NEW YORK (AP) — The Trump administration said Wednesday it is expanding its sweeping fraud-busting initiative in federal health programs with a nationwide six-month freeze on any new Medicare enrollments by hospice and home health agencies. The moratorium will temporarily stop all new providers in these categories from signing up for reimbursement from Medicare, the […]
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The South Carolina Supreme Court on Wednesday overturned the murder convictions and life sentence of disgraced lawyer Alex Murdaugh in the shooting deaths of his wife and younger son. In a unanimous ruling, the justices said the conduct by the court clerk “egregiously attacked Murdaugh’s credibility” by suggesting to jurors his […]
NEW YORK (AP) — About 70,000 Americans died of drug overdoses last year — about 14% fewer than the previous year, according to preliminary government data. It was the third straight annual drop, making it the longest decline in decades, according to federal data released Wednesday. The 2025 total is about the same as the […]
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Republican senators in Louisiana advanced a plan Wednesday to eliminate one of two majority-Black, Democratic-held congressional seats following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down the state’s U.S. House map as an illegal racial gerrymander. The early morning Senate committee vote came after hours of impassioned testimony from Black […]
WASHINGTON (AP) — David Venturella, a former executive at a private prison operator, will serve as the acting head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Trump administration says, after the agency’s current leader steps down at the end of the month. A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said late Tuesday that Venturella […]
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. wholesale inflation came in hot last month. Producer prices rose 6% from a year earlier, most since December 2022, as the 10-week Iran war pushed up energy prices and put pressure on companies to pass along higher costs to consumers. The Labor Department reported Wednesday that its producer price index — […]
NEW YORK (AP) — Open Society Foundations, the family philanthropy founded by hedge fund billionaire George Soros, is putting $30 million toward groups fighting antisemitism and anti-Muslim hate over the next three years. The major human rights funder pledged Wednesday to strengthen interfaith partnerships and protect those facing heightened threats in response to the rising […]
U.S. President Donald Trump arrived in Beijing on Wednesday for his highly anticipated summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping at a restless moment for a world worried about war, trade and artificial intelligence. The visit occurs at a delicate moment for Trump’s presidency, as his popularity at home has been weighed down by the U.S. […]
NEW YORK (AP) — Senate Democrats plan to force several votes on the Trump administration’s dismantling of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a maneuver aimed at making vulnerable Republicans take politically difficult votes in an election year. The plan to hold the votes Wednesday, shared exclusively with The Associated Press, is tied to rule changes […]
NEW YORK (AP) — Democrats keep winning at the ballot box. And yet Ken Martin, the man leading the Democratic National Committee, is facing a crisis of confidence among party officials who are increasingly concerned about the health of their political machine barely a year into his term. Major donors aren’t giving. Liberal influencers are […]
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Standing behind a downtown bar, Evan Duke smiled when he thought about no longer paying federal income tax on the hundreds of dollars in tips he earns on a busy night pouring beers and mixing drinks. But the 30-year-old said he cannot afford health insurance and worries about how higher costs […]
Americans paid more for their groceries last month, but high gasoline prices resulting from the Iran war were only one of the reasons why. Prices for food eaten at home rose 2.9% in April compared to the same month a year earlier, according to government figures released Tuesday. That was the highest year-over-year inflation rate […]
Director Eugene Yi has always been interested in the term Asian American and Pacific Islander and which ethnicities it includes. “When we’re talking about Asian Americans or Asian people in the U.S., oftentimes it’s people who might look like you and me, and maybe not people who look like (New York City Mayor) Zohran Mamdani,” […]
CHAMBLEE, Ga. (AP) — Being as well known as Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger would be a dream for many ambitious politicians. “I think most people by now know who I am,” the Republican candidate for governor joked Tuesday as someone put up signs with his name before a speech in the Atlanta suburb […]
PARK CITY, Utah (AP) — A Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband and was later found guilty of killing him finds out Wednesday how long she will spend in prison. Kouri Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing her husband’s cocktail with five […]
MODESTO, Calif. (AP) — Before every important test, teacher Nancy Barajas dims the lights, turns on a disco ball and blasts music from her playlist. Her sixth graders dance together as a “pre-celebration” to boost their confidence, then take their exam. Lately, there’s been a lot to celebrate in elementary schools in Modesto, California. Both […]
On the reality television show “The Hills,” Spencer Pratt played something of a villain, blamed for spreading a salacious rumor and driving a wedge between his girlfriend and her best friend. Pratt is casting himself as a hero in his latest venture, a bid to be mayor of Los Angeles, in which he’s promising to […]
Federal prosecutors charged a Missouri man on Tuesday with allegedly sharing instructional bomb-making videos on social media, which were eventually used by the man who killed 14 people and injured dozens in New Orleans on New Year’s Day in 2025. Investigators believe Shamsud-Din Jabbar, who drove a pickup truck down Bourbon Street, downloaded the tutorials […]
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Louisiana officials have agreed to a tentative $4.8 million settlement with the family of Ronald Greene, a Black motorist who died during a violent 2019 roadside arrest carried out by five white officers, two people with knowledge of the agreement told The Associated Press. The settlement would end a federal wrongful […]
WASHINGTON (AP) — From the moment President Donald Trump lands in Beijing on Wednesday, all eyes will be on how much of a spectacle the Chinese government rolls out, such as who lines up to greet him, what music is played and whether Chinese and American children wave flowers and flags. In China’s rigidly hierarchical […]
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — The young sons of Utah author Kouri Richins said ahead of her sentencing hearing Wednesday that they would feel unsafe if their mother was ever released from prison after she was found guilty in March of killing their father. Richins, 35, faces several decades to life in prison on five […]
The city of Austin will pay $35 million to three men and the family of a fourth who were wrongly accused of the 1991 rape and murder of four teenage girls at a yogurt shop, a case that initially sent one of the men to death row and another to life in prison, under a […]
When Jake Rosmarin boarded the MV Hondius, he gleefully posted on social media that the ship would be his home for 35 days as he traveled across the South Atlantic. Now, he is one of 18 Americans under observation at specialized health care facilities designed to treat people with dangerous infectious diseases after three people […]
NEW YORK (AP) — The estranged husband of a prominent New York City art dealer said he wished his spouse was dead before the co-owner of a contemporary art gallery was found stabbed to death in his Brazilian townhouse, a witness testified Tuesday as a murder-for-hire trial got underway in Manhattan. Angela Liriano, a retired […]
