AP National News

By ALAN FRAM Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Negotiations between President Joe Biden and holdout Sen. Joe Manchin over Democrats’ $2 trillion social and environment bill are said to be going poorly. A person familiar with the talks says the West Virginia Democrat wants to drop the legislation’s extension of an expanded child tax credit.

By JULIE CARR SMYTH Associated Press COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The nation’s largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization has fired a chapter leader in Ohio for ethical and professional breaches that it says include a yearslong secret association with an anti-Muslim group. The Council on American-Islamic Relations-Ohio said executive and legal director Romin Iqbal

By MICHAEL CASEY Associated Press BOSTON (AP) — Housing advocates say evictions are increasing around the country, several months after a federal moratorium was allowed to end. The rise in cases, although below pre-pandemic levels in most states and cities, shows the limits on the tens of billions of dollars in federal assistance and the

By STEPHEN McGRATH Associated Press BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — Romania’s minister of innovation and digitalization has resigned following a journalism investigation that found significant irregularities on his resume and evidence he plagiarized from an academic paper. Florin Roman quit his post after Romania’s Libertatea newspaper published a third article calling his claimed educational credentials into

By ALEXANDRA JAFFE and ZEKE MILLER Associated Press MAYFIELD, Ky. (AP) — President Joe Biden has surveyed storm damage from the Kentucky sky. He’s seen neighborhoods in the town of Mayfield pockmarked by piles of debris and homes without roofs and windows. It’s evidence of the latest natural disaster in a year that has brought

By MARK KENNEDY AP Entertainment Writer NEW YORK (AP) — Adrienne Warren had studiously avoided touching a Tony Award her entire stage career. On Sept 26, 2021, she finally held one. Warren won the best leading actress Tony for being a one-woman fireball of energy and exhilaration while portraying Tina Turner in a Broadway musical

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — A Florida woman told deputies she gave her boyfriend “just enough” poison in his lemonade to shut him up and then called law enforcement “so he wouldn’t die.” Deputies with the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office say that on Dec. 7, 54-year-old Alvis Parrish put a psychotic drug in the lemonade of William

By GARY GERARD HAMILTON Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — When Simu Liu tweeted in 2014 asking Marvel for an Asian American superhero, he wasn’t vying for a job—he was venting at Hollywood’s status quo. But fast forward five years, Liu starred in “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” Marvel’s first film led

BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union leaders have met with their counterparts from five former Soviet republics, including Ukraine, with an eye toward deepening political, trade, energy and cultural ties. The EU’s Eastern Partnership includes Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. The president of Belarus is boycotting Wednesday’s meeting due to EU sanctions over reported

DETROIT (AP) — Volkswagen’s Audi luxury brand is recalling 289,000 SUVs in the U.S. because water can get into a control computer under the back seats. The recall covers certain 2021 and 2022 Q5 and SQ5 Sportback models and some 2018 through 2022 Q5 and SQ5 models. The company says in documents posted by U.S.

BLAINE, Minn. (AP) — Authorities say a Minnesota grocery delivery driver accused of running over bags of food she had dropped off in a Twin Cities suburb because she didn’t like the homeowners’ pro-police yard sign has been cited for criminal damage to property. The incident happened Dec. 6 after the elderly couple ordered $50

By JOHN ANTCZAK Associated Press LOS ANGELES (AP) — Cleanup is underway after a powerful storm swept through California, setting rainfall records in the drought-stricken state but also triggering rescue efforts on a raging river and in canyon communities hit by mudslides. The National Weather Service reports remarkable rainfall, including 11 inches over 72 hours

By The Associated Press Captain Kirk finally made it into space this past year. William Shatner was part of the new wave of civilian travelers sponsored by names like Bezos, Musk and Branson who are heading upward 10 years after NASA’s shuttle program ended. But there are big differences. What does entrepreneurial space travel have

By MICHELLE L. PRICE Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — New York City Mayor-elect Eric Adams named Keechant Sewell, a Long Island police official, as the city’s next police commissioner. That makes her the first woman to lead the nation’s largest police force. Adams, himself a former New York police captain, introduced Sewell on Wednesday

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. (AP) — Officials say a small fire at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom started in a tree and may have been caused by fireworks debris. Disney workers quickly extinguished the flames from the fire Tuesday. WESH-TV quotes Reedy Creek Fire Association president Jon Shirey as saying that the only injury involved

By AMY FORLITI Associated Press ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin has pleaded guilty to a federal charge of violating George Floyd’s civil rights. In doing so, Chauvin admitted for the first time that he held his knee across Floyd’s neck and kept it there even after Floyd became unresponsive,

By KEITH RIDLER Associated Press BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Political hostility to public education in the Republican-dominated Idaho Legislature is causing some businesses to doubt the wisdom of moving to or expanding in a state that habitually ranks at or near the bottom in what it spends on K-12 students and has had one of

By MALLIKA SEN Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — The case for and against Ghislaine Maxwell has been made, and as soon as Monday, her fate will rest squarely in the jury’s hands. Maxwell has denied all charges levied against her. Her defense contends she’s being victimized by a need to make someone pay for

By PETER SMITH Associated Press PINE RIDGE, S.D. (AP) — The Red Cloud Indian School in South Dakota has undertaken a reckoning with its troubled past. The Catholic institution located on the Pine Ridge Reservation was originally part of a network of boarding schools across North America where Native children were required to attend to

By DAVID BILLER Associated Press RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazil’s Federal Police have searched the home of Ciro Gomes, a left-wing politician expected to run for president next year, as part of an investigation into corruption regarding works on a World Cup stadium. The Federal Police said in a statement that the 14 search