Author: The Associated Press

Yellen Tells Congress US Expected To Hit Debt Limit Thursday

WASHINGTON (AP) — Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen notified Congress on Friday that the U.S. is projected to reach its debt limit on Thursday and will then resort to “extraordinary measures” to avoid default. In a letter to House and Senate leaders, Yellen said her actions will buy time until Congress can pass legislation that will either raise the nation’s $31.4 trillion borrowing…

Tax Relief Bill Gets Minnesota Governor’s 1st Signature

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Gov. Tim Walz signed his first bill of the 2023 session Thursday, legislation to simplify tax filing and save money for hundreds of thousands of Minnesota residents and businesses, including people with student loans and companies that received pandemic aid. The bill brings Minnesota’s tax code into conformity with federal tax rules. It’s one of several…

Lisa Marie Presley Dead At 54

CALABASAS, Calif. (AP) – Lisa Marie Presley, singer and only child of Elvis, dies at 54 after hospitalization, mother Priscilla Presley says. Earlier in the day Thursday, Los Angeles County paramedics were dispatched to Presley’s home in Calabasas, after receiving a report of a woman in full cardiac arrest. Paramedics performed CPR and brought her to the hospital. The singer…

Garland Appoints Special Counsel To Investigate Biden Docs

WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday appointed a special counsel to investigate the presence of documents with classified markings found at President Joe Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, and at an office in Washington. The announcement followed Biden’s acknowledgement Thursday morning that a document with classified markings from his time as vice president was found in his personal library,…

Biden Says Classified Document Found In ‘Personal Library’

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden acknowledged on Thursday that a document with classified markings from his time as vice president was found in his “personal library” at his home in Wilmington, Delaware, along with other documents found in his garage, days after it was disclosed that sensitive documents were also found at the office of his former institute in Washington. Biden…

Air Travel Across US Thrown Into Chaos After Computer Outage

NEW YORK (AP) — The world’s largest aircraft fleet was grounded for hours by a cascading outage in a government system that delayed or cancelled thousands of flights across the U.S. on Wednesday. The White House initially said that there was no evidence of a cyberattack behind the outage that ruined travel plans for millions of passengers. President Joe Biden…

Gas Stove Ban ‘On The Table’ For Federal Agency: Reports

(Fox 9) — The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is considering a ban on gas stoves as concerns surrounding indoor air pollutants from the appliances continue to rise, according to reports. Bloomberg reported that the agency plans to act on the appliances because the pollutants can cause respiratory and health issues. “This is a hidden hazard,” agency commissioner Richard Trumka Jr. told…

Feds Propose ‘Student Loan Safety Net’ Alongside Forgiveness

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is moving forward with a proposal that would lower student debt payments for millions of Americans now and in the future, offering a new route to repay federal loans under far more generous terms. President Joe Biden announced the repayment plan in August, but it was overshadowed by his sweeping plan to slash or eliminate…

DOJ Reviewing Potentially Classified Docs At Biden Center

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department is reviewing a batch of potentially classified documents found in the Washington office space of President Joe Biden’s former institute, the White House said Monday. Special counsel to the president Richard Sauber said “a small number of documents with classified markings” were discovered as Biden’s personal attorneys were clearing out the offices of the…

Chief: 6-Year-Old Boy Shot Virginia Teacher During Class

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (AP) — A Virginia police chief says a 6-year-old student fired the handgun that wounded a first-grade teacher while she was teaching class. Newport News Police Chief Steve Drew on Monday offered the first description of how the shooting happened. He had previously said that the shooting was not accidental and declined to elaborate. He said the…

Bills Safety Hamlin Back In Buffalo To Resume Recovery

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. (AP) — Doctors who treated Damar Hamlin said the Bills safety was back in Buffalo on Monday, an uplifting sign of the remarkable progress he has made a week after going into cardiac arrest and having to be resuscitated on the field during a game in Cincinnati. Hamlin was discharged from the University of Cincinnati Medical Center in the…

