AP-National

By SARA CLINE Associated Press BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — A conservative legislative committee in Louisiana has blocked an effort by the Jewish community to bar nitrogen gas as an execution method. Religious leaders, relatives of Holocaust survivors and representatives of a local coalition called Jews Against Gassing argue that the method invokes trauma from

By SONIA PÉREZ D. Associated Press GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — José Rubén Zamora has spent nearly two years locked in a dark 16- by 13-foot cell in Guatemala, allowed only one hour a day in the sunlight. The journalist’s money laundering conviction was tossed out, and last week a judge finally ordered his conditional release

By RANDALL CHASE Associated Press DOVER, Del. (AP) — The Delaware House has given final approval to a bill aimed at curtailing the increase in health care costs by establishing a board with authority to impose budgets on the state’s largest hospitals. The legislation passed the House on a 24-16 vote Tuesday despite strong opposition

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — The adult children of an Idaho man accused of killing their mother and his girlfriend’s two young kids testified in his defense this week. Emma Murray and Garth Daybell both told jurors on Monday their mother’s health was declining before she died. Chad Daybell is charged with three counts of murder,

By JOHN HANNA Associated Press A Minnesota city and the U.S. Department of Justice have reached an agreement addressing allegations the city discriminated against mentally ill residents in enforcing an anti-crime law. The department announced its agreement Tuesday with the Minneapolis suburb of Anoka. Although the city denied wrongdoing, it agreed not to disclose private

By LARRY NEUMEISTER Associated Writer NEW YORK (AP) — The New York trial of Sen. Bob Menendez grinded to a weeklong break after Manhattan federal court jurors were treated to a brick-by-brick build of the prosecution’s bribery case before getting stuck in an elevator. They won’t return until after Memorial Day next week to hear

COLUMBIA, N.C. (AP) — A federal lawsuit is seeking the removal of a Confederate monument marked as “in appreciation of our faithful slaves” from outside of a North Carolina county courthouse. A Tyrrell County civic group focused on issues facing local Black residents filed the lawsuit Tuesday against the county’s commissioners. The legal complaint argues

By ZEKE MILLER and ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Former national security adviser Robert O’Brien on Tuesday said he and two U.S. ambassadors who served in the Trump administration met with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other officials from the country. John Rakolta, who served under Trump as ambassador to the

By STEVE KARNOWSKI Associated Press MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A former employee is suing the city of Minneapolis, alleging ex-police Officer Derek Chauvin hauled her from her minivan and pinned her to the ground with his knee in January 2020, just as he did four months later when he killed George Floyd. Patty Day, who was

By JULIE WATSON Associated Press SAN DIEGO (AP) — A federal judge has dismissed the felony convictions of five retired military officers who had admitted to accepting bribes from a Malaysian contractor nicknamed “Fat Leonard” in one of the Navy’s biggest corruption cases. The dismissals came at the request of the government — not the

By FATIMA HUSSEIN Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump’s presidential campaign will begin accepting donations in cryptocurrency, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s campaign says. The Trump campaign launched a fundraising page Tuesday that allows “any federally permissible donor the ability to give” to its political committees using any crypto asset accepted through the Coinbase

By WYATTE GRANTHAM-PHILIPS AP Business Writer NEW YORK (AP) — The death of a British man and injuries impacting dozens of other people aboard a Singapore Airlines flight have highlighted the potential dangers of flying through extreme turbulence. The exact cause of the man’s death is under investigation. Based on witness accounts and the number

By DAVID A. LIEB Associated Press JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — After failing in several U.S. states this year, global chemical manufacturer Bayer said Tuesday that it plans to amplify efforts to create a legal shield against a proliferation of lawsuits alleging it failed to warn that its popular weedkiller could cause cancer. Bayer, which

By LINDSAY WHITEHURST Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — An appeals court has refused Tuesday to halt Hunter Biden’s federal gun trial, which is set to begin in two weeks. The full 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused to pause the case against the president’s son while his challenges to the prosecution on multiple fronts

By JILL LAWLESS Associated Press LONDON (AP) — German author Jenny Erpenbeck and translator Michael Hofmann have won the International Booker Prize for the novel “Kairos.” It tells the story of a tangled love affair during the final years of East Germany’s existence. The prize recognizes fiction from around the world that has been translated

By ERIC TUCKER Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawyers for Donald Trump have asked the judge overseeing the classified documents case against him to block prosecutors from using as evidence the boxes of records that FBI agents seized during a search of the former president’s Florida property nearly two years ago. That’s according to a

By SEAN MURPHY Associated Press OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The U.S. Department of Justice is suing Oklahoma over a new state law that seeks to impose criminal penalties on those living in the state illegally. The lawsuit was filed Tuesday in federal court in Oklahoma City. It names Gov. Kevin Stitt and state Attorney General

By JACK DURA Associated Press Voters in South Dakota this fall will decide whether to replace their partisan primary election system with contests that are open to all, regardless of party affiliation. This proposed “top two” primary system would send the top two vote-getters to face each other in a general election. The South Dakota

By DAVID SHARP Associated Press PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — A police after-action report says there was “utter chaos” during the search for the gunman behind Maine’s deadliest mass shooting last October. Among the details contained in the Portland Police Department report are that deputies who had been drinking nearly crashed their armored vehicle and that

By DAVID BAUDER AP Media Writer NEW YORK (AP) — Israel’s shutdown and seizure of an Associated Press video camera that provided a live glimpse into Gaza alarmed many journalists, who worried Tuesday about wider implications for coverage of a war largely fought out of the world’s sight to begin with. After widespread condemnation, including