AP National News

By DARLENE SUPERVILLE and ALEXANDRA JAFFE Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, are getting into the holiday spirit. The first lady opened the holiday season Monday by accepting an 18 1/2-foot Fraser fir that will be the centerpiece of the couple’s first Christmas at the White House. The Bidens

By ASHRAF KHALIL Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The regional train system serving the Washington D.C. area will remain on drastically reduced service levels through at least the end of this year. This comes as authorities grapple with a safety problem that has forced the majority of the trains out of service. Officials announced Monday

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Florida man photographed carrying a lectern belonging to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office at the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection has pleaded guilty for his part in the riot. Court records show that 36-year-old Adam Johnson pleaded guilty Monday in Washington federal court to one count of entering or

By MARCOS ALEMAN Associated Press SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — The United States’ top diplomat in El Salvador has announced she is leaving the post. Jean Manes says the government of President Nayib Bukele “is showing no interest” in improving the bilateral relationship. She was once seen as a potential bridge to better relations

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — A lion has been killed after escaping its enclosure at a zoo and killing its handler in northern Guatemala. The news site Local Noti Petén identified the dead man as Santos Esquivel Nájera. He died after being mauled by the lion late Sunday. Residents and police hunted down and shot to

By STEVE KARNOWSKI Associated Press MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Poet Robert Bly, who authored the men’s movement classic “Iron John,” has died. Bly spent most of his life in his native Minnesota and was an active poet for more than 50 years. “Iron John,” his meditation on modern masculinity, was released in 1990, and spent more

By JOHN RICE Associated Press MEXICO CITY (AP) — Fernando González, the head of Caribbean newsgathering for The Associated Press, has died in Havana. González died after falling suddenly ill late Sunday. He was 60. He spent decades covering and directing major stories across Latin America, from papal visits to border skirmishes, hurricanes and hostage

A Palestinian prisoner rights group says two Palestinian hunger strikers have halted their protest against Israel’s controversial policy of detaining them without charge. The rights group says the pair ended their months-long strike Monday after Israeli authorities agreed to their release. Critics say Israel’s policy of holding Palestinians without charge violates their right to due

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal officials are proposing more than $160,000 in fines against eight airline passengers over incidents involving alcohol. The Federal Aviation Administration said Monday that the biggest single fine tops $40,000 for a passenger who brought alcohol on the plane and drank it, smoked marijuana in the plane’s lavatory and sexually assaulted a

By CARA ANNA Associated Press NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Ethiopia’s Nobel Peace Prize-winning prime minister says he will lead his country’s army “from the battlefront” beginning Tuesday, a dramatic new step in a devastating yearlong war. Abiy Ahmed says that “this is a time when leading a country with martyrdom is needed.” With rival Tigray

By RUSS BYNUM Associated Press BRUNSWICK, Ga. (AP) — Attorneys made a final push to persuade the jury in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, the 25-year-old Black man who was fatally shot last year while running in Georgia. The prosecution said Monday in closing arguments that three white men chased Arbery solely “because he was

By JENNIFER SINCO KELLEHER Associated Press HONOLULU (AP) — A formerly homeless man who ended up in a mental institution for more than two years because of mistaken identity is suing the state of Hawaii and various Honolulu police officers, public defenders and doctors. Joshua Spriestersbach’s attorneys say in the lawsuit filed in federal court

By DAVID BAUDER AP Media Writer NEW YORK (AP) — Two Fox News Channel contributors have quit, saying “irresponsible” voices have drowned out the responsible on the network. Jonah Goldberg and Stephen Hayes, who put out a newsletter called The Dispatch, have both been occasional analysts at Fox since 2009. They cited Tucker Carlson’s “Patriot

THESSALONIKI, Greece (AP) — More than 100 Afghans believed to have been at risk from the Taliban have been granted temporary shelter in Greece after being evacuated on a special flight to the northern city of Thessaloniki. Greek officials said among the 119 people on the plane was Afghanistan’s former minister of borders and tribal

NEWBURY, Ohio (AP) — A tractor-trailer apparently collided head-on with a van Monday on an Ohio state highway, killing five of the seven people in the van, authorities said. The crash occurred on State Route 44 in Geauga County’s Newbury Township, east of Cleveland, the highway patrol said. Both vehicles had front-end damage. The van

By SCOTT BAUER, MICHAEL BALSAMO and MIKE HOUSEHOLDER Associated Press WAUKESHA, Wis. (AP) — Police say the suspect in a deadly Christmas parade crash in suburban Milwaukee was in a domestic disturbance just minutes before he killed five people and injured 48. Waukesha Police Chief Dan Thompson said Monday there is no evidence of terrorism

PRAGUE (AP) — Protesters are marching through the Czech capital of Prague to decry the government’s new restrictions on unvaccinated people. The protesters demanded “Freedom!” for the unvaccinated. They carried posters with pictures of politicians — including Prime Minister Andrej Babis and Health Minister Adam Vojtech — calling them traitors. But unlike recent rallies in

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Poet Robert Bly, who authored the men’s movement classic “Iron John,” has died. Bly spent most of his life in his native Minnesota and was an active poet for more than 50 years, winning the National Book Award in 1968 for a book of Vietnam War protest poems. Bly also translated the

By SCOTT BAUER, MICHAEL BALSAMO and MIKE HOUSEHOLDER Associated Press WAUKESHA, Wis. (AP) — Investigators are looking into whether the SUV driver who plowed through a Christmas parade in suburban Milwaukee, killing at least five people and injuring more than 40, was fleeing a crime. That’s according to a law enforcement official who spoke to

In a story published Nov. 16, 2021, about the Kyle Rittenhouse trial, The Associated Press erroneously reported that prosecutors said he traveled from his home in Illinois to Wisconsin with an AR-style semi-automatic rifle. Rittenhouse testified that he picked up the weapon at the home of his friend’s stepfather in Wisconsin.