AP-National

By YVES LAURENT GOMA and SAM MEDNICK Associated Press LIBREVILLE, Gabon (AP) — Mutinous soldiers in Gabon proclaimed their republican guard chief as the country’s leader Wednesday after placing the just-reelected President Ali Bongo Ondimba under house arrest, alleging betrayal and massive embezzlement during his long-time rule over the oil-rich Central African nation. The coup

By CURT ANDERSON Associated Press ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Florida’s Big Bend is one of the last truly natural places in the state. It’s not Disney World. It’s not South Beach. This is where people go to hunt alligators, fish for tarpon and search for scallops in the shallow waters. On Wednesday, it became the

By JOEY CAPPELLETI Associated Press LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is outlining her policy priorities for the second half of the year. In a speech Wednesday the Democrat called for paid family and medical leave, a 100% clean energy standard, and the codification of federal health care protections. The Michigan Legislature is

By TERRY SPENCER Associated Press PERRY, Fla. (AP) — Hurricane Idalia tore into Florida at the speed of a fast-moving train Wednesday, splitting trees in half, ripping roofs off hotels and turning small cars into boats before sweeping into Georgia and South Carolina as a still-powerful storm that flooded roadways and sent residents running for

By HUIZHONG WU Associated Press TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Typhoon Saola has strengthened overnight as it continues its path across the Pacific and heads for China’s southern coast. The typhoon is moving northwest with sustained winds of 118 mph and gusts of up to 145 mph, according to Taiwan’s Central Weather Bureau. Saola is now

By JEFF AMY Associated Press ATLANTA (AP) — Some Republicans in Washington and Georgia began attacking Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis immediately after she announced the Aug. 14 indictment of former President Donald Trump for conspiring to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. But others, including Gov. Brian Kemp, have been conspicuous in their

ATLANTA (AP) — Eleven people on a Delta Air Lines flight were taken to the hospital on Tuesday after the plane hit turbulence while heading to Atlanta, officials said. Flight 175 had left Milan, Italy, and was about 40 miles (64 kilometers) northeast of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport when the crew reported severe turbulence, according

By ROD McGUIRK Associated Press CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australians will vote on Oct. 14 in a referendum that would enshrine in the nation’s constitution a mechanism for Indigenous people to advise Parliament on policies that effect their lives known as the Voice. Proponents say embedding the Voice in the constitution would recognize the special

By SUSIE BLANN and DASHA LITVINOVA Associated Press KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine sent waves of drones deep into western Russia in more than four hours of nighttime attacks that struck military assets, Russian officials and media reports said Wednesday. The drones hit an airport near Russia’s border with Estonia and Latvia, causing a huge

By ROD McGUIRK Associated Press CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australians will vote on Oct. 14 on a proposed law to create a so-called Indigenous Voice to Parliament in the nation’s first referendum in a generation. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Wednesday announced the referendum date, triggering six weeks of intensifying campaigning by both sides of

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — The two men found dead earlier this month in wildfires around Spokane, Washington, have been identified. The Spokane County Medical Examiner’s Office said in a news release that 86-year-old Carl Grub died Aug. 18 near an intersection in Medical Lake west of Spokane in the area of the Gray fire. His

By KRYSTA FAURIA Associated Press CULVER CITY, Calif. (AP) — The cast of “Breaking Bad” has reunited to call upon Hollywood studios to resume negotiations with striking screen actors. “We want you to come back to the table with us,” Bryan Cranston said in a plea to the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers

By AUDREY McAVOY Associated Press HONOLULU (AP) — Crews in Hawaii have all but finished searching for victims of the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century, authorities said Tuesday, and it is unclear how many people perished. Three weeks after the fire devastated Maui’s historic seaside community of Lahaina, the count of the

TAPACHULA, Mexico (AP) — Prosecutors in southern Mexico say at least six men have been killed in an ambush in a township near Guatemala border that is known as a migrant smuggling route. Prosecutors in the southern state of Chiapas said the killings occurred Tuesday along a rural road in the township of Siltepec, about

A judge has vacated the double-murder conviction of a Chicago man who has spent the last 34 years in prison for the shooting deaths of two 14-year-old boys. Fifty-two-year-old Francisco Benitez maintained his innocence in a motion for post-conviction relief, saying he had an alibi for the April 28, 1989, slayings of Prudencio Cruz and

LEWISBURG, W.Va. (AP) — A convicted rapist who authorities say used a jet ski during an escape from an Arkansas prison last year was arrested Tuesday in West Virginia, the U.S. Marshals Service said. Samuel Paul Hartman, 39, was arrested along with his wife, his mother and his mother’s boyfriend at a hotel in Lewisburg,

By SETH BORENSTEIN AP Science Writer Feeding on some of the hottest water on the planet, Hurricane Idalia is rapidly strengthening as it bears down on Florida. Scientists say 89-degree water where Idalia has been hovering effectively acts as rocket fuel for the storm. Hurricanes get their energy from warm water, and Idalia is at

By STEVE KARNOWSKI Associated Press MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Myon Burrell, who was sent to prison for life as a teenager but then set free after 18 years behind bars, has been arrested in a Minneapolis suburb on potential gun and drug charges. Now 37, Burrell was released in 2020 after his sentence was commuted in