Associated Press COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The South Carolina Supreme Court has ruled that a 2023 law allowing parents to spend taxpayer money on private schools violates the state constitution. The 3-2 ruling prohibits paying tuition or fees with “Education Scholarship Trust Funds,” but allows parents to use that money for indirect private expenses like
Continue ReadingLANSING, Kan. (AP) — The shuttered Kansas prison where the killers chronicled in Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood” were executed is now a tourist attraction. Starting Friday, former wardens and corrections officers will lead two-hour tours of the stone-walled building in Lansing that first began housing inmates in the 1860s. The Kansas City Star reported
Continue ReadingAssociated Press ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — Amid the explosion of legal gambling in the United States, some things have remained off-limits, including betting on the outcome of U.S. elections. But that could be about to change. A federal judge in Washington has struck down a decision by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to prohibit
Continue ReadingAssociated Press INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — An Indiana county judge has ruled against abortion providers who are seeking to broaden access to the procedure under the near-total ban state lawmakers passed in 2022. The judge on Wednesday denied the providers’ request for a permanent injunction to expand medical exemptions and block the requirement that abortions only
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CNN By Isabel Rosales and Dakin Andone, CNN Atlanta (CNN) — The mother of the teenager accused of killing four people during last week’s shooting at a Georgia high school has apologized to the victims’ families in an open letter while insisting her son “is not a monster.” “To the parents and families of those
Continue ReadingOXFORD, Miss. (AP) — A jury has cleared a Mississippi man on a charge of threatening to kill Republican U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker during a confrontation with one of Wicker’s relatives. Six women and six men deliberated about an hour and a half Tuesday before unanimously finding William Carl Sappington not guilty of threatening to
Continue ReadingAP Sports Writers MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — Miami Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill acknowledged Wednesday that he could have handled himself better in the initial moments of a weekend traffic stop that left him handcuffed and pulled out of his car by police officers near the team’s stadium. Hill also said he wants one
Continue ReadingBELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — An appeals court in Serbia has overturned an earlier ruling that a prominent critic of the authoritarian government in Belarus should be extradited to that country and said that the case must be retried. Serbian authorities arrested Andrei Hniot on Oct. 30 at Belgrade airport, based on an Interpol warrant issued
Continue ReadingLANSING, Kan. (AP) — The shuttered Kansas prison where the killers chronicled in Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood” were executed is now a tourist attraction. Starting Friday, former wardens and corrections officers will lead two-hour tours of the stone-walled building in Lansing that first began housing inmates in the 1860s. The Kansas City Star reported
Continue ReadingAssociated Press ST. LOUIS (AP) — The water level of the Mississippi River is unusually low for the third straight year, forcing barge companies to put limits on how much cargo they can carry and cutting into farm profits. It was just two months ago that much of the Mississippi River was above flood stage
Continue ReadingBy Tim Lister and Gianluca Mezzofiore, CNN (CNN) — A Russian cargo ship suspected of carrying Iranian ballistic missiles for Moscow’s war against Ukraine was seen at a Russian port on the Caspian Sea a week ago, satellite imagery shared with CNN shows. The vessel – the Port Olya 3 – was identified by Maxar
Continue ReadingAssociated Press BOSTON (AP) — There was a slight decline in the number of Black students in Harvard University’s freshman class, the first admitted since a Supreme Court ruling struck down affirmative action in higher education. The impact of the ruling is still coming into focus at selective universities around the country, with some reporting
Continue ReadingMOSCOW (AP) — A Soyuz spacecraft carrying two Russians and an American has docked at the International Space Station. The capsule atop a towering rocket set off from a Russian launch facility in Kazakhstan on Wednesday and docked with the station after two orbits of the Earth. That’s a fast trip compared with some that
Continue ReadingAssociated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Speaker Mike Johnson pulled a vote Wednesday on a temporary spending bill that would keep federal agencies and programs funded for six months as it became increasingly clear the measure lacked the support to pass as a potential partial government shutdown looms. The legislation to continue government funding when the
Continue ReadingAssociated Press BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is pledging to finish paving a roadway in the heart of the Amazon that experts and some in his own government say could worsen deforestation. Lula’s promise came Tuesday as he visited a region suffering from wildfires and the nation’s worst-ever drought.
Continue ReadingPHILADELPHIA (AP) — A Philadelphia police officer has died from his wounds nearly three months after being shot in the neck after a traffic stop. City officials say 31-year-old Officer Jaime Roman leaves behind a wife, a 7-year-old daughter and a 4-year-old son. Police say Roman had stopped the car in the city’s Kensington neighborhood
Continue ReadingAssociated Press TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — State and local election officials from across the country on Wednesday warned that problems with the nation’s mail delivery system threaten to disenfranchise voters in the upcoming presidential election, telling the head of the U.S. Postal Service that it hasn’t fixed persistent deficiencies. In an alarming letter, the officials
Continue ReadingAssociated Press OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The Oklahoma Supreme Court has rejected a request to reconsider its ruling to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the two known living survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. The court on Tuesday turned away the request by 110-year-old Viola Fletcher and 109-year-old Lessie Benningfield Randle to rehear its
Continue ReadingAssociated Press BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Former President Donald Trump has praised Hungary’s autocratic leader, further fanning concerns that Trump embraces anti-democratic forces around the world. During Tuesday’s debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump expressed the mutual admiration he shares with Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s prime minister who has cozied up with Russia and China
Continue ReadingAssociated Press NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Music superstar Taylor Swift is officially in her Kamala Harris era after releasing a lengthy Instagram post supporting the Democratic presidential nominee. The endorsement came shortly after Harris and former President Donald Trump finished their first, and likely only, presidential debate. Swift included a picture of herself holding her
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