WASHINGTON (AP) — White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, the youngest person to hold the role, will leave at month’s end, President Donald Trump announced Wednesday. Leavitt, 28, just recently returned to the White House after taking a brief leave for the birth of her second child in May. Leavitt, who served Trump as a […]
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A small Kansas town has agreed to pay $850,000 to a former reporter at its weekly newspaper to end her federal lawsuit over a police raid of the paper’s offices in 2023 that ignited a national furor over press freedom. Now-retired Marion County Record reporter Phyllis Zorn said in her lawsuit […]
WASHINGTON (AP) — A former Southern Poverty Law Center official has been charged in the Department of Justice’s broader criminal case against the Alabama-based civil rights group, a lawyer for the ex-official said Wednesday. Heidi Beirich, a political extremism expert who served as the law center’s chief financial officer, was expected to make her initial […]
Washington (AP) — U.S. airstrikes targeting Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen last year killed more than 150 civilians, according to a Pentagon review of the attacks, which comes as concerns rise over civilian casualties during military campaigns under the Trump administration. The unclassified assessment, obtained by The Associated Press, was sent to Congress as part […]
NEW YORK (AP) — Across the U.S., calls to “tax the rich” have become potent political slogans. But even in Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s New York, getting the wealthy to pay more isn’t playing out as smoothly as supporters hoped. What seemed at first like an easy idea — slapping a new tax on people who […]
BAGHDAD (AP) — The U.S. military is on track to pull all of its forces out of Iraq by the end of September, officials said Wednesday, marking the end of a presence that started with the 2003 invasion against Saddam Hussein. Washington and Baghdad agreed in 2024 to wind down the much smaller U.S.-led operations […]
A municipal judge’s appointment in a small Mississippi Delta town has drawn social media backlash, from internet trolls and a few Mississippi politicians, because she is Muslim. But those who know Assma Ali, including a law professor, say the U.S. native is qualified and an upstanding member of Mississippi’s legal community. “We have people from […]
Excerpts from recent editorials in the United States and abroad: ___ Aug. 10 The Washington Post says America’s budget is on the precipice of catastrophe The budget of the federal government is the largest of any organization in human history. It’s larger than the entire economy of every foreign country except China. And it mostly […]
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Jury selection began Wednesday in Meta’s federal trial over claims its platforms have harmed youth mental health and track children in violation of federal law. The trial is scheduled to begin next week and is expected to last six to eight weeks. Meta faces 29 states in the federal multidistrict lawsuit […]
Lawyers for the man charged with killing conservative activist Charlie Kirk say he shouldn’t be eligible for the death penalty because the shooter “hit the intended target” during the assassination last year at a Utah event attended by thousands of people. Defendant Tyler Robinson’s attorneys say prosecutors have not proven that others who attended Kirk’s […]
HOPKINS, Minn. (AP) — A man killed his partner and their child at a Minnesota home daycare on Wednesday before taking his own life, police said. Authorities said other children were at the daycare in Hopkins, but none were injured, and all have been reunited with their parents. Hopkins Police Chief Brent Johnson said another […]
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — David Crowley’s razor-thin primary win over a democratic socialist in swing state Wisconsin sets up a match against a congressman who has voted with President Donald Trump 100% of the time, a dream scenario for Democrats and a potential nightmare for Republicans. Crowley overcame Francesca Hong in dramatic, narrow fashion in […]
MIAMI (AP) — Tropical Storm Cristobal formed Wednesday in the Atlantic Ocean well west of the Azores, forecasters said. There were no coastal watches or warnings in effect, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said, and the storm was forecast to dissipate on Thursday. Meanwhile, in the Pacific Ocean, the NHC initiated advisories on Potential […]
Google on Wednesday unveiled its latest lineup of Pixel phones, with slimmer cameras that include more a powerful zoom and artificial intelligence features designed to help users accomplish things with fewer taps and swipes. With the improvements, the search giant hopes to give users a reason to buy new models and expand the number of […]
President Donald Trump says he slipped away from Air Force One after a trip last month in Turkey because the Secret Service and military wanted him on a “different plane” due to a threat he insisted didn’t scare him. Trump downplayed the extraordinary nature of the subterfuge involved in his flight, which saw him stow […]
NAPPANEE, Ind. (AP) — Hoosier cabinets — the original all-in-one kitchen — were once a mainstay in early 20th-century American homes. Though they have long since fallen out of fashion, a giant, climbable replica has been unveiled outdoors in a northern Indiana town to celebrate the cabinet’s place in kitchen history. The 30-foot (9-meter) model […]
CHICAGO (AP) — First responders and utility crews worked overnight into Wednesday clearing roads from trees and wires that were downed during severe storms in the Midwest that unleashed tornadoes, heavy rains and flash flooding while knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of customers. A 4-year-old boy was killed when a tree fell on […]
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — Parent-teacher conferences can conjure a familiar scene: adults crammed into child-size chairs, listening to teachers run through a list of students’ achievements and struggles. For many families, they can also mean frustration. Today’s school conferences are sometimes 15 to 20 minutes, with little time for parents to ask their own questions. […]
BANGKOK (AP) — Asian shares were mostly higher Wednesday after U.S. stocks slipped a bit further from their records, while oil prices advanced as doubts persisted over when the war with Iran will allow crude to flow freely again. Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 gained 0.6% to 67334.94. In South Korea, the Kospi gained 4% to 6,597.90 […]
PEREIRA, Colombia (AP) — The search for life in the rubble of Colombia’s powerful earthquake grew more desperate on Wednesday as search teams pushed up against a key time threshold to locate survivors with signs of life. The devastation has tested Colombia’s new President Abelardo de la Espriella and his government as it scrambles to […]
Doctors say President Donald Trump’s new executive order on vaccines is misguided and likely to stoke fear and confusion among parents at a time when measles is raging, immunization rates are falling and children are heading back to school. “Many families are finishing up that back-to-school checklist, and among those things is the medical checkup […]
WASHINGTON (AP) — Presidents have taken secret overseas trips in the past for security reasons, with schedules and logistics kept classified until after the fact to protect the commander in chief. But not like the one President Donald Trump took in July. After a NATO summit in Turkey, Trump stowed away in an airport catering […]
President Donald Trump’s administration said that Medicaid will stop paying for gender-affirming surgeries and hormone treatments for transgender minors and the state Children’s Health Insurance Program won’t pay for the treatments for those under 19. The announcement is the latest in a series of policies from the administration aimed at transgender people that began the […]
