Month: August 2023

By JEFF AMY Associated Press ATLANTA (AP) — A Georgia school board has voted to fire a teacher after officials said she improperly read a book on gender fluidity to her fifth grade class. The Cobb County School Board in suburban Atlanta voted 4-3 Thursday to fire Katie Rinderle. The board’s four-member Republican majority is

PHOENIX (AP) — An agent with the Internal Revenue Service was shot and killed Thursday during a routine training exercise in north Phoenix. Charlotte M. Dennis, a spokesperson for the IRS Phoenix field office, confirmed special agents were participating in the exercise at a firing range when the shooting happened. The agent, whose name was

MERIDEN, Conn. (AP) — Police who found a kitten in a stolen car say they have ascertained that the animal belongs to a juvenile suspect who was arrested after the car crashed. The Meriden Police Department said on its Facebook page Thursday that the gray-and-white male cat has been returned to the suspect’s mother. Police

By JILL COLVIN Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump now says he won’t be holding a news conference next week to unveil what he claims is new “evidence” of fraud in Georgia’s 2020 presidential election — even though no fraud has ever been substantiated — citing the advice of lawyers as

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — A jury has convicted a former Alabama correctional officer of federal charges in connection with the 2018 beating of an inmate. The U.S. Department of Justice announced Thursday that 37-year-old Devlon Williams, a former sergeant with the Alabama Department of Corrections, was convicted of deprivation of rights under color of law,

MARQUETTE, Mich. (AP) — Two Nigerian brothers have pleaded not guilty to sexually extorting teenage boys and young men in Michigan and across the country. U.S. Attorney Mark Totten says 22-year-old Samuel Ogoshi and 20-year-old Samson Ogoshi of Lagos, Nigeria, entered the pleas during their arraignment Thursday in US District Court in Marquette. Totten says

By JENNIFER PELTZ Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — The challenge is formidable: identifying the remains of more than 100 victims as agonized loved ones yearn for information about those missing in Maui after the United States’ deadliest wildfire in more than a century. It is a painstaking process, and one that other communities have

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A man convicted of killing two women he met at beach bars in the Florida Panhandle in 1996 is set to be executed. Michael Duane Zack III is scheduled to receive a lethal injection Oct. 3 at 6 p.m. under a death warrant signed Thursday by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. It’s

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Officials say two people may have died and temperature records have been broken in a Pacific Northwest heat wave. The Multnomah County Medical Examiner in Portland, Oregon, says it’s investigating the deaths of two people this week that may have been caused by heat. The National Weather Service in the city

By OLGA R. RODRIGUEZ Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Nine current or former Northern California police officers were charged Thursday in a federal corruption investigation that found evidence they committed civil rights violations and fraud in an effort to get a pay raise and lied on reports to cover up the use of excessive

HOUSTON (AP) — A Southwest Airlines plane that had flames shooting out of an engine returned to a Houston airport about 30 minutes after takeoff this week. The Boeing 737 had been bound for Cancun International Airport in Mexico on Tuesday but returned to William P. Hobby Airport. Videos showed the flames coming from one

By ERIC TUCKER Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawyers for Donald Trump have asked a federal judge to set an April 2026 trial date in the case in Washington charging the former president with conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The suggested date is a counter to the Justice Department’s recommendation last

The Associated Press Tennessee pastor Willie McLaurin, who leads the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee, resigned Thursday from his position as interim president and chief executive after it came to light that he presented false information about his educational qualifications on his resume. The Executive Committee’s hiring team was considering McLaurin as a candidate to

By ANDREW DeMILLO Associated Press A federal appeals court has upheld a decision blocking Idaho’s first-in-the-nation ban on transgender athletes in girls and women’s sports. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a judge’s preliminary injunction against the 2020 law. The measure would prohibit transgender women and girls from playing

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican immigration officials say they have found two migrants dead in the desert near the Texas border, and are looking for two more migrants that survivors said had also died. All of the migrants were Mexican citizens. The National Immigration Institute said Thursday that it received a report from U.S. Customs

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A federal judge is refusing to block a new Florida law that bans citizens of China and some other countries from purchasing property in large swaths of Florida. Judge Allen Winsor denied an injunction requested by the American Civil Liberties Union, which is seeking to have the law stricken in a

By ZANE IRWIN Associated Press DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Senegalese opposition figure Ousmane Sonko is in intensive care 19 days into a political hunger strike. The popular politician was hospitalized Aug. 6, a week after being placed in detention awaiting trial on charges of calling for insurrection, conspiracy against the state and other alleged crimes.

By ANTHONY IZAGUIRRE Associated Press ALBANY, N.Y (AP) — New York City officials want to ease pressure on overcrowded homeless shelters by housing migrants in a federal jail that once held mobsters, terrorists and Wall Street swindlers before being shut down after Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide. The proposal, suggested in an Aug. 9 letter to Gov.

HAMBURG, Calif. (AP) — Firefighters battling lightning-sparked blazes in northwest California have gotten some help from wet weather. The Head Fire in Klamath National Forest remains at approximately 5.5 square miles after light rain overnight moderated its behavior. The fires were sparked over several days this week as unstable air brought thunderstorms and lightning to

By JAKE COYLE AP Film Writer NEW YORK (AP) — A new study on inclusion in film shows just how much of a rarity “Barbie” is. For every woman as a speaking character in the most popular films of 2022, there were more than two men, according to report by University of Southern California’s Annenberg

By JONATHAN MATTISE Associated Press NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A district attorney in Tennessee has said his office has dropped 30 to 40 cases involving the five former officers who have been charged with second-degree murder in the January beating death of Tyre Nichols. In a statement Thursday, Shelby County District Attorney Steven Mulroy’s office

GATLINBURG, Tenn. (AP) — Victims of a deadly 2016 wildfire that began in Great Smoky Mountains National Park before it burned through a Tennessee tourist town will have another chance to seek compensation from the federal government. Several lawsuits claim park employees failed to warn the city of Gatlinburg and its residents of the danger

By ANDREW DeMILLO Associated Press LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — The six Arkansas schools that planned to offer Advanced Placement African American Studies are moving forward with the course despite the state saying it won’t count toward a student’s graduation credit. The Little Rock, North Little Rock and Jacksonville North Pulaski school districts and eStem

By MICHAEL R. SISAK Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — Rudy Giuliani glared across a Washington hearing room as a lawyer seeking his disbarment after the Jan. 6 insurrection asked: How did this man, celebrated as “America’s mayor” after 9/11, become a leader of an attempt to overturn a national election? “It’s like there are