AP-National

By JEFF AMY Associated Press ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia senators are advancing a proposal that would require school libraries to notify parents of every book their child checks out. The state Senate Education and Youth Committee voted 5-4 Tuesday to advance the bill to the full Senate for more debate. A proposal to subject school

TUSTIN, Calif. (AP) — A man has been arrested after allegedly setting off a homemade firework near a Southern California shopping center. Reports of an explosion at The Village at Tustin Legacy prompted authorities to evacuate several businesses on Tuesday afternoon. There were no injuries and there was no damage to the shopping mall. The

By HANNAH SCHOENBAUM Associated Press SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Utah State Board of Education member who is facing pressure from top state leaders to resign has instead announced that she is running for reelection. Natalie Cline has faced widespread backlash from both Republicans and Democrats after her social media post questioning the gender

By JOEY CAPPELLETTI Associated Press LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Michigan Republicans are planning dueling presidential nominating conventions that will take place March 2. The Republican National Committee last week said that party members had properly removed former chair Kristina Karamo and recognized former Congressman Pete Hoekstra as the party’s new chair. Hoekstra announced Tuesday that

By TODD RICHMOND Associated Press MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A Republican prosecutor is asking the Wisconsin Supreme Court to decide whether state law bans abortions before the case goes through any lower appellate courts. The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade reactivated an 1849 law that conservatives argue banned abortion. A

By LINDSAY WHITEHURST Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Hunter Biden ’s lawyers suggested Tuesday that claims made by a former FBI informant charged with fabricating a bribery scheme involving the presidential family may have tainted the case against the president’s son. The gun and tax charges against Hunter Biden are separate from the claims made

By RIO YAMAT and LINDSAY WHITEHURST Associated Press LAS VEGAS (AP) — A former FBI informant charged with making up a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme involving President Joe Biden, his son Hunter and a Ukrainian energy company had contacts with Russian intelligence-affiliated officials, prosecutors said Tuesday. Prosecutors revealed the alleged contact as they urged a judge

By WAYNE PARRY Associated Press NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey’s First Lady Tammy Murphy, who is running for U.S. Senate, says she opposes construction of a gas-fired backup power plant in a minority neighborhood already heavily burdened with pollution. But she did not say Tuesday whether she has discussed her view with the one

By JOHN HANNA AP Political Writer TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A broad Republican plan for cutting taxes in Kansas is dead. Enough members of the GOP-controlled Legislature concluded Tuesday that the plan would favor wealthy taxpayers too much and upheld Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto. The vote in the House was 81-42, leaving GOP leaders

By TERRY SPENCER Associated Press FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — The attorney for the estranged husband of an American missing in Spain under suspicious circumstances says his client played no part in her disappearance. Attorney Ken Padowitz said Tuesday that David Knezevich was in his native Serbia on Feb. 2 when his wife Ana disappeared

By RALPH D. RUSSO and STEPHEN HAWKINS AP Sports Writers The field for the 12-team College Football Playoff beginning next season will comprise five conference champions and seven at-large selections after the university presidents who oversee the CFP voted unanimously Tuesday to tweak the format. The move to decrease the number of spots reserved for

By MICHAEL CASEY Associated Press BOSTON (AP) — A Massachusetts man charged with killing his wife has been sentenced to more than three years behind bars in an unrelated art fraud case. Forty-nine-year-old Brian Walshe was sentenced to 37 months onTuesday in federal court for selling two fake Andy Warhol paintings. He also was ordered

By MARK THIESSEN Associated Press ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — The governing body of the world’s most famous sled dog race has disqualified the 2023 Iditarod rookie of the year from this year’s contest by citing a rule but not the specific infraction. After an emergency meeting Monday, the Iditarod Trail Committee announced Eddie Burke Jr.

RIDGELAND, Miss. (AP) — A Mississippi grand jury has decided not to indict former NFL player Jerrell Powe months after he was arrested on a kidnapping charge in 2023, his attorney said. Tom Fortner told The Associated Press on Monday that he received notification from the Madison County district attorney’s office in December that a

By JAMIE STENGLE Associated Press Divers have recovered the body of 11-year-old Audrii Cunningham from a Texas river days after the girl went missing, and authorities are preparing to file a murder charge against a friend of her father who lived on her family’s property, a sheriff said Tuesday afternoon. Polk County Sheriff Byron Lyons

By PETER SMITH Associated Press The Southern Baptist Convention’s top administrative body voted Tuesday to oust four congregations — one for having a woman as senior minister, two for what it said were failures related to the denomination’s sexual-abuse policy and one for lack of financial participation. The SBC’s Executive Committee announced the decision after

By MATTHEW BARAKAT and SARAH RANKIN Associated Press RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Influential labor groups now say they are opposing efforts to move two professional sports franchises from the nation’s capital to northern Virginia, partially due to the apparent inability to reach a satisfactory deal for union workers on the construction projects. The Northern Virginia

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The San Francisco Opera has commissioned Huang Ruo to compose “The Monkey King” for a fall 2025 premiere — based on an episode from the 16th century Chinese novel “Journey to the West.” The company said Tuesday that David Henry Hwang is writing the libretto with a mix of English and

By TRISHA AHMED, ANITA SNOW and JIM SALTER Associated Press MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Two young police officers and a firefighter-paramedic were killed in a burst of gunfire over the weekend as they responded to a domestic disturbance call in the Minneapolis suburb of Burnsville. Another officer was injured. Police say that the man identified as

By KEN SWEET AP Business Writer NEW YORK (AP) — Americans have become increasingly reliant on their credit cards since the pandemic. So much so that Capital One is willing to bet more than $30 billion that they won’t break the habit. The combination could potentially shake up the payments industry, which is largely dominated