Associated Press TOKYO (AP) — Japan finds out its next leader on Friday when the ruling party of outgoing Prime Minister Fumio Kishida picks his replacement in a key vote that could affect the country’s political stability in coming months. Friday’s vote involves only lawmakers and grassroots members of the Liberal Democratic Party, but the
Continue ReadingAssociated Press TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s governing party will pick a new leader Friday who will succeed outgoing Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. The vote is limited to parliamentarians and dues-paying grassroots members of the Liberal Democratic Party whose ruling coalition dominates parliament. A record nine lawmakers are vying for the top job. A new leader
Continue ReadingAssociated Press Former President Donald Trump described Ukraine in bleak and mournful terms Wednesday, referring to its people as “dead” and the country itself as “demolished,” and further raising questions about how much the former president would be willing if elected again to concede in a negotiation over the country’s future. Trump argued Ukraine should
Continue ReadingAssociated Press HONG KONG (AP) — A Hong Kong court has sentenced a former editor of a shuttered news publication to 21 months in prison in a sedition case widely seen as an indicator of media freedom in the city, once hailed as a beacon of press freedom in Asia. A second editor was freed
Continue ReadingCENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. (AP) — A judge dismissed a federal lawsuit challenging a suburban New York ban on wearing masks in public except for health and religious reasons. The class action lawsuit was filed last month by Disability Rights New York on behalf of two individuals with disabilities against Nassau County’s Mask Transparency Act. The
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By ANTHONY IZAGUIRRE and LARRY NEUMEISTER The Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — New York City Mayor Eric Adams has been indicted by a federal grand jury on criminal charges that are still sealed, according to two people familiar with the matter. The charges against Adams, a Democrat, were still sealed late Wednesday, according to
Continue ReadingAssociated Press ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia’s Supreme Court says presidential candidates Cornel West and Claudia De la Cruz aren’t qualified to be on the state’s ballots and votes for them should not count. The names of West and De la Cruz will appear on Georgia’s ballots, but election officials said Wednesday that any votes for
Continue ReadingAssociated Press/Report for America SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill Wednesday that would have helped Black families reclaim or be compensated for property that was unjustly taken by the government. The bill would have created a process for families to file a claim with the state if they believe the
Continue ReadingAssociated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Two researchers write in a new paper that Russia was able to brace for the financial penalties imposed after its invasion of Ukraine because of the lessons learned from sanctions imposed in 2014 after it invaded Crimea. Also, the impact was weakened by the failure to get more countries to
Continue ReadingAssociated Press COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka’s new President Anura Kumara Dissanayake says that he will soon resume discussions with the International Monetary Fund and foreign creditors to plot a way out of the worst economic crisis in the country’s history. The future of the economic recovery plan drafted by former liberal President
Continue ReadingAssociated Press SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Utah voters will not decide this November on a proposed constitutional amendment asking voters to cede power over ballot measures to lawmakers after the Utah Supreme Court upheld a lower court decision voiding the amendment. The five-justice panel grilled attorneys for the Legislature earlier Wednesday before ultimately siding
Continue ReadingAssociated Press RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The top aide to North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson within state government is quitting. A state legislator who knows Brian LiVecchi says Robinson’s chief of staff and general counsel will resign effective next Tuesday. This marks another staff separation from the Republican nominee for governor following a CNN
Continue ReadingAssociated Press JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The prosecution of six former law enforcement officers who tortured two Black men in Mississippi is an example of the Justice Department’s action to build and maintain public trust after that trust has been violated, Attorney General Merrick Garland said Wednesday. Garland spoke during an appearance in the office
Continue ReadingAssociated Press A Georgia judge has ordered a halt to a special election initiated by residents of the one of the South’s last remaining Gullah-Geechee communities of Black slave descendants, who hoped to undo zoning changes that they say threaten island homes. The judge’s ruling Wednesday comes after hundreds had already voted early in coastal
Continue ReadingAssociated Press HOUSTON (AP) — A Black high school student in Texas who was punished for nearly all of his junior year over his hairstyle has left his school district rather than spend another year of in-school suspension, according to his attorney. But Darryl George, 18, would like to return to his Houston-area high school
Continue ReadingAP Congressional Correspondent WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Mike Johnson is calling on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to fire his country’s ambassador to the U.S. The Republican speaker is criticizing the war-torn leader’s visit to a swing-state Pennsylvania manufacturing site producing war munitions for the fight against Russia as a political stunt. Johnson’s demand Wednesday
Continue ReadingAssociated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — A Republican congressman who slandered Haitian immigrants in a social media post is facing a censure push from Democrats. Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana described Haitians in racist terms Wednesday afternoon, calling them “wild” and “slapstick gangsters.” in a post on X. Higgins deleted the post after Democrats confronted him
Continue ReadingAssociated Press NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — A slow-motion catastrophe has been playing out in the coastal North Carolina village of Rodanthe, where 10 houses have fallen into the Atlantic since 2020. Three have been lost since Friday. The most recent collapse was Tuesday afternoon, when the wooden pilings of a home nicknamed “Front Row Seats”
Continue ReadingAssociated Press Masses of people at the 1969 Woodstock festival stopped by the towering red maple tree a little ways off from the main stage. Many scrawled messages on paper scraps or cardboard and attached them to the old tree’s trunk. “SUSAN, MEET YOU HERE SATURDAY 11 A.M., 3 P.M. or 7 P.M.,” read one
Continue ReadingRALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The father of a teenager accused in a 2022 mass shooting in North Carolina’s capital city that left five people dead has pleaded guilty to storing improperly a handgun that authorities said was found with his son after the shootings. Media outlets report Alan Thompson entered the plea in Wake County
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