the center of the Greek capital after a demonstration against government plans to allow privately run universities. Demonstrators on Thursday attacked police cordons, set fire to trash dumpsters and threw stones at riot police near parliament and later during clashes along the capital’s narrow

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — Harvard University’s Hasty Pudding Theatricals has named actor Annette Bening as its 2024 Woman of the Year. Bening recently received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress for playing the prickly long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad in the movie “Nyad.” It’s her fifth Oscar nod. The Pudding is the oldest theatrical organization in

By GARY GERARD HAMILTON Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — Legendary Southern rapper Juvenile says he had been unaware of NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert series when a social media post suggested that he do a performance, setting off a frenzy. Two months later, Juvenile’s performance became one of the most notable of last year. with

By MARIA SHERMAN AP Music Writer LOS ANGELES (AP) — At the 2024 Grammys, boygenius — the major label rock band built of Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus — are up for six awards, tying the likes of Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish. Those include two major categories: record of the year (for

By COLLEEN LONG, ZEKE MILLER and AAMER MADHANI Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden’s is expected to issue an executive order targeting Israeli settlers in the West Bank who’ve been attacking Palestinians in the occupied territory. That’s according to four people familiar with the matter. A senior administration official says the White House

By ED WHITE Associated Press PONTIAC, Mich. (AP) — Jurors in Michigan have seen portions of a journal written by a teen before he shot up his school in 2021. Ethan Crumbley blamed his parents for not getting him mental health care, and he predicted he would spend his life in prison. The boy’s mother,

MOSCOW (AP) — A Russian court has ordered a detained Russian-American journalist to be held in jail for two more months pending her trial on charges of failing to register as a foreign agent. Alsu Kurmasheva, an editor for the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Tatar-Bashkir service, was taken into custody on Oct. 18

By JULIE CARR SMYTH Associated Press COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A task force convened by Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine after a deadly school bus crash is recommending enhanced training for drivers and installing a host of new safety features. The group recommended leaving the issue of school bus seat belts to individual districts. DeWine’s

By WYATTE GRANTHAM-PHILIPS AP Business Writer NEW YORK (AP) — TikTok may look (or sound) a little different when you scroll through the app going forward. Earlier this week, Universal Music Group — which represents big-name artists like Taylor Swift, Bad Bunny and Drake — said that it would no longer allow its music on

LONDON (AP) — A Conservative lawmaker says he will step down when an election is called later this year because of abuse and death threats. Mike Freer has linked the abuse to his support for Israel. Freer represents a London constituency which has a large Jewish population. He says he has received death threats from

PARIS (AP) — France’s two major farmers unions have announced their decision to suspend protests and lift road blockades across the country. The President of Young Farmers union, Arnaud Gaillot, spoke alongside the head of France’s biggest farmers union FNSEA on Thursday and said “we call on our members to suspend the blockades.” The move

By MELISSA RAYWORTH Associated Press Political polarization. Economic struggles. Inequity. Climate change. War. In a world like ours, you can hardly blame people for trying to cushion themselves. From weighted blankets to “cozy” murder mystery novels to restaurants based on childhood comfort foods, the appetite for comfortable things just keeps growing. Now some are seeking

CHICAGO (AP) — More than 200 reporters, photographers and other staffers with the Chicago Tribune and six other newsrooms around the nation began a 24-hour strike Thursday to protest years of “slow-walked” contract negotiations and to demand fair wages. Chicago Tribune Guild member Caroline Kubzansky says the strike includes 76 members of the Chicago Tribune

By NINIEK KARMINI Associated Press JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesia’s top security minister says that President Joko Widodo has accepted his resignation from the Cabinet amid heated political discourse before this month’s election. Mohammad Mahfud M.D. announced on Wednesday that he was resigning to focus on his vice presidential bid on Feb. 14. Mahfud is

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — A military veteran who helped subdue a man who attacked Connecticut’s first Muslim state representative is seeking to have a misdemeanor assault charge erased. Jason Spencer applied for the state’s accelerated rehabilitation program during a court appearance in Hartford on Wednesday. The program would result in the charge being dismissed after

BERLIN (AP) — Austrian prosecutors have appealed a court decision that a man who kept his daughter captive for 24 years and raped her thousands of times, fathering seven children with her, can be moved from psychiatric detention to a regular prison. The state court in Krems on Thursday confirmed a report that prosecutors have

By DASHA LITVINOVA Associated Press Imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny is urging Russians to show their protest of President Vladimir Putin during next month’s presidential balloting by voting at a specific time on election day. In a social media statement relayed from the Arctic penal colony where he is being held, Navalny argued that by

By MATT OTT AP Business Writer The number of Americans filing for jobless benefits rose last week to the highest level in 11 weeks, though layoffs remain at historically low levels. Applications for unemployment benefits climbed to 224,000 for the week ending Jan. 27, an increase of 9,000 from the previous week, the Labor Department

By ILLIA NOVIKOV Associated Press KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine is claiming it used sea drones to sink a Russian corvette in the Black Sea during a nighttime attack. Ukraine’s military intelligence agency published a video on Thursday it said showed naval drones assaulting the Russian missile-armed cutter Ivanovets on Wednesday night, apparently sinking it.

By NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press ROME (AP) — Street artist Maupal, whose cartoon-like depictions of Pope Francis as a “Super Pope” have graced buildings around the Vatican for a decade, has gotten an official stamp of approval. He appeared at a Vatican news conference on Thursday. Maupal, in life Mauro Pallotta, designed a series of

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Authorities are searching for migrants missing off Puerto Rico’s northwest coast after a crowded boat capsized, killing at least two people. Puerto Rico police said Thursday that officers rescued 20 occupants of the boat that capsized near the coastal town of Quebradillas. It wasn’t immediately clear how many people

By KEN SWEET AP Business Writer NEW YORK (AP) — American Express is rolling out several updates to its Delta SkyMiles credit cards that will give additional benefits to users. AmEx is eager to soothe sore Delta Air Lines customers who have considered abandoning the airline after last year’s SkyMiles loyalty fiasco. The updates unveiled

By BRIAN MELLEY Associated Press LONDON (AP) — Climate activist Greta Thunberg is on trial for protesting outside a major oil and gas industry conference in London last year. The 21-year-old Swedish environmental activist went on trial Thursday with four other protesters on a charge of violating a public order. She was among more than

TIRANA, Albania (AP) — Albania’s Institute of Statistics says it suffered a cyberattack which affected some of its systems. The institute said in a statement that it was “a target of a sophisticated cyberattack” on Wednesday. After closing internet links and activating emergency protocols to protect data, experts found that only some of its systems

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran began construction on four more nuclear power plants in the country’s south, with expected total capacity of 5,000 megawatts, the official IRNA news agency reported Thursday. The country has one active nuclear power plant, which went online with help from Russia in 2011. The report said the four new plants

By JON GAMBRELL Associated Press JERUSALEM (AP) — Yemen’s Houthi rebels have fired two ballistic missiles at a Liberian-flagged container ship in the Red Sea. The attack happened Thursday west of Hodeida, a port city in Yemen long held by the rebels. The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, a British military group overseeing Mideast waterways,

By STEPHEN McGRATH and AUREL OBREJA Associated Press CHISINAU, Moldova (AP) — Several thousand people from a Russia-friendly party have protested in front of Moldova’s parliament building to demand the resignation of the pro-Western government. The rally by the Revival Party against the governing Party of Action and Solidarity called for early elections and for