Associated Press MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A Democratic-backed Milwaukee judge won the high stakes Wisconsin Supreme Court race Tuesday, ensuring liberals will take over majority control of the court for the first time in 15 years with the fate of the state’s abortion ban on the line. Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Janet Protasiewicz, 60, defeated former Justice Dan Kelly, who previously worked for…
NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, according to several news reports. He entered the plea Tuesday during a brief arraignment in a lower Manhattan courtroom as prosecutors unsealed a grand jury indictment. The charges stem from a hush money payment to a porn actor during Trump’s…
BRUSSELS (AP) — Finland joined the NATO military alliance Tuesday, dealing a major blow to Russian President Vladimir Putin with a historic realignment of Europe’s post-Cold War security landscape triggered by Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. The Nordic country’s membership doubles Russia’s border with the world’s biggest security alliance. Finland had adopted neutrality after its defeat by the Soviets in World War II, but…
NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump arrived Tuesday at a Manhattan courthouse ahead of his arraignment on criminal charges stemming from a hush money payment to a porn actor during his 2016 campaign. Trump pumped his fist as he exited Trump Tower minutes earlier, then traveled in an eight-car motorcade down a highway along the East River to the downtown courthouse, where’s…
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. will send Ukraine about $500 million in ammunition and equipment and will spend more than $2 billion to buy an array of munitions, radar and other weapons in the future, U.S. officials said, as the Ukrainian troops prepare for a spring offensive against Russian forces. The ammunition rounds, along with grenade launchers and vehicles, will be…
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — A federal court ruling that a Minnesota law prohibiting 18-to-20-year-olds from obtaining permits to carry handguns in public is unconstitutional remained on hold Monday while the state pursues a potential appeal. A reluctant U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez struck down the state law on Friday, citing a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision on gun rights last year….
WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — President Joe Biden is set to tour a clean energy technology manufacturer in suburban Minneapolis on Monday as part of his effort to highlight his investment agenda ahead of an expected reelection campaign. Biden plans to highlight job growth and investments nationwide while pushing clean energy and manufacturing in the U.S. during his visit to engine maker Cummins…
LIMON, Costa Rica (AP) — In this colorful Caribbean port, where cruise ship passengers are whisked to jungle adventures in Costa Rica’s interior, locals try to be home by dark and police patrol with high-caliber guns in the face of soaring drug violence. Costa Rica logged a record 657 homicides last year and Limon – with a homicide rate five…
NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump will be arraigned Tuesday after his indictment in Manhattan, his formal surrender and arrest presenting the historic, shocking scene of a former U.S. commander in chief forced to stand before a judge. Court officials confirmed the timing on Friday. When Trump turns himself in, he’ll be booked mostly like anyone else facing charges, mugshot…
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The Minneapolis City Council on Friday approved an agreement with the state to revamp policing, nearly three years after a city officer killed George Floyd. The state Department of Human Rights issued a blistering report last year that said the police department had engaged in a pattern of race discrimination for at least a decade. City leaders subsequently…
(AP) — A lawyer for Donald Trump said Thursday he’s been told that the former president has been indicted in New York on charges involving payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign to silence claims of an extramarital sexual encounter. It becomes the first ever criminal case against a former U.S. president and a jolt to Trump’s bid to retake…
FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. (AP) — Nine people were killed in a crash involving two Army Black Hawk medical evacuation helicopters conducting a nighttime training exercise in Kentucky, Army officials said Thursday. Nondice Thurman, a spokesperson for Fort Campbell, said the deaths happened Wednesday night in southwestern Kentucky during a routine training mission. A statement from Fort Campbell said the two…
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden won’t veto a Republican-led measure to end the national COVID emergency, despite having expressed strong objections against it earlier this year, ensuring the bill is on an easy path to becoming law. It marks the second time in the new Congress that the Biden administration has signaled opposition to a Republican measure, rallying most Democrats in Congress…
WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress on Wednesday approved a resolution to overturn the Biden administration’s protections for the nation’s waterways that Republicans have criticized as a burden on business, advancing a measure that President Joe Biden has promised to veto. Republicans have targeted the Biden administration’s protections for thousands of small streams, wetlands and other waterways, labeling it an environmental overreach that harms…
(AP) — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday approved selling the leading version of naloxone without a prescription, setting the overdose-reversing drug on course to become the first opioid treatment drug to be sold over the counter. It’s a move that some advocates have long sought as a way to improve access to a life-saving drug, though the exact…
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The person who killed three children and three adults at a Christian school in Nashville legally bought seven firearms in recent years and hid the guns from their parents before the attack, police said Tuesday. The violence Monday at The Covenant School is the latest school shooting to roil the nation. Three 9-year-old students were killed, as well…
