News

By ED WHITE Associated Press PONTIAC, Mich. (AP) — A document handwritten by singer Aretha Franklin and found in her couch after her 2018 death is a valid Michigan will, a jury said Tuesday, a critical turn in a dispute that has turned her sons against each other. It’s a victory for Kecalf Franklin and

By FRANK JORDANS Associated Press BERLIN (AP) — Germany’s conservative opposition leader says large-scale migration is one of the country’s biggest problems and the main reason for a recent surge in support for the far right. But Friedrich Merz on Tuesday ruled out working at the state or national level with the Alternative for Germany

By KEN RITTER and BEATRICE DUPUY Associated Press LAS VEGAS (AP) — Las Vegas police say a man has taken a woman hostage at the Caesars Palace Hotel & Casino. Police spokesman Capt. Steve Connell says the man pulled the woman into a hotel room Tuesday morning. He says a window was broken, and a

By RONALD BLUM AP Baseball Writer SEATTLE (AP) — The Oakland Athletics have started the process of applying to Major League Baseball to move to Las Vegas. MLB last month established a relocation committee to evaluate the move, a group headed by Milwaukee Brewers chairman Mark Attanasio. Philadelphia Phillies CEO John Middleton and Kansas City

By CHRIS MEGERIAN, SEUNG MIN KIM and KARL RITTER Associated Press VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — NATO leaders said Tuesday that they would allow Ukraine to join the alliance “when allies agree and conditions are met,” hours after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy blasted the organization’s failure to set a timetable for his country as “absurd.” “We reaffirmed

By JAMEY KEATEN Associated Press GENEVA (AP) — The U.N. human rights chief used a special debate on burnings of the Quran in Sweden and other European countries to tread the fine line between freedom of expression and respect for religious belief. Volker Türk, speaking to the Human Rights Council, broadened his call for respect

By CHRISTOPHER WEBER Associated Press LOS ANGELES (AP) — Charles Manson follower Leslie Van Houten walked out of a California prison Tuesday after serving more than 50 years of a life sentence for her participation in two infamous murders. Van Houten “was released to parole supervision,” the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said in

By JULIA FRANKEL Associated Press JERUSALEM (AP) — Protesters in Israel have blocked highways and thronged the country’s main international airport in a day of countrywide demonstrations against the government’s divisive plan to overhaul the judiciary. The demonstrations on Tuesday came hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s parliamentary coalition gave an initial approval to a

By RIO YAMAT Associated Press LAS VEGAS (AP) — Jurors in the trial of a Las Vegas police officer accused in a series of casino heists are listening to opening statements Tuesday morning. Prosecutors for the federal government were expected to paint Caleb Rogers as a gambling addict who grew increasingly desperate as his debts

By BRIAN MELLEY Associated Press LONDON (AP) — A Romanian man who was part of an international human smuggling ring has been sentenced to more than 12 years in prison for the deaths of 39 Vietnamese migrants who suffocated in a truck trailer in 2019. Marius Mihai Draghici was sentenced Tuesday in London’s Central Criminal

By HANNAH FINGERHUT Associated Press DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Protesters gathered in the Iowa Capitol rotunda as the Legislature convened a special session Tuesday focused exclusively on abortion restrictions, where Republican lawmakers will work to pass a new ban on almost all abortions after roughly six weeks of pregnancy. The day will be a

VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — NATO allies are pledging to spend at least 2% of their gross domestic product on their national military budgets but have set no timeframe for achieving the goal. After Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014, the organization agreed to halt spending cuts they had made after the Cold War and

The Associated Press DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — No winning ticket drawn Monday means the Powerball jackpot is an estimated $725 million ahead of Wednesday’s drawing. No ticket matched the Monday drawing of white balls 7, 23, 24, 32, 43 and red Powerball 18. The new jackpot for Wednesday’s drawing is the seventh-highest in the

By JIM MUSTIAN Associated Press A state judge has thrown out obstruction of justice charges against two of the five Louisiana lawmen indicted in the fatal 2019 arrest of Ronald Greene, a death authorities initially blamed on a car crash before long suppressed body-camera video showed the white officers beating, stunning and dragging the Black

By KAREEM CHEHAYEB and ABDULRAHMAN ZEYAD Associated Press BAGHDAD (AP) — A multi-billion dollar agreement signed with France’s TotalEnergies could help resolve Iraq’s longstanding electricity crisis. It might also attract international investors and reduce Iraq’s reliance on gas imports from neighboring Iran. But that’s only if the parties implementing the agreement can overcome the endemic