Month: August 2024

Associated Press/Report for America TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis isn’t on the ballot — but his education agenda is. DeSantis is once again throwing his weight behind county school board candidates across the state. Though the seats are officially nonpartisan, the Republican governor has endorsed 23 school board candidates on the ballot

LONDON (AP) — A rocket engine has exploded during a test launch at a new spaceport in the Shetland Islands off northern Scotland. German manufacturer Rocket Factory Augsburg, or RFA, said no one was injured in the incident at SaxaVord Spaceport on the remote island of Unst on Monday evening. Video of Monday’s test launch

BMW is recalling more than 720,000 vehicles due to an issue with the water pump’s electrical connector that could potentially lead to a fire. The impacted vehicles have water pumps with insufficient sealing, according to the NHTSA report, and may be susceptible to fluid ingress at the electrical plug connector over time. There is the

Associated Press NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — A suspect who police said confessed to killing 42 women and was being detained over the discovery of dismembered bodies in Kenya’s capital has escaped from police custody, officials said Tuesday. Mohamed Amin, the head of the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, said Collins Jumaisi Khalusha escaped along with 12

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan’s military says security forces have killed three insurgents who were involved in the recent killing of a senior government administrator in the country’s restive southwest. Tuesday’s raid was conducted in Mastung, a district in Baluchistan province where members of the Baluch Liberation Army group ambushed a vehicle carrying regional Deputy Commissioner

AP Economics Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal Reserve officials have said they’re increasingly confident that they’ve nearly tamed inflation. Now, it’s the health of the job market that’s starting to draw their concern. With inflation cooling toward its 2% target, the pace of hiring slowing and the unemployment rate edging up, the Fed is poised

MADRID (AP) — Maria Branyas, an American-born Spaniard considered the world’s oldest person at 117 years old, has died, her family said on Tuesday. In a post on Branyas’ X account, her family wrote in Catalan: “Maria Branyas has left us. She has gone the way she wanted: in her sleep, at peace, and without

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Tropical storm Jongdari has weakened as it moved closer to South Korea’s coast, pelting the country’s southern regions with heavy rain and wind. As of 9 p.m. Tuesday, Jongdari was 18 miles south of the western island of Heuksan. It’s packing maximum sustained winds of 33.5 mph and is expected

Associated Press TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s ruling party says it will hold a vote on Sept. 27 to choose its new leader after Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s surprise announcement that he will be stepping down. The internal election must be held by the end of September, which marks the end of Kishida’s three-year term and

Associated Press BERLIN (AP) — A German court has rejected an appeal by a 99-year-old woman who was convicted of being an accessory to more than 10,000 murders for her role as a secretary to the SS commander of the Nazis’ Stutthof concentration camp during World War II. The Federal Court of Justice on Tuesday

Associated Press BEIJING (AP) — Approvals for new coal-fired power plants have dropped sharply in China after a flurry of permits in the previous two years raised concern about the government’s commitment to limiting climate change. An analysis released Tuesday by Greenpeace East Asia and the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies found that 14 new

JIUPENG, Taiwan (AP) — Taiwan’s military has conducted live-fire drills, launching several surface-to-air missiles in response to growing military pressure from China. The exercises Tuesday took place at the Jiupeng Military Base in a remote area in southern Taiwan. China claims democratically ruled Taiwan as its own territory, to be brought under its control by

Associated Press PORTICELLO, Sicily (AP) — Police divers have resumed searching for six people believed trapped in the hull of a superyacht that sank off Sicily. They include British tech magnate Mike Lynch, who was celebrating his recent acquittal on fraud charges with the people who had defended him at trial. The luxury sailboat, off

Associated Press BURKE, Vt. (AP) — Two bouts of flooding in July has hampered businesses and destinations in an economically depressed section of northeastern Vermont, with some still closed as they continue to repair damage and others urging visitors, who were deterred by the weather, to make the trip. Kingdom Trails, a popular destination for