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. (AP) — A faulty pipe that allowed water containing a radioactive isotope of hydrogen to leak at a Minnesota nuclear power plant has been repaired and the plant will return to service in the next week, a spokesman for the energy company said Tuesday. Meanwhile, a state agency said a fish kill that claimed at least 230 fish in the…
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A woman wielding two “assault-style” rifles and a pistol killed three 9-year-old students and three adults at a private Christian school in Nashville on Monday in the latest in a series of mass shootings in a country growing increasingly unnerved by bloodshed in schools. The suspect, who was killed by police, is believed to be a former…
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. government will restrict its use of commercial spyware tools that have been used to surveil human rights activists, journalists and dissidents around the world, under an executive order issued Monday by President Joe Biden. The order responds to growing U.S. and global concerns about programs that can capture text messages and other cellphone data. Some programs —…
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Two adults and three children were killed in a shooting at a private Christian grade school in Nashville on Monday, hospital officials said. While police said the suspect is dead after a confrontation with officers, it was not immediately clear whether the shooter was among the five people pronounced dead at the hospital. The violence occurred…
ROLLING FORK, Miss. (AP) — Help began pouring into one of the poorest regions of the U.S. after a deadly tornado tore a path of destruction across a long swath of Mississippi, even as furious new storms Sunday struck across the Deep South. At least 25 people were killed and dozens of others were injured in Mississippi as the massive storm…
ST. JOHNSBURY, Vermont (AP) — The immigration deal announced Friday by U.S. President Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau aims to shut down a process that has enabled tens of thousands of immigrants from across the world to move between the two countries along a back road between New York state and Quebec. Since early 2017, so many migrants entered…
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans on Friday narrowly passed legislation to press a midterm campaign promise to give parents greater say in what’s taught in public schools even as critics complained the “parents’ rights” bill would fuel a far-right movement that’s resulted in book bans, restrictions aimed at transgender students and raucous school board meetings across the country. Speaker Kevin…
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) – Democratic legislative leaders and Gov. Tim Walz agreed Tuesday on broad budget targets that add up to nearly $17.9 billion in new spending, including $3 billion for tax cuts, but the details of where the money will go remain to be negotiated. Agreeing on the targets was a necessary step so that legislators can begin work in earnest on setting a…
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers and his fellow Democrats worked Tuesday to keep the spotlight on abortion ahead of next month’s state Supreme Court election, resurrecting a bill that would repeal the state’s 1849 ban on the practice. Democrats introduced the bill in June days before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973…
NEW YORK (AP) — Facing the possibility of criminal charges, Donald Trump waited it out in Florida on Tuesday as New York braced for disruptions that could follow an indictment. Republican contenders in the 2024 race sized up the impact a prosecution could have on a campaign in which the former president is a leading contender. Trump over the weekend claimed without evidence that…
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) – Minnesota is moving to fortify its status as a refuge for patients from restrictive states who travel to the state to seek abortions — and to protect providers who serve them. The state House on Monday passed a bill by a 68-62 vote to prohibit enforcement in Minnesota of laws, subpoenas, judgements or extradition requests from other states…
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden issued the first veto of his presidency Monday in an early sign of shifting White House relations with the new Congress since Republicans took control in January. He’s seeking to kill a Republican measure that bans the government from considering environmental impacts or potential lawsuits when making investment decisions for Americans’ retirement plans. It’s just the…
NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon plans to eliminate 9,000 more jobs in the next few weeks, CEO Andy Jassy said in a memo to staff on Monday. The job cuts would mark the second largest round of layoffs in the company’s history, adding to the 18,000 employees the company said it would lay off in January. In the memo, Jassy said the…
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Donald Trump’s calls for protests ahead of his anticipated indictment in New York have generated mostly muted reactions from supporters, with even some of his most ardent loyalists dismissing the idea as a waste of time or a law enforcement trap. The ambivalence raises questions about whether Trump, though a leading Republican contender in the 2024 presidential race who…
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Pentagon study has found high rates of cancer among military pilots and for the first time has shown that ground crews who fuel, maintain and launch those aircraft are also getting sick. The data had long been sought by retired military aviators who have raised alarms for years about the number of air and ground crew members they…
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The former Minneapolis police officer serving time for the 2020 murder of George Floyd pleaded guilty Friday to two counts of tax evasion. Derek Chauvin pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting, failing to file tax returns to the state of Minnesota for the years 2016 and 2017. in a Minnesota court before Washington County Judge Sheridan Hawley. Chauvin appeared via…
ST.. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Minnesota regulators said Thursday they’re monitoring the cleanup of a leak of 400,000 gallons of radioactive water from Xcel Energy’s Monticello nuclear power plant, and the company said there’s no danger to the public. “Xcel Energy took swift action to contain the leak to the plant site, which poses no health and safety risk to the local…
