AP-National

By EMMA BURROWS LONDON (AP) — News that Russia’s Wagner mercenary chief was believed dead in a plane crash has dominated world reports, along with speculation that it might be linked to his June mutiny. But on Russian state media, there has been a very different picture. State TV channels have largely stuck to describing

By BERT WILKINSON Associated Press GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AP) — Guyana president Irfaan Ali on Thursday lashed out at the descendants of European slave traders, saying those who profited from the cruel, trans-Atlantic slave trade should offer to pay reparations to today’s generations. The leader of the South American country also proposed that those involved in

By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS Associated Press JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A former death row inmate in Mississippi will be resentenced again because of a determination that he has intellectual disabilities — and the new sentence will make him eligible for the possibility of parole. The state Supreme Court ruled unanimously Thursday in the case of

By HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH Associated Press Dennis Rader, the BTK serial killer whose self-given nickname stands for “Bind, Torture, Kill,” played a cat and mouse game with investigators and reporters for decades before he was caught. But Rader gradually faded from view after his 2005 arrest, as he served one life term for each of the

By DARLENE SUPERVILLE Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Veteran Washington journalist and former Associated Press transportation reporter Joan Lowy has died. She was 66. Lowy’s husband says she died early Wednesday at their Virginia home after a 10-year battle with abdominal cancer. Lowy joined the AP’s Washington bureau in 2006. She spent the final decade

By JILL COLVIN Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Vice President Mike Pence says viewers should expect to see the same, more combative candidate at the next GOP debate as he urged his former running-mate-turned-rival Donald Trump to join his competitors on stage next time around. Pence says a day after Wednesday’s debate that “elections

By JOHN RABY Associated Press CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Prosecutors have asked a federal court to set plea hearings for two corrections officers on a charge stemming from an assault on a jail inmate who later died. Motions filed Wednesday seek the hearings for Southern Regional Jail officers Andrew Fleshman and Steven Wimmer. The officers

By JENNIFER SINCO KELLEHER and GENE JOHNSON Associated Press HONOLULU (AP) — Maui County sued Hawaiian Electric Company on Thursday over the fires that devastated Lahaina, saying the utility negligently failed to shut off power despite exceptionally high winds and dry conditions. Witness accounts and video indicated that sparks from power lines ignited fires as

By FABIANO MAISONNAVE Associated Press RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Summer is still four months away in the Southern Hemisphere but Brazil is contending with a balmy winter, with record high temperatures and dry weather across much of the country. The rare heat wave engulfed 19 of Brazil’s 26 states on Thursday, as well as

PITTSBURGH (AP) — A woman accused of intentionally abandoning her dog at a Pennsylvania airport before she boarded a flight to a resort in Mexico earlier this month has been charged with animal cruelty and related charges, authorities announced Thursday. Allegheny County Police say Allison Lyn Gaiser, 44, tried to bring her brown-and-white male French

By ELLEN KNICKMEYER Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. is joining NATO allies in hosting training for Ukrainian pilots on U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets, beginning at an Arizona Air National Guard base in October. The Pentagon spokesman, Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, announced the move Thursday. The training will be part of a U.S. and

CHICAGO (AP) — A federal jury in Chicago has convicted a former chief of staff to longtime Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan of lying under oath to protect his once-powerful boss. Tim Mapes was convicted Thursday of perjury and attempted obstruction of justice. The obstruction charge carries up to 20 years in prison and the

By MICHAEL R. BLOOD Associated Press A California judge is rejecting an environmental group’s lawsuit that sought to block the state’s largest utility from seeking to extend the operating life of the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant. Friends of the Earth sued in state Superior Court in April, hoping to derail a proposal to extend

NICHOLASVILLE, Ky. (AP) — A grand jury in Kentucky has declined to indict a police officer in the fatal shooting of an armed Black man during a standoff. Kentucky State Police presented evidence about the fatal shooting last year of Desman LaDuke, 22, during a mental health crisis and the panel opted not to indict

By BRUCE SCHREINER Associated Press LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said Thursday that building roads and bridges shouldn’t be a partisan matter, but his Republican opponent in the governor’s race tried to deflect any credit away from the incumbent Democrat for a burst of projects underway. The influx of infrastructure spending turned

MISSOULA, Mont. (AP) — A Montana man has been sentenced to more than two years in federal prison for threatening to kill U.S. Sen. Jon Tester. Kevin Patrick Smith pleaded guilty in April to making threats in voice messages left at the Democratic lawmaker’s office in Kalispell. He was sentenced Thursday by a federal judge.

By RUSS BYNUM Associated Press A Donald Trump supporter who surrendered to Georgia authorities on charges he conspired with the former president and other allies to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss is also facing federal charges that he assaulted an FBI agent in Maryland. Harrison William Prescott Floyd turned himself in to the Fulton County

BUNNELL, Fla. (AP) — Florida school district officials have apologized for an elementary school assembly in which Black students were singled out for a presentation on low test scores. Officials at Flagler County’s school district in northeastern Florida said at a news conference Thursday that the assembly at Bunnell Elementary School was a “horrible, horrific

Associated Press RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has left the Sao Paulo hospital where he underwent a series of routine medical exams. His close aide, Fabio Wajngarten, says Bolsonaro will head back in the capital city of Brasilia. Bolsonaro was admitted to Vila Nova Star Hospital in Sao Paulo on