Month: June 2023

By MIKE HOUSEHOLDER and COREY WILLIAMS Associated Press DETROIT (AP) — Smoky air from Canada’s wildfires shrouded broad swaths of the U.S. from Minnesota to New York and Kentucky on Wednesday, prompting warnings to stay inside and exacerbating health risks for people already suffering from industrial pollution. The impacts are particularly hard on poor and

By DÁNICA COTO Associated Press SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Authorities in the Cayman Islands say a controversial legislator and former premier has been charged with rape and indecent assault. McKeeva Bush pleaded not guilty to the charges Wednesday that police said stem from a 2000 incident. Bush told The Associated Press in a

By KEN SWEET AP Business Writer NEW YORK (AP) — The nation’s 23 largest banks passed the Federal Reserve’s so-called stress tests this year, a sign that the nation’s banking system remains resilient despite the recent banking crisis that that led to the failure of three banks. But Wednesday’s results did show some relative weakness

By WAYNE PARRY Associated Press ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — Atlantic City’s casinos are trying to understand why New Jersey lawmakers plan to drastically shorten the length of time that internet gambling can be conducted in the state. A state Assembly panel on Tuesday amended a bill that would have extended internet gambling for another

By The Associated Press LOS ANGELES (AP) — Welcome Wren Alexander Stephens, the fourth child of John Legend and Chrissy Teigen. The baby was born June 19 via surrogate. The couple announced his arrival Wednesday on Instagram. “We want to say thank you for this incredible gift you have given us, Alexandra,” they wrote of

By LINDSEY BAHR AP Film Writer Taylor Swift, best supporting actor Oscar winner Ke Huy Quan, “Elvis” star Austin Butler, “Nope’s” Keke Palmer and The Weeknd have been invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The organization behind the Oscars said Wednesday that it extended invitations to 398 individuals to join

By SOPHENG CHEANG and GRANT PECK Associated Press PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, a devoted and very active user of Facebook, says he will no longer upload to the platform and will instead depend on the Telegram app to get his message across. Until now, he has used Facebook for

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — A grand jury has indicted a young Michigan man who is accused of making threats over social media and having plans to target a synagogue near Lansing. Seann Pietila, of Pickford in the Upper Peninsula, has been in custody since June 16. Now an indictment charging him with making threats,

By LINDSEY BAHR AP Film Writer Taylor Swift, best supporting Oscar actor winner Ke Huy Quan, “Elvis” star Austin Butler and “Nope’s” Keke Palmer and The Weeknd have been invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The organization behind the Oscars said Wednesday that it extended invitations to 398 individuals to

BERLIN (AP) — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is insisting that right-wing populism won’t gain the upper hand in his country, days after a far-right party won control of a county administration for the first time since the Nazi era. Alternative for Germany, which has come under scrutiny from security services over its ties to extremists,

By KEVIN McGILL and KEN MILLER Associated Press Scorching heat blamed for at least 13 deaths in Texas and another in Louisiana blanketed more of the Southeast on Wednesday, stretching government warnings of dangerous, triple-digit temperatures eastward into Mississippi and Tennessee. California, meanwhile, was facing its first major heat wave of the year. The National

By RIAZAT BUTT Associated Press MINA, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Hundreds of thousands of Muslim pilgrims on Wednesday braved intense heat to perform the symbolic stoning of the devil during the Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia. With morning temperatures rising past 42 degrees Celsius (107 degrees Farenheit), huge crowds of pilgrims walked or took buses

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Russian authorities have declared a news outlet critical of the Kremlin an “undesirable” organization, effectively banning it from operating in Russia as part of a continued crackdown on dissent. Novaya Gazeta Europe is an offshoot of the prominent independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta that was stripped of its media license last

By MIKE CATALINI Associated Press TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — The New Jersey political consultant who hired two career criminals to kill a friend and one-time colleague engineered the 2014 slaying because the victim was seeking to extort money from him. That’s according to prosecutors’ sentencing documents made available Wednesday. Former Democratic campaign consultant Sean Caddle