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland’s president said Thursday that his country plans to give Ukraine around a dozen MiG-29 fighter jets, which would make it the first NATO member to fulfill the Ukrainian government’s increasingly urgent requests for warplanes. President Andrzej Duda said Poland would hand over four of the Soviet-made warplanes “within the next few days” and that the rest needed…
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Minnesota courts will allow greater audiovisual coverage of criminal proceedings starting next year under an order filed Wednesday by the Minnesota Supreme Court, but the rules will nonetheless remain more restrictive than those in many other states. Worldwide broadcasts and livestreams of the 2021 trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin and his conviction for murdering…
LAS VEGAS (AP) — President Joe Biden on Wednesday said his administration was focused “intensely” on lowering health care costs and took aim at “MAGA” Republicans who he said are intent on dialing back Medicare coverage for millions of Americans. Biden used a speech in Las Vegas where he was wrapping a three-day Western swing to make the case there…
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Republicans who control the Wisconsin Legislature unveiled a bill Wednesday that would create rape and incest exceptions to the state’s 1849 abortion ban and clarify when abortions that protect the health of the mother would be allowed, but would not return the same rights that were in place under Roe v. Wade. The move comes as…
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Legislation to legalize recreational marijuana for adults in Minnesota underwent a major rewrite Tuesday with the addition of new language to regulate and protect the state’s burgeoning industry in low-potency edibles and drinkables. Low-potency products containing THC derived from industrial hemp instead of full-strength cannabis have been legal in Minnesota since last year. But the law that…
Associated Press ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Ryan Redington, a two-time Beargrease Champion, has won the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, which his grandfather helped co-found. Redington’s dog team pulled him down Nome’s main street shortly after noon on Tuesday, sliding him under the iconic burled arch finish line. The 40-year-old Redington will pocket about $50,000 for the win. Redington’s grandfather,…
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House voted unanimously on Friday to declassify U.S. intelligence information about the origins of COVID-19, a sweeping show of bipartisan support near the third anniversary of the start of the deadly pandemic. The 419-0 vote was final approval of the bill, sending it to President Joe Biden’s desk to be signed into law. Debate was brief and to…
BERLIN (AP) — Shots were fired inside a building used by Jehovah’s Witnesses in the northern German city of Hamburg on Thursday evening, and an unspecified number of people were killed or wounded, police said. The shooting took place in the Gross Borstel district, a few kilometers (miles) north of the downtown area of Germany’s second-biggest city. “We only know…
CIUDAD VICTORIA, Mexico (AP) — A letter claiming to be from the Mexican drug cartel blamed for abducting four Americans and killing two of them condemned the violence and said the gang turned over to authorities its own members who were responsible. In a letter obtained by The Associated Press through a Tamaulipas state law enforcement source, the Scorpions faction of the…
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden’s upcoming budget proposal aims to cut deficits by nearly $3 trillion over the next decade, the White House said Wednesday. That deficit reduction goal is significantly higher than the $2 trillion that Biden had promised in his State of the Union address last month. It also is a sharp contrast with House Republicans, who have called for a…
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Tuesday proposed new taxes on the rich to help fund Medicare, saying the plan would help to extend the insurance program’s solvency by 25 years and provide a degree of middle-class stability to millions of older adults. In his plan, Biden is overtly declaring that the wealthy ought to shoulder a heavier tax burden. His budget would…
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. employers posted 10.8 million job openings in January, indicating the American job market continues to run too hot for the inflation fighters at the Federal Reserve. Job openings fell from 11.2 million in December but remained high by historical standards, the Labor Department reported Wednesday, but layoffs rose in January. The American job market has been…
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin Republicans are preparing to again block a new policy from Democratic Gov. Tony Evers that requires students to get vaccinated twice against meningitis and tightening student chickenpox vaccination mandates. The Legislature’s GOP-controlled rules committee held a public hearing on the policy Tuesday. A committee vote to block the policy could soon follow, perhaps within days….
CIUDAD VICTORIA, Mexico (AP) — Two Americans whose abduction in Mexico was captured in a video that showed them caught in a cartel shootout have been found dead, officials said Tuesday. Two others who were kidnapped with them were found alive, with one wounded. Tamaulipas Gov. Américo Villarreal did not provide details on the extent of the wounded person’s injuries….
(AP) — Greenhouse gas emissions from the way humans produce and consume food could add nearly 1 degree of warming to the Earth’s climate by 2100, according to a new study. Continuing the dietary patterns of today will push the planet past the 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) limit of warming sought under the Paris climate agreement to avoid the…
(AP) — Shoppers could soon find it easier to tell if those grocery store steaks or pork chops were really “Made in the USA.” Federal agriculture officials on Monday released new requirements that would allow labels on meat, poultry or eggs to use that phrase — or “Product of USA” — only if they come from animals “born, raised, slaughtered and processed…
WASHINGTON (AP) — A skin lesion removed from President Joe Biden’s chest last month was a basal cell carcinoma — a common form of skin cancer — his doctor said Friday, adding that no further treatment was required. Dr. Kevin O’Connor, the White House doctor who has served as Biden’s longtime physician, said “all cancerous tissue was successfully removed” during…