McCarthy’s Next Big Task: Win GOP Support For House Rules

WASHINGTON (AP) — After an epic 15-ballot election to become House speaker, Republican Kevin McCarthy faces his next big test in governing a fractious, slim majority: passing a rules package to govern the House. The drafting and approval of a set of rules is normally a fairly routine legislative affair, but in these times, it’s the next showdown for the embattled McCarthy. To become speaker…

US Approves Alzheimer’s Drug That Modestly Slows Disease

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. health officials on Friday approved a closely watched Alzheimer’s drug that modestly slows the brain-robbing disease, albeit with potential safety risks that patients and their doctors will have to carefully weigh. The drug, Leqembi, is the first that’s been convincingly shown to slow the decline in memory and thinking that defines Alzheimer’s by targeting the disease’s…

2 Years After Jan. 6, Speaker Scrap Paralyzes Congress Again

WASHINGTON (AP) — Such are the fractures in the country, between the political parties and inside the Republican Party itself, that one time-honored specialty of Washington — memorializing and coming together over national trauma — isn’t what it used to be. Friday’s moment of silence at the Capitol to contemplate the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on it was expected to draw mostly…

McCarthy Fails For 3rd Long Day In GOP House Speaker Fight

WASHINGTON (AP) — For a long and frustrating third day, divided Republicans left the speaker’s chair of the U.S. House sitting empty Thursday, as party leader Kevin McCarthy failed and failed again in an excruciating string of ballots to win enough GOP votes to seize the chamber’s gavel. Pressure was building as McCarthy lost a seventh, eighth and historic ninth round of…

Bills: Safety Damar Hamlin Showing ‘Remarkable Improvement’

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. (AP) — Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin has shown what physicians treating him are calling “remarkable improvement over the past 24 hours,” the team announced Thursday, three days after the player went into cardiac arrest and had to be resuscitated on the field. “While still critically ill, he has demonstrated that he appears to be neurologically intact,”…

Biden Restricting Nicaraguans, Cubans And Haitians At Border

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration on Thursday said it would immediately begin turning away Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans who cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally, a major expansion of an existing effort to stop Venezuelans attempting to enter the U.S. Instead, the administration will accept 30,000 people per month from the four nations for two years and offer the ability to legally…

McCarthy Fails Again In Bid For Speaker, GOP In Disarray

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans flailed through a second day of multiple balloting Wednesday, unable to elect Rep. Kevin McCarthy as House speaker or to come up with a new strategy to end the political chaos that has tarnished the start of their new majority. For a fifth time, Republicans nominated McCarthy as their speaker as the House plunged deeper into disarray….

Idaho Slayings Suspect Agrees To Extradition To Face Charges

STROUDSBURG, Pa. (AP) — A criminology graduate student arrested for the November slayings of four University of Idaho students agreed Tuesday to be extradited from Pennsylvania, where he was taken into custody last week, to face charges in Idaho. Bryan Kohberger, a 28-year-old doctoral student and teaching assistant at Washington State University, was arrested early Friday by state police at…

McCarthy Falls Short In First Vote For House Speaker

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican leader Kevin McCarthy was dealt a historic defeat in first-round voting Tuesday to become House speaker, vowing to try again but sending the new Congress into opening day tumult as conservative colleagues opposed his leadership. McCarthy had pledged a “battle on the floor” for as long as it takes to overcome right-flank fellow Republicans who were refusing to…

Evers To Push For Legal Abortions, Expanded Medicaid

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Gov. Tony Evers plans to outline a largely liberal agenda in his second inaugural address Tuesday, though he’ll also call for Republicans and fellow Democrats to work together on issues that have long divided them, including protecting abortion rights, expanding Medicaid coverage, legalizing marijuana and fighting water pollution. Evers and other constitutional officers elected in November, along…

