AP-National

By JEFF AMY Associated Press ATLANTA (AP) — The Republican leading a specially-appointed Georgia state Senate committee that’s supposed to investigate whether Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis committed misconduct proclaimed repeatedly Friday during the panel’s first meeting that he seeks just the facts, but the lead Democrat begrudgingly serving on the panel said she

By KEVIN FREKING Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate is moving toward a final vote on an emergency spending package that would provide military aid to Ukraine and Israel, replenish U.S. weapons systems and provide food, water and other humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza. About $60 billion would go to supporting Ukraine as

NAPLES, Fla. (AP) — Two people have died after a small plane attempted to make an emergency landing on Interstate 75 in southwest Florida on Friday afternoon, colliding with a vehicle and bringing traffic to a halt as a massive plume of black smoke rose into the air. The crash landing happened near the Pine

ST. LOUIS (AP) — A judge has ruled that a former St. Louis police officer was not guilty of assault for shooting a suspected carjacker in 2018, ruling he acted in self-defense. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that Judge John T. Bird wrote that the shooting by Matthew EerNisse was “objectively reasonable,” given the circumstances.

By KEVIN McGILL Associated Press NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Carnival season 2024 entered its final days in New Orleans on Friday as a parade of “fabulous women and the men who support them” walked the narrow streets of the old French Quarter handing out hand-decorated bras. The krewe of “Bosom Buddies & Breast Friends” is

ST. LOUIS (AP) — A wrecking crew tearing down a burned-out St. Louis factory accidentally knocked a brick wall into a transmission tower, causing a brief explosion and power to flicker for some downtown buildings. No one was hurt, but the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that the Board of Aldermen lost its livestream, forcing officials

By NAJIB JOBAIN and LEE KEATH Associated Press RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Gaza’s southernmost town, Rafah, is bursting at the seams. Nearly the last place spared an Israeli offensive so far, Rafah’s population has more than quintupled with Palestinians streaming in to escape fighting. They pack by the dozens into apartments. Sidewalks and once-empty

By AUDREY McAVOY and JENNIFER SINCO KELLEHER Associated Press HONOLULU (AP) — A magnitude 5.7 earthquake struck the world’s largest active volcano on Friday — Mauna Loa on the Big Island of Hawaii — knocking items off shelves and cutting power in a nearby town but not immediately prompting reports of serious damage. The earthquake,

By TERRY TANG Associated Press Historically, Asian Americans have been stereotyped as more brains than brawn or “foreigners” when it comes to sports like football. But they have had some sort of presence on the NFL field for nearly a century. Meanwhile, football has been a mainstay in Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities for

By FATIMA HUSSEIN Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — A new IRS inspector general report says the agency continued to give 19 contractors access to sensitive systems despite failing background reports as recently as last July. The Treasury Department’s inspector general for tax administration issued a report this week, saying, “These contractors still retained their access

By The Associated Press Russian President Vladimir Putin sat down in the Kremlin for an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson. For two hours, Putin put forth the Kremlin line on various aspects of the war in neighboring Ukraine, including Russia’s justifications for sending its troops into the country. He blamed both Ukraine

By JACQUES BILLEAUD Associated Press PHOENIX (AP) — Former Arizona Corrections Director Charles Ryan has been sentenced to probation for his no-contest plea to a disorderly conduct charge stemming from a 2022 armed standoff at his Tempe home. Police say Ryan pointed a gun at officers. On Friday, Superior Court Judge Geoffrey Fish decided against

By JIM MUSTIAN Associated Press Louisiana prosecutors have quietly dismissed charges against state police troopers who were recorded beating a Black motorist. The violent 2020 arrest of Antonio Harris was among a series of beatings of Black men captured on body-camera video that prompted a sprawling federal investigation into use of force by the Louisiana

By JIM VERTUNO Associated Press AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas A&M University will close its 20-year-old campus in Qatar by 2028. University board members noted instability in the Middle East as a reason to review the school’s presence in the country. The school had recently defended itself against criticism over security of its research and

By CLIFF BRUNT AP Sports Writer Tyrone Willingham retired back in 2008, yet he has seen just a few Black men receive the kind of elite opportunity he got when he was hired as Notre Dame’s first Black head football coach more than two decades ago. He was encouraged when Michigan hired Sherrone Moore to

By BEN FINLEY Associated Press NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — Toby Keith’s songs accomplished, for some, what great art is intended to: They sustained people in challenging times, particularly U.S. service members and their families during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq after 9/11. For others, Keith’s work sowed division and was blindly patriotic — a

ROME (AP) — A Rome court has ordered that the man convicted in the 2007 murder of British student Meredith Kercher and freed three years ago be placed under “special surveillance” for allegedly abusing a former girlfriend. Italian media reported on Friday that the order came after the former girlfriend filed a complaint last summer

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — A drug possession charge against South Florida rapper Kodak Black was dismissed Friday, two months after an arrest, though a drug trafficking case from 2022 remains ongoing. Broward County Circuit Judge Barbara Duffy ruled that prosecutors could not refute or negate the fact that the rapper, whose real name is

By SETH BORENSTEIN AP Science Writer An abrupt shutdown of Atlantic Ocean currents that could put large parts of Europe in a deep freeze is looking a bit more likely and closer than before as a new complex computer simulation finds a “cliff-like” tipping point looming in the future. A study in Friday’s Science Advances

By ANGELA CHARLTON Associated Press PARIS (AP) — Robert Badinter, who spearheaded the drive to abolish France’s death penalty, has died. He also fought antisemitism and Holocaust denial and led a European body dealing with the legal fallout of the breakup of Yugoslavia. He was 95. French President Emmanuel Macron hailed Badinter as a ‘’figure