AP National News

By AUDREY McAVOY Associated Press HONOLULU (AP) — Lawmakers opened a new session of the Hawaii State Legislature with proposals to provide more tax relief to working families and impose fees on travelers using popular state parks and trails. Lawmakers also vowed to hold hearings to ethics reform bills after two former lawmakers last year

By REBECCA SANTANA Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Everyday Americans will be able to help refugees adjust to life in the U.S. in a program launched Thursday by the State Department. The goal is to give private citizens a role in resettling the thousands of refugees who come to America every year. The State Department

By JENNIFER SINCO KELLEHER Associated Press HONOLULU (AP) — An American consultant has been sentenced to two years in prison for an illicit effort to lobby the former Trump administration. Prosecutors say Nickie Mali Lum Davis and other tried to use back channels to influence U.S. government officials to drop an investigation into the multibillion-dollar

WASHINGTON (AP) — A lesion removed by surgeons last week from first lady Jill Biden’s left eyelid was a non-cancerous growth, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, physician to President Joe Biden, said Wednesday. O’Connor said in a memo released by the White House that a biopsy showed that the legion was seborrheic keratosis, a “very common, totally

By LARRY NEUMEISTER Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump said he has never read any part of a book in which the columnist E. Jean Carroll accused him of raping her in a department store dressing room in the mid-1990s, according to court records unsealed Wednesday. Trump was questioned under oath

By NICK PERRY Associated Press WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, whose empathetic handling of the nation’s worst mass-shooting and health-driven response to the coronavirus pandemic led her to become an international icon but who faced mounting criticism at home, said Thursday she was leaving office. Fighting back tears, Ardern

By MARK THIESSEN and PATRICK WHITTLE Associated Press ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A polar bear chased several residents around a tiny, isolated Alaska Native whaling village, killing a mother and her 1-year-old son in an extremely rare attack before another community member shot and killed the bear, authorities said. The fatal mauling, the first in

RANCHO CUCAMONGA, Calif. (AP) — Actor Julian Sands, star of several Oscar-nominated films including “A Room With a View,” has been missing for five days in the Southern California mountains, where he was hiking, authorities said Wednesday. Sands, 65, was reported missing Friday on a trail on Mt. Baldy, San Bernardino County sheriff’s spokeswoman Gloria

By KYLE HIGHTOWER AP Sports Writer Chris Ford, a member of the Boston Celtics 1981 championship team, a longtime NBA coach and the player credited with scoring the league’s first 3-point basket, has died, his family announced Wednesday in a statement. He was 74. The family revealed the death through the Celtics. No official cause

By JOHN HANNA Associated Press TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas congressman faced questions from a man who is charged with threatening to kill him and is acting his own attorney during a federal criminal trial. Republican U.S. Rep. Jake LaTurner rejected the man’s suggestions Wednesday that the threat was from God and the man

By KIM CHANDLER Associated Press MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Alabama has changed death penalty procedures to give the prison system longer to carry out executions — a move that comes after a string of troubled lethal injections in the state — and also eliminated an automatic review for trial errors. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey’s office

By SAM METZ Associated Press SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Utah is among a group of states considering limiting transgender kids from receiving certain health care, including puberty blockers, hormones and surgery. The proposals reflect how lawmakers in red states are continuing to make matters related to gender, sexuality and youth central to their legislative

By LEA SKENE BALTIMORE (AP) — In one of his first high-profile decisions after taking office earlier this month, Baltimore’s new top prosecutor declined to bring criminal charges against a local police officer who fatally shot a fleeing teenage driver last year. The decision came despite an investigative review released Tuesday that found the driver

By ANNE M. PETERSON AP Sports Writer Midfielder Sara Björk Gunnarsdóttir has been awarded more than $88,000 in back pay that was withheld by her French club team, Lyon, in violation of FIFA’s rules protecting maternity rights. Gunnarsdóttir, who now plays for Juventus in Italy, wrote her account of the salary dispute for The Players’

By MORGAN LEE Associated Press SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — A Santa Fe district attorney will announce Thursday whether charges will be brought in the fatal 2021 film-set shooting of a cinematographer by actor Alec Baldwin during a rehearsal of the Western “Rust.” Santa Fe District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies said a decision will be announced

MEXICO CITY (AP) — A Mexican human rights group has launched an online guide for people searching for missing relatives, a real need in a country where authorities have been slow to act. Mexico has almost 110,000 people listed as missing, but many of the most effective searches are carried out by relatives or activists.

By JOHN O’CONNOR AP Political Writer SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — Legal challenges to Illinois’ semiautomatic weapons ban have begun. A federal lawsuit filed Wednesday contends that the 8-day-old law prohibits “commonly possessed” and constitutionally protected guns. A state court pleading also filed Wednesday questions the law’s exemptions based on a person’s employment. The law was

By MATTHEW LEE and LOLITA C. BALDOR Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. is finalizing a massive package of military aid for Ukraine that U.S. officials say is likely to total as much as $2.6 billion. It’s expected to include for the first time nearly 100 Stryker combat vehicles and at least 50 Bradley

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE AP Technology Writer SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Elon Musk was alternately depicted in a San Francisco courtroom as a liar who callously jeopardized the savings of “regular people” or a well-intentioned visionary. Those descriptions emerged Wednesday in opening statements at a trial focused on a Tesla buyout that never happened. Lawyers on