Bills’ Hamlin In Critical Condition After Collapse On Field

CINCINNATI (AP) — Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin was in critical condition after he collapsed on the field Monday night, the NFL said, and Buffalo’s game against the Cincinnati Bengals was suspended. Hamlin was administered CPR on the field, ESPN reported, and he was surrounded by teammates, some of them in tears, after he was hurt while tackling Bengals receiver…

Idaho Slayings Suspect’s Family Voices Sympathy For Victims

STROUDSBURG, Pa. (AP) — Relatives of a man arrested in Pennsylvania in the slayings of four University of Idaho students expressed sympathy for the victims’ families but also vowed to support him and promote “his presumption of innocence.” Bryan Kohberger, 28, is eager to be exonerated and plans to tell a judge Tuesday in Pennsylvania that he will not fight extradition to Idaho, said…

Transgender Woman’s Scheduled Execution Would Be US First

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Unless Missouri Gov. Mike Parson grants clemency, Amber McLaughlin, 49, will become the first openly transgender woman executed in the U.S. She is scheduled to die by injection Tuesday for killing a former girlfriend in 2003. McLaughlin’s attorney, Larry Komp, said there are no court appeals pending. The clemency request focuses on several issues, including McLaughlin’s traumatic…

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s Body Lies In State At Vatican

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI ’s body, his head resting on a pair of crimson pillows, lay in state in St. Peter’s Basilica on Monday as thousands of people filed by to pay tribute to the pontiff who shocked the world by retiring a decade ago. As daylight broke, 10 white-gloved Papal Gentlemen — lay assistants to pontiffs and papal households…

Jan. 6 Takeaways: Final Revelations From Investigation

WASHINGTON (AP) — Destroyed documents. Suggestions of pardoning violent rioters. Quiet talks among cabinet officials about whether then-President Donald Trump should be removed from office. Interview transcripts released by House investigators in recent days — more than 100 so far — give further insight into the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and the weeks leading up to it, as Trump tried to overturn…

Suspect In Deaths Of Idaho Students Arrested In Pennsylvania

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A suspect in the killings of four University of Idaho students was arrested in eastern Pennsylvania, a law enforcement official said Friday. Arrest paperwork filed in Monroe County Court said Bryan Christopher Kohberger, 28, was being held for extradition to Idaho on a warrant for first degree murder. A law enforcement official confirmed the arrest to The Associated…

Trump’s Tax Returns Released After Long Fight With Congress

(AP) — Democrats in Congress released six years of former President Donald Trump’s tax returns on Friday, the culmination of a yearslong effort to learn more about the finances of a onetime business mogul who broke decades of political precedent when he refused to voluntarily release the information as he sought the White House. The returns, which include redactions of some…

Death Toll Climbs As Blizzard-Battered Buffalo Area Digs Out

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — Roads reopened Thursday in storm-besieged Buffalo as authorities continued searching for people who may have died or are stuck and suffering after last week’s blizzard. The driving ban in New York’s second-most-populous city was lifted just after midnight Thursday, Mayor Byron Brown announced. At least 40 deaths in western New York, most of them in Buffalo, have been…

Southwest Nosedive Continues: 2,300 More Canceled Flights

DALLAS (AP) — Southwest Airlines continues to slash about two-thirds of its daily schedule, canceling another 2,350 flights Thursday, though most of the planes that flew arrived on time. Southwest is struggling to recover after being overwhelmed by a winter storm that left hundreds of pilots and flight attendants stranded out of position to operate flights. Other airlines are back…

US Will Require COVID-19 Testing For Travelers From China

(AP) — The U.S. announced new COVID-19 testing requirements Wednesday for all travelers from China, joining other nations imposing restrictions because of a surge of infections. The increase in cases across China follows the rollback of the nation’s strict anti-virus controls. China’s “zero COVID” policies had kept the country’s infection rate low but fueled public frustration and crushed economic growth….

