AP National News

HOUSTON (AP) — A second Venezuelan man living in the U.S. illegally and accused of killing a 12-year-old Houston girl has been ordered to be held on a $10 million bond. Johan Jose Martinez-Rangel is one of two men charged with capital murder in Jocelyn Nungaray’s death. The other is Franklin Jose Peña Ramos. Martinez-Rangel’s $10 million

Associated Press PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Anticipation is mingling with fear across Haiti as the country welcomes the fourth major foreign intervention in its history to fight gang violence. A couple hundred police officers from Kenya met Wednesday with Prime Minister Garry Conille as they prepare to deploy in upcoming days. No one except high-ranking

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Intentionally releasing a balloon will soon be illegal in Florida. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill Monday creating the new law, which expands the state’s current ban on releasing 10 or more balloons. The law takes effect July 1. The law will exempt children under 7. Anyone else can be

AP White House Correspondent WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is pardoning potentially thousands of former U.S. service members convicted of violating a now-repealed military ban on consensual gay sex. The president says he is “righting an historic wrong” to clear the way for these service members to regain lost benefits. Biden’s action grants a

Soprano Anna Netrebko and tenor Yusif Eyvazov have separated. The couple had been together since 2014, when they appeared together in Puccini’s “Manon Lescaut” at Rome’s Teatro dell’Opera. They married in 2015. They say in a statement: “After 10 happy years together, we have made the difficult but amicable decision to separate.” Netrebko, 52, has

Associated Press SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Millions of American shoppers are contending with common drugstore items like toothpaste being locked behind Plexiglass these days. If you’re one of them, California may have a solution. Business leaders, law enforcement and Republican politicians are backing a ballot initiative that could once again allow judges to imprison repeat

Associated Press FREEHOLD, N.J. (AP) — Fighting brain cancer, little Giada Demma was lying in her pediatric hospital bed, her tiny body virtually swimming in a drab green hospital gown. Her cousin Giuliana Demma remembers looking at the 1-year-old and thinking how sad the scene was: a small child awash in an ugly gown several

Associated Press Marvel star Anthony Mackie swam with sharks in the Gulf of Mexico for the new National Geographic special “Shark Beach with Anthony Mackie” debuting Thursday. The actor loves boating and fishing and is a certified scuba diver who has swam with sharks around the world. New Orleans is his hometown and Mackie says

Associated Press MIAMI (AP) — Local and federal agencies say that a group of more than a hundred Haitian migrants arrived in a sailboat off the lower Florida Keys. The landing Monday morning comes as the Caribbean nation is struggling with a surge of gang violence that has killed several thousand people in recent years

Associated Press MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A county coroner says a counselor at Wisconsin’s youth prison has been declared brain-dead following a fight with an inmate. Lincoln County Coroner Valerie Caylor says Wednesday the man was declared brain-dead on Tuesday so the family could proceed with organ donation. State Department of Corrections officials identified him

Associated Press A jury has recommended that a former prison guard trainee be sentenced to death for his execution-style murders of five women inside a Florida bank five years ago. The jury voted 9-3 Wednesday to recommend that Zephen Xaver receive the death penalty for the Jan. 23, 2019, massacre at the SunTrust Bank in

Associated Press BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — An Argentine federal court has opened proceedings in the trial of three people suspected in the assassination attempt two years ago of then-Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, one of the country’s most powerful and divisive political figures in recent decades. On that day, Sept. 1, 2022, Fernández

Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — A defiant former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández was sentenced in New York Wednesday to 45 years in prison for teaming up with some bribe-paying drug traffickers for over a decade to ensure over 400 tons of cocaine made it to the United States. Judge P. Kevin Castel sentenced

Associated Press CAIRO (AP) — Human rights experts working for the United Nations have accused Sudan’s warring parties of using starvation as a war weapon, amid mounting warnings about imminent famine in the African nation. In a statement Wednesday, they said both the military and the Rapid Support Forces “are using food as a weapon

TIRANA, Albania (AP) — Two doctors and five other medical workers in Albania have been charged with abusing their posts by sending cancer patients for costly treatment elsewhere instead of providing free public care. Prosecutors allege that the workers with the public Oncology Hospital in the capital, Tirana, directed patients to private medical clinics where

Associated Press COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka’s President Ranil Wickremesinghe has announced a debt restructuring deal with countries including India, France, Japan and China in a televised address to the nation. The agreement marks a key step in the country’s economic recovery after defaulting on debt repayment in 2022. Sri Lanka is in

Associated Press CLACTON-ON-SEA, England (AP) — Dorothy Carr is fed up with how things are run in her hometown. It’s impossible to get a doctor’s appointment through Britain’s state-run health care system. Local buses have been canceled. There isn’t enough public housing. Like many others in Clacton-on-Sea — a town on England’s southeast coast where