AP-National

By MIKE SCHNEIDER Associated Press The world population grew by 75 million people over the past year and on New Year’s Day it will stand at more than 8 billion people, according to figures released by the U.S. Census Bureau on Thursday. The worldwide growth rate in the past year was just under 1%. At

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) — Tampa Bay Rays shortstop Wander Franco failed to show up Thursday for a meeting with a prosecutor who is investigating him for an alleged relationship with a minor. Prosecutor Olga Diná Llaverías said the investigation will continue regardless of Franco’s no-show. She waited for the All-Star player and his

By JOHN ANTCZAK and JENNIFER SINCO KELLEHER Associated Press LOS ANGELES (AP) — Powerful surf rolled onto beaches on the West Coast and Hawaii on Thursday as a big swell generated by the stormy Pacific Ocean pushed toward shorelines, causing localized flooding. Forecasters urged people to stay off rocks and jetties, and to not turn

By STEVE LeBLANC Associated Press BOSTON (AP) — Workers in several New England states are looking forward to a bump up in the minimum wage in 2024 while advocates in Massachusetts are pushing a ballot question aimed at phasing out the state’s subminimum wage for tipped workers. In Rhode Island, the state’s current $13 minimum

By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER Associated Press Court documents unsealed this week say that a Pennsylvania man who was sentenced in secret for his role in the U.S. Capitol riot cooperated with authorities investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack and an unrelated case. The documents provide insight into the unusual secrecy regarding Samuel Lazar, who was

By TIA GOLDENBERG and ABBY SEWELL Associated Press TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israeli officials are stepping up threats against the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, warning that Israel is running out of patience as the two sides continue to trade fire along Israel’s volatile northern border. Benny Gantz, a member of Israel’s War Cabinet, said

By JEFF AMY Associated Press ATLANTA (AP) — A federal judge on Thursday accepted new Georgia congressional and legislative voting districts that protect Republican partisan advantages, saying the creation of new majority-Black voting districts solved the illegal minority vote dilution that led him to order maps to be redrawn. U.S. District Judge Steve Jones, in

By MEAD GRUVER Associated Press CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — Pierce Brosnan, whose fictitious movie character James Bond has been in hot water plenty of times, is now facing heat in real life, charged with stepping out of bounds in a thermal area during a recent visit to Yellowstone National Park. Brosnan walked in an off-limits

By MARK N. MENGONFIA Associated Press MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) — Authorities in Liberia say a leaking fuel tanker exploded this week as people gathered to collect the gasoline, leaving more than 40 dead. Officials say the blast on Tuesday also injured at least 83 people in the town of Totota in the central part of

By JONATHAN LANDRUM Jr. AP Entertainment Writer LOS ANGELES (AP) — When Hit-Boy walks the Grammy red carpet, he expects to proudly strut into the Feb. 4 awards ceremony with his father beside him for the first time. For three decades, Hit-Boy’s dad was in-and-out of prison, with his recent stint lasting nine years until

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Former University of Wisconsin-La Crosse Chancellor Joe Gow said Thursday that the school’s governing board fired him because members were uncomfortable with him and his wife producing and appearing in pornographic videos. The Universities of Wisconsin Board of Regents, which oversees UW-Madison, UW-La Crosse and 11 other regional campuses, voted unanimously

By YURAS KARMANAU Associated Press TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Belarus’ authoritarian leader has attended a meeting with children from Russia-controlled areas of Ukraine, openly defying an international outrage over his country’s involvement in Moscow’s deportation of Ukrainian children. President Alexander Lukashenko spoke during a meeting on Thursday marking the arrival of a new group of

By FATIMA HUSSEIN Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. is imposing sanctions on a group of money exchange services from Yemen to Turkey alleged to be providing funds to Iranian-backed Houthi rebels who have been launching attacks on commercial shipping vessels in the southern Red Sea. The sanctions imposed Thursday target the head of

By NATHAN GILLES, Columbia Insight PORTLAND, Oregon (AP) — As native trees in the Pacific Northwest die off due to climate changes, the U.S. Forest Service, Portland, Oregon and citizen groups around Puget Sound are turning to a deceptively simple climate adaptation strategy called “assisted migration.” As the world’s climate warms, tree growing ranges in

BlendJet is recalling about 4.8 million of its portable blenders over laceration and fire hazards after receiving dozens of reports of injuries, federal regulators said Thursday. BlendJet 2 Portable Blenders can overheat or catch fire, according to a notice from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, and their blender blades can break off during use.

By NOEL SICHALWE Associated Press LUSAKA, Zambia (AP) — Zambian anti-corruption authorities say they will investigate after a video on social media allegedly showed the foreign minister receiving piles of cash from a Chinese businessman. Stanley Kakubo resigned but denied wrongdoing and said he had stepped down because he didn’t want the issue to be

By AMANDA SEITZ Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — New obesity drugs are showing promising results in helping some people shed pounds but the injections will remain out of reach for millions of older Americans because Medicare is forbidden to cover such medications. Drugmakers and a wide-ranging and growing bipartisan coalition of lawmakers are gearing up

By ELAINE KURTENBACH AP Business Writer BANGKOK (AP) — Asian shares were mixed in muted trading on Friday, the last trading day of the year, with some regional markets logging solid gains in 2023 while many sagged. U.S. futures and oil prices edged higher. Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 gave up 0.6% to 33,358.11. It is up

MEXICO CITY (AP) — A drug cartel in central Mexico has kidnapped 14 local residents, including four children, in apparent retaliation for an uprising by angry farmers earlier this month that killed 10 cartel gunmen, officials said. Farmers in the village of Texcaltitlan and a neighboring hamlet had apparently grown tired of cartel extortions. Armed

By CHRISTINA A. CASSIDY Associated Press ATLANTA (AP) — For election officials preparing for the 2024 presidential election, the list of security challenges just keeps growing. Many of the concerns from four years ago persist: the potential for cyberattacks targeting voter registration systems or websites that report unofficial results, and equipment problems or human errors