Southwest Cancels More Flights, Draws Federal Investigation

DALLAS (AP) – Southwest Airlines scrubbed thousands of flights again Tuesday in the aftermath of the massive winter storm that wrecked Christmas travel plans across the U.S., and the federal government said it would investigate why the company lagged so far behind other carriers. A day after most U.S. airlines had recovered from the storm, Southwest called off about 2,600 more flights on…

Supreme Court Keeps Immigration Limits In Place Indefinitely

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is keeping pandemic-era limits on immigration in place indefinitely, dashing hopes of immigration advocates who had been anticipating their end this week. In a ruling Tuesday, the Supreme Court extended a temporary stay that Chief Justice John Roberts issued last week. Under the court’s order, the case will be argued in February and the stay will…

Co-Leader Of Whitmer Kidnapping Plot Gets 16 Years In Prison

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — The co-leader of a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was sentenced Tuesday to 16 years in prison for conspiring to abduct the Democrat and blow up a bridge to ease an escape. Adam Fox’s sentence is the longest of anyone convicted in the plot so far, though it’s significantly shorter than the life sentence that…

Making Pig Livers Humanlike In Quest To Ease Organ Shortage

EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. (AP) – The ghostly form floating in a large jar had been the robust reddish-brown of a healthy organ just hours before. Now it’s semi-translucent, white tubes like branches on a tree showing through. This is a pig liver that’s gradually being transformed to look and act like a human one, part of scientists’ long quest to ease the…

First Congress Revealed Biden’s Generational Ambition

WASHINGTON (AP) — When he ran for the White House, Joe Biden told voters his presidency would be a bridge to the next generation. His first two years on the job have revealed it to be a much more ambitious venture. As he nears the halfway mark on his first term, Biden is pointing to legacy-defining achievements on climate change, domestic manufacturing…

Democrats To Wield Power When Minnesota Legislature Convenes

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Democrats will control both the House and Senate for the first time in eight years when the Minnesota Legislature convenes Jan. 3, giving them power to decide how to use a $17.6 billion projected budget surplus — and new opportunities to pass liberal initiatives that the outgoing Senate Republican majority had blocked. The main job of Minnesota’s legislative sessions…

Holiday Sales Up 7.6% Despite The Squeeze Of Inflation

NEW YORK (AP) — Holiday sales rose this year as American spending remained resilient during the critical shopping season despite surging prices on everything from food to rent, according to one measure. Holiday sales rose 7.6, a slower pace than the 8.5% increase from a year earlier when shoppers began spending the money they had saved during the early part…

150 Associated Press Images From 2022

Associated Press (ASSOCIATED PRESS) – Taken together, they can convey the feeling of a world convulsing — 150 Associated Press images from across 2022, showing the fragments that make up our lives and freezing in time the moments that somehow, these days, seem to pass faster than ever. As history in 2022 unfolded and the world lurched forward — or,…

Victim Fatally Shot At Mall Of America Was 19; Police Chief: ‘This Is Just Stupid, Stupid, Stupid’

Kerem Yücel/Minnesota Public Radio via AP BLOOMINGTON, Minn. (AP) — A teenager was killed during a shooting at the Mall of America on Friday that sent frightened customers at the nation’s largest shopping center racing into a lockdown just before the holiday weekend, police said. Bloomington Police Chief Booker Hodges said the victim was a 19-year-old man. A bystander’s jacket…

Biden Signs Defense Bill That Repeals Troop Vaccine Mandate

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden signed a nearly $858 billion defense spending bill into law Friday despite his opposition to a Republican-backed provision in the legislation that repeals the COVID-19 vaccination requirement for U.S. troops. Biden had agreed with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s determination that lifting the mandate was not in the best interest of troops or the military,…

Jan. 6 Report: Trump ‘Lit That Fire’ Of Capitol Insurrection

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House Jan. 6 committee’s final report asserts that Donald Trump criminally engaged in a “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the lawful results of the 2020 presidential election and failed to act to stop his supporters from attacking the Capitol, concluding an extraordinary 18-month investigation into the former president and the violent insurrection two years ago. Trump “lit that fire,”…