Month: January 2024

By HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH Associated Press Donations poured in Wednesday to replace a destroyed statue of Jackie Robinson on what would have been the 105th birthday of the first player to break Major League Baseball’s color barrier. Major League Baseball pledged support. And the total raised just through one online fundraiser surpassed $145,000, which is far

By SOPHIA TAREEN Associated Press CHICAGO (AP) — Chicago’s City Council narrowly approved a resolution Wednesday calling for a permanent cease-fire in the war between Israel and Hamas, with Mayor Brandon Johnson casting the tiebreaking vote