AP National News

By ROD McGUIRK Associated Press CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced plans to encourage people to buy electric vehicles but won’t be subsidizing the purchases. Morrison says the price of the technology will reduce in time. Instead, his conservative government will partner with private enterprise to accelerate the rollout of

By AAMER MADHANI and BRUCE SCHREINER Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is launching his sales pitch for his recently passed $1 trillion infrastructure bill. Biden predicted Monday that a notoriously congested bridge that sits in Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell’s backyard will finally get a long overdue overhaul. Biden said in an

By JUAN A. LOZANO and JAMIE STENGLE Associated Press HOUSTON (AP) — Authorities in Houston have released the names of eight concertgoers who died last week at a music festival headlined by rapper Travis Scott. Houston Police Chief Troy Finner said Monday he had met with Scott before the show at the Astroworld festival to

By JOHN O’CONNOR AP Political Writer SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — The Illinois governor has signed into law a change to the Illinois Health Care Right of Conscience Act to prevent it from being used to avoid penalties for refusing to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Gov. J.B. Pritzker took the action Monday to stem what he

BOONE, N.C. (AP) — A spokesman for Franklin Graham says the evangelist underwent a specialized heart surgery to treat a condition which had developed in recent months. Mark Barber, a spokesman for North Carolina-based Samaritan’s Purse, said in a news release that Graham successfully underwent the procedure Monday at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. The

By EDITH M. LEDERER Associated Press UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Five European countries are expressing “serious concern” at Israel’s designation of six Palestinian civil society organizations as terrorist groups and say they will be seeking more information from Israeli authorities on the reasons for their listing. The Security Council discussed the designations Monday and took

GLASGOW, Scotland (AP) — Unlike some of her European colleagues, Leonore Gewessler arrived at the U.N. climate conference with a clean conscience. Her 27-hour train journey spared Austria’s environment minister the criticism many VIPs faced for taking planes to a conference on cutting greenhouse gas emissions. The Green Party politician has pushed to revive Europe’s

By CHRISTOPHER WEBER and STEFANIE DAZIO Associated Press LOS ANGELES (AP) — A new mandate in the city of Los Angeles now requires people visiting shopping malls, theaters, gyms or nail salons in Los Angeles to verify they are vaccinated against COVID-19. The requirement took effect Monday and mandates proof of shots for everyone entering

By MARIA VERZA Associated Press MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican prosecutors say they have arrested a businessman on charges he used the Pegasus spyware to spy on a journalist. The software marketed by the Israeli spyware firm NSO Group has been implicated in government surveillance of opponents and journalists around the world.  Mexico had the

By ELLEN KNICKMEYER, ANIRUDDHA GHOSAL and SETH BORENSTEIN Associated Press GLASGOW, Scotland (AP) — Barack Obama is expressing confidence that the Biden administration will ultimately get its $555 billion climate package through Congress and says that bill will be “historic.” At the U.N. climate talks Monday, he also faulted China and Russia for what he

By GEOFF MULVIHILL Associated Press The Biden administration is framing its vaccine mandate for private employers in life-and-death terms in a legal filing that sought to get the requirement back on track after it was halted by a federal court. Its filing in response to a stay issued over the weekend said there is no

By GRANT PECK Associated Press BANGKOK (AP) — Former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Bill Richardson acknowledges criticism of his humanitarian visit to Myanmar, but he tells The Associated Press he feels his trip was constructive. Richardson is the highest-profile American to visit the Southeast Asian nation since its military seized power in February. He

By JUAN A. LOZANO and JAMIE STENGLE Associated Press HOUSTON (AP) — Authorities in Houston have released the names of eight concertgoers who died last week at a music festival headlined by rapper Travis Scott. Houston Police Chief Troy Finner said Monday he had met with Scott before the show at the Astroworld festival to

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — A toddler was killed by a stray bullet on an Oakland freeway while he slept in his car seat, the latest victim of a recent spike in shootings on San Francisco Bay Area highways in the last two years, some of them attributed to gangs. The nearly 2-year-old boy was killed

By LISA MASCARO AP Congressional Correspondent WASHINGTON (AP) — Rarely have the leaders of Congress been asked to do so much with so little in trying to navigate President Joe Biden’s big domestic vision into law. Biden is reaching for Franklin Roosevelt-style accomplishments with slimmer-than-ever Democratic majorities. The challenge has been politically messy and it’s

By DYLAN LOVAN Associated Press LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — A criminal fraud trial in Kentucky aims to determine whether four officials of the now-bankrupt Armstrong Coal company skirted federal rules meant to reduce deadly coal dust in underground mines. The trial started with opening statements on Monday. Federal prosecutors say the former officials ordered workers

By GENE JOHNSON Associated Press SEATTLE (AP) — A metallurgist in Washington state has pleaded guilty to fraud after she spent decades faking the results of strength tests on steel that was being used to make U.S. Navy submarines. Elaine Marie Thomas was the director of metallurgy at a foundry in Tacoma. The foundry supplied

By EDITH M. LEDERER Associated Press UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The African Union’s envoy for the Horn of Africa is warning that there is a short “window of opportunity” and little time to reverse the crisis in northern Ethiopia which has drastically deteriorated in recent weeks amid an escalating offensive by Tigray forces against the

By JOHN FLESHER and DAVID EGGERT Associated Press LANSING, Mich. (AP) — The release of communications related to Benton Harbor’s water crisis shows strained ties between state environmental regulators and the head of the city’s drinking water system as they tried to contain what has become Michigan’s second high-profile lead contamination crisis in less than

By GLENN GAMBOA AP Business Writer In the hours following the pandemonium at the Astroworld Festival that left eight people dead and dozens injured, the requests for donations started multiplying on social media. Some immediately seemed genuine. Others were immediately suspect. Crowdfunding is an increasingly popular method of getting financial help directly to people who