AP National News

By KIM TONG-HYUNG and NICK PERRY Associated Press SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea extradited a 42-year-old woman to New Zealand, two months after she was arrested following the discovery of the bodies of two long-dead children in abandoned suitcases. New Zealand police said the woman arrived at Auckland Airport on Tuesday after they

EL PASO, Texas (AP) — A Texas prosecutor facing mounting criticism over the handling of the 2019 Walmart mass shooting in El Paso that killed 23 people has resigned. The decision by El Paso County District Attorney Yvonne Rosales on Monday came after the county took the extraordinary step of seeking to remove her from

By JILL COLVIN and KEVIN FREKING Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — A growing number of Republicans, including former Vice President Mike Pence, criticized Donald Trump on Monday for dining with a Holocaust-denying white nationalist and the rapper formerly known as Kanye West days after launching his third campaign for the White House. Pence, in an

By BEN FINLEY Associated Press CHESAPEAKE, Va. (AP) — Hundreds gathered in Chesapeake, Virginia, to honor six people killed in a mass shooting at a Walmart. The state’s governor, Glenn Youngkin, also pledged during Monday’s vigil to confront a “mental health and a behavioral health crisis.” The remembrance comes six days after the rampage in

By CALEB JONES Associated Press KAILUA-KONA, Hawaii (AP) — Waves of orange, glowing lava and smoky ash belched and sputtered Monday from the world’s largest active volcano in its first eruption in 38 years, and officials told people living on Hawaii’s Big Island to be ready in the event of a worst-case scenario. The eruption

By ANDREW SELSKY Associated Press SALEM, Ore. (AP) — An Oregon Senate panel has rescinded the security measure it imposed on state Sen. Brian Boquist after he made threatening statements during an acrimonious 2019 legislative session, in a case that centers on free speech. Since July 2019, Boquist has been required to give 12 hours

By KATHLEEN RONAYNE Associated Press SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The federal government said Monday it will spend $250 million over four years on environmental cleanup and restoration work around a drying Southern California lake that’s fed by the depleted Colorado River. The future of the Salton Sea, and who is financially responsible for it, has

By ROD McGUIRK Associated Press CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia’s environment minister said Tuesday her government will lobby against UNESCO adding the Great Barrier Reef to a list of endangered World Heritage sites, arguing that criticisms of government inaction on climate change were outdated. Officials from the U.N. cultural agency and the International Union for

By BILL BARROW and JEFF AMY Associated Press ATLANTA (AP) — In-person early voting for the last U.S. Senate seat is underway statewide in Georgia’s runoff, with Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock working to get the jump on Republican challenger Herschel Walker who is putting less emphasis on advance balloting. After winning a state lawsuit to

By ANDREW DeMILLO Associated Press LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — The landmark trial over Arkansas’ ban on gender-affirming care for children has resumed. A psychiatrist was called to the stand by the state on Monday as it defended its ban on doctors providing gender-affirming hormone treatment, puberty blockers or surgery to anyone under the age

EAGLE BUTTE, S.D. (AP) — Joye Braun, a fierce advocate for Native American rights and an organizer of protests against the Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines, has died. Braun, a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux, died Nov. 13 at age 53 at her home in Eagle Butte, South Dakota, according to an online

By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS Associated Press JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Retired NFL quarterback Brett Favre is asking to be removed from a lawsuit by the state of Mississippi that seeks to recover millions of dollars in misspent welfare money that was intended to help some of the poorest people in the U.S. An attorney for

By KIM CHANDLER Associated Press MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Attorneys say an Alabama inmate was “subjected to ever-escalating levels of pain and torture” during an aborted execution. Attorneys for Kenneth Eugene Smith argued the state violated the U.S. Constitution, various court orders and its own lethal injection protocol during the “botched” execution attempt earlier this

By BEN FINLEY Associated Press CHESAPEAKE, Va. (AP) — The city of Chesapeake, Virginia, has begun its candlelight vigil to honor the victims of the mass shooting at a Walmart store. Monday evening’s remembrance comes six days after the rampage that claimed six lives in the city of about 250,000 people near the Virginia coast.

By MIKE HOUSEHOLDER and COREY WILLIAMS Associated Press OXFORD, Mich. (AP) — Two former school board officials say policies and procedures that could have prevented a mass shooting that left four students dead at a Michigan high school last year were approved earlier but never implemented. Tom Donnelly and Korey Bailey told reporters Monday that

By SUSAN HAIGH and DAVID A. LIEB Associated Press HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — A greater-than-expected demand for aid has forced the Connecticut General Assembly to considering how to cover the extra cost of promised bonuses for thousands of frontline workers who remained on the job the during the coronavirus pandemic. Connecticut lawmakers voted Monday in

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — A woman who accused a former state legislator of groping her at a Montgomery restaurant is asking that the criminal charge against him be dropped.. The woman’s attorney shared the statement with news outlets, saying that the matters between her and Perry Hooper, Jr. have been resolved. She said the turmoil

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) — Virginia’s football team will travel to its third funeral in five days to honor the life of Lavel Davis Jr., who was fatally shot on a bus along with two teammates after they returned to campus from a field trip. The 20-year-old Davis and teammates D’Sean Perry and Devin Chandler were

By KIM TONG-HYUNG Associated Press SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea has extradited a 42-year-old murder suspect to New Zealand two months after she was arrested over her possible connection to the bodies of two long-dead children found in abandoned suitcases in August.  South Korea’s Justice Ministry said Tuesday the unidentified woman was handed