AP Political Writer SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — This school year, Illinois will become just the fifth state in the nation to prohibit corporal punishment in all schools. Legislation that Gov. JB Pritzker signed into law this month bans physical punishment in private schools while reiterating a prohibition on the practice in public schools implemented 30

Associated Press JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Democratic U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola has advanced to November’s ranked choice general election for Alaska’s lone House seat, along with Republicans Nick Begich and Nancy Dahlstrom. The three were the most prominent candidates in a field of 12 in Alaska’s primary Tuesday. Under Alaska’s open primary system, the top

Associated Press CHICAGO (AP) — The Democratic National Convention is heading into its second day. Former President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama are returning to the city they once called home to take the stage Tuesday night in support of Kamala Harris’ nomination. They’ll speak a day after the unofficial farewell for President Joe Biden,

Associated Press Israel’s demand for lasting control over two strategic corridors in Gaza, which Hamas has long rejected, threatens to unravel cease-fire talks aimed at ending the 10-month-old war, freeing scores of hostages and preventing an even wider conflict. Officials close to the negotiations have said Israel wants to maintain a military presence in a

Associated Press KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — For tens of thousands of men in Uganda’s capital, driving a motorcycle taxi is a way to make a living. For others, the vehicles known as boda-bodas are an essential but menacing means of transport in a city of chaos. They are ubiquitous in East African capitals, but their

AP Business Writer NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks ticked lower Tuesday and snapped an eight-day winning streak, the longest of the year. The S&P 500 slipped 0.2%, but it’s still just 1.2% below its all-time high set last month. It has roared back from its scary summer drop, where the index briefly dropped nearly

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez’s Senate career has come to a close, about a month after a jury convicted him on federal bribery charges. Menendez signaled his resignation last month in a letter to Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy. The governor said Friday he’s tapping a former top aide to succeed the

AP Entertainment Writer LOS ANGELES (AP) — For nearly two decades, Phil Donahue was virtually the only TV talk show host to roam his audience with microphone and make them an essential part of his show. His huge cultural influence — especially with the women who tended to watch television during the day in his

Associated Press ASUNCION, Paraguay (AP) — A pre-dawn police raid targeting the family home of a Paraguayan lawmaker in a notorious drug smuggling haven turned into a chaotic shootout that left the lawmaker dead and the nation on edge. Monday’s killing of Eulalio “Lalo” Gomes, a 67-year-old rancher and lawmaker in Paraguay’s ruling Colorado party,

Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge has denied Hunter Biden’s latest bid to dismiss the tax charges against him, setting the stage for his trial to begin next month in California. Citing a ruling in Florida that threw out a separate prosecution of former President Donald Trump, Hunter Biden’s lawyers had urged the

Associated Press MANILA, Philippines (AP) — The Philippines has agreed to temporarily host a U.S. immigrant visa processing center for a limited number of Afghan nationals aspiring to resettle in America. The treaty allies separately announced the decision on Tuesday but did not provide other details like how many Afghans would be staying in the

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Authorities say a hunter in Alaska has been hospitalized after being mauled by a brown bear and shot during an effort to fend it off. Alaska State Troopers said Monday that the bear attack occurred Saturday on the Kenai Peninsula, southwest of Anchorage. The 32-year-old hunter was seriously injured both in

Associated Press NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Kenya’s new finance minister says some of the proposed taxes that led to weeks of deadly protests earlier this year will be reintroduced through a tax amendment bill as the country struggles to find revenue to pay off debts. The announcement has drawn criticism from some Kenyans whose anger

Associated Press Experts meet in Bangkok this week to advance what would be the first international treaty to tackle the surging problem of plastic pollution. Final treaty negotiations take place in South Korea in November. Yet most of the people who have been closely tracking the negotiations — environmentalists, tribal leaders and residents from communities

Associated Press CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Betty Jean Hall, an Appalachian attorney and federal administrative judge who paved the way for women to enter the coal mining workforce, has died. She was 78. He daughter Tiffany Olsen says Hall died Friday in Cary, N.C., where she had lived since her retirement in 2019. The Kentucky