AP National News

By BRIAN SLODYSKO Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is meeting privately with Senate Democrats at the Capitol, a visit intended to deliver a jolt to the party’s long-stalled voting and elections legislation. Before he arrived on Thursday, Arizona Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema all but dashed the bill’s chances, declaring she could not

By MARK SHERMAN and JESSICA GRESKO Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has stopped a major push by the Biden administration to boost the nation’s COVID-19 vaccination rate, a requirement that employees at large businesses get a vaccine or test regularly and wear a mask on the job. At the same time, the

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN Associated Press Federal authorities say a South Dakota man charged this week with storming the U.S. Capitol last year performed rap songs about the riot in videos posted on his YouTube channel. A relative told the FBI that Billy Knutson was a rapper who sold his music online and had posted on

BERLIN (AP) — A German report says East Germany’s secret police kept extensive records on Chancellor Olaf Scholz during his time as a senior member of the West German Social Democratic Party’s youth wing in the 1970s and 80s. Bild tabloid reported Thursday that files it obtained showed the Stasi closely followed his visits to

JERUSALEM (AP) — Thousands of Israeli nationalists have staged a protest outside the parliament building in Jerusalem, calling on the government not to demolish a West Bank settlement outpost. The demonstration on Thursday comes a month after a Palestinian gunman fired on a car filled with seminary students at the Homesh outpost, near the West

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Auditors say surplus ammunition for Arkansas’ state prison systems was taken and sold by a Department of Corrections employee. Auditor Don Morgan told a legislative committee Wednesday that 28,352 rounds worth nearly $8,800 that was to be disposed of in 2017 could not be found. Corrections Secretary Solomon Graves said

By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR Associated Press People looking for health insurance in the grip of the omicron surge have through Saturday to sign up for taxpayer-subsidized private coverage under the Obama-era Affordable Care Act. President Joe Biden’s administration is on track is to deliver robust enrollment numbers, but those gains could turn into a mirage if

UPPER DARBY, Pa. (AP) — A man at the scene of a medical helicopter crash outside Philadelphia this week told a dispatcher he was most concerned about the infant girl who survived, but that the pilot was the only passenger not alert after the wreck. The unidentified caller described the pilot as a middle-aged man

By LAURAN NEERGAARD AP Medical Writer A new study offers stronger evidence that one of the world’s most common viruses may set some people on the path to developing multiple sclerosis. The Epstein-Barr virus has long been a suspect. Harvard researchers tracked blood testing of 10 million U.S. military recruits over 20 years and concluded

By JONATHAN MATTISE Associated Press NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A proposed U.S. House map that carves up fast-growing, Democratic-leaning Nashville into three different congressional districts advanced another step Thursday over strenuous objections from Democrats that it unfairly dilutes Black representation in Tennessee. The Senate redistricting panel’s vote to move along the map came a day

By CAROLYN THOMPSON Associated Press Teachers around the U.S. are confronting classrooms where as many as half of students are absent. That’s because they have been exposed to COVID-19 or their families kept them at home out of concern about the surging coronavirus. The widespread absences have only added to the difficulty of keeping students

By EDITH M. LEDERER Associated Press UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United Nations chief is warning that millions of Afghans are in grave danger and on the “verge of death” because of freezing temperatures and frozen assets abroad. Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres urged the international community to fund the U.N.’s $5 billion humanitarian appeal, release Afghanistan’s

By MATTHEW BARAKAT Associated Press FALLS CHURCH, Va. (AP) — Outgoing Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring has reversed more than 50 legal opinions issued by predecessors during the Jim Crow and Massive Resistance eras that justified segregation, interracial marriage bans and other racist laws. As a practical matter, the old legal opinions had been rendered

CHICAGO (AP) — Chicago Police say no arrests have been made in the fatal shooting of a 14-year-old boy on the city’s West Side and a second fatal shooting of another boy the same age on the city’s South Side hours later. Police say the first shooting happened Wednesday afternoon shortly before 4 p.m. and

By MICHAEL BALSAMO, COLLEEN LONG and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Stewart Rhodes, the founder and leader of the far-right Oath Keepers militia group, has been arrested and charged with seditious conspiracy in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The Justice Department announced the charges against Rhodes on Thursday. He

By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA Associated Press BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraqi security officials say at least four rockets targeted the U.S. Embassy inside Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone. Two officials say three rockets struck within the perimeter of the embassy, while another hit a school in a residential complex. Iraq’s military said one girl and one woman

By BRIAN SLODYSKO Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is set to meet privately with Senate Democrats at the Capitol, a visit intended to deliver a jolt to the party’s long-stalled voting and elections legislation. Before he arrived on Thursday, Arizona Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema blunted the bill’s chances further, declaring she could

By WAYNE PARRY Associated Press NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy directed a sewage treatment facility to cancel a vote Thursday on a backup power plant after Newark residents complained that it would violate a law intended to keep minority communities from being overburdened with pollution. The Passaic Valley Sewerage Community was

By JILL COLVIN and ZEKE MILLER Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republican National Committee says it is planning a rules change that would force presidential candidates seeking the party’s nomination to sign a pledge saying they will not participate in any debates sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates. If ultimately enacted and enforced,

By JAMES MacPHERSON Associated Press BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — An Illinois appellate court has set aside a decision by state regulators that would allow the Dakota Access oil pipeline to double capacity to 1.1 million barrels daily. The appellate court ordered the Illinois Commerce Commission to review the public need for the project that moves