WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump says the U.S. Navy is clearing Iranian mines from the Strait of Hormuz, a vital sea route for oil shipments whose disruption is increasingly threatening the global economy. Sweeping for underwater explosives could take months despite a tenuous ceasefire between the United States and Iran in the weekslong war, […]
PORTSMOUTH, Va. (AP) — When President Donald Trump tried to cancel five massive offshore wind projects under construction along the East Coast, it wasn’t just environmentalists who cried foul. Nine Republicans in the U.S. House sent a letter to administration officials demanding an explanation. “America’s energy policy should be grounded in facts, fiscal responsibility, and […]
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — The post-Oct. 7 order in the Middle East — such as it is — is barely pieced together by conditional ceasefires and mutual threats. Iran has suffered severe blows, yet not enough to shake its posture at the negotiating table. Its allies Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza are […]
ISLAMABAD (AP) — U.S. envoys are expected to travel to Pakistan on Saturday in a new bid to salvage ceasefire talks with Tehran, even as Iran ruled out direct negotiations with U.S. representatives as its top diplomat arrived in Islamabad. The latest effort to broker a deal comes as an indefinite ceasefire has paused most […]
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Every day, visitors from around the world make their way to the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art — not necessarily for the galleries inside, but for a statue of a fictional boxer from South Philadelphia. The bronze figure of Rocky Balboa — arms raised in victory, clad in boxing trunks […]
NEW YORK (AP) — Stanley Richards knows how bleak life can be at Rikers Island, New York City’s notorious jail complex. As a young man, he spent two years locked up there for robbery. Now, he runs the place as the city’s new Department of Correction commissioner. In January, Mayor Zohran Mamdani tapped Richards to […]
LONDON (AP) — The challenge for King Charles III as he embarks on this week’s state visit to the U.S. is, as always, to live up to his mother’s example. The late Queen Elizabeth II wowed Congress in 1991 with a speech that celebrated the shared democratic traditions of Britain and the United States, quoted […]
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. military said it launched another strike Friday on a boat accused of ferrying drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing two people. The Trump administration’s campaign of blowing up alleged drug-trafficking vessels in Latin American waters has persisted since early September and killed at least 183 people in total. Other […]
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves on Friday announced he will call a special session for judicial redistricting once the U.S. Supreme Court rules on a Voting Rights Act case that has broad implications for minority representation throughout the country. During oral arguments last fall, the Supreme Court appeared poised to strike down […]
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Louisiana police say a podcast helped them solve the decades-old killing of a 16-year-old girl and announced Friday that four men now face criminal charges in connection with her rape and murder. In 1982, teenager Roxanne Sharp was killed in the woods of St. Tammany Parish, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) […]
A jury on Friday convicted a man in the 1993 killing of a woman near Buffalo, ending his third trial after a legal odyssey that has stretched on for decades. Brian Scott Lorenz, 56, was originally convicted in 1994, along with another man, James Pugh, of murdering Deborah Meindl. The 33-year-old nursing student and mother […]
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Codi High Elk was a shy teenager most comfortable caring for horses on her family’s ranch on the Cheyenne River Reservation when she threw away an application to compete in a new pageant for Indigenous women — an application her brother fished out of the trash, sending her on a path […]
Former Associated Press photographer Jack Thornell ‘s Pulitzer Prize-winning picture of a shotgun-felled James Meredith looking back toward his would-be assassin on a Mississippi highway in 1966 became an enduring image of the Civil Rights Movement. Thornell died Thursday at a hospital in the New Orleans suburb of Metairie from complications from kidney disease. He […]
Quick-thinking middle school students in Mississippi kept their school bus from crashing after their driver passed out while on a four-lane highway. The bus had just left Hancock Middle School in Hancock County on Wednesday with about 40 children on board when Leah Taylor, 46, had an asthma attack. She reached for her medication but […]
WASHINGTON (AP) — Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Friday that the U.S. does not plan to renew a waiver allowing the purchase of Russian oil and petroleum products that are currently at sea. And, he said, a renewal of the one-time waiver for Iranian oil at sea is totally off the table. “Not the Iranians,” […]
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has made it clear he expects his choice for Federal Reserve chair to quickly cut interest rates once he takes office. Yet Americans shouldn’t pencil in lower borrowing costs for mortgages, auto loans, or business loans just yet. The odds of Kevin Warsh becoming chair by the time Jerome […]
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Louisiana authorities have charged a 17-year-old with murder, and they are searching for another suspect after bystanders were caught in the crossfire of a shooting at a mall in Baton Rouge on Thursday that killed one teenage girl. During a news conference Friday, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry vowed to crack […]
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Maine’s Democratic governor on Friday vetoed what would have been the country’s first state moratorium on the construction of data centers. The bill passed by the Democrat-controlled state legislature would have instituted a moratorium for more than a year on data centers above a certain size and created a special council […]
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Technology tycoons Elon Musk and Sam Altman are poised to face off in a high-stakes trial revolving around the alleged betrayal, deceit and unbridled ambition that blurred the bickering billionaires’ once-shared vision for the development of artificial intelligence. The trial, which is scheduled to begin Monday with jury selection, centers on […]
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas state regulators found nearly two dozen deficiencies in the emergency operations plan submitted in Camp Mystic’s bid to reopen less than a year after 27 children and counselors were killed in a devastating flood. Camp Mystic’s owners have applied for a license to reopen the all-girls Christian camp in late […]
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — An appeals court on Friday reversed an $8.2 million defamation verdict awarded to Alabama politician Roy Moore, who sued a super PAC over a 2017 political ad detailing misconduct accusations against him. The panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Moore failed to prove the organization acted […]
The Trump administration’s historic move to reclassify state-licensed medical marijuana as a less-dangerous drug was cheered by some advocates but for others, it fell far short for the thousands still incarcerated on federal cannabis-related convictions. The executive order, which acting Attorney General Todd Blanche signed Thursday, does not address current penalties for possessing and selling […]
New York questionable commercial driver’s licenses for immigrants since an audit uncovered problems last year. New York joins California in suing over Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s efforts to tighten up the rules for which immigrants can qualify to get a commercial driver’s license and make sure the states are properly enforcing the existing rules. The […]
WASHINGTON (AP) — A former reality television star is in the sixth year of his presidency. His Cabinet includes a former wrestling executive along with a onetime “Real World” cast member who was filmed decades ago dancing in nothing but a towel. More than a half-dozen stars from the “Real Housewives” franchise just swung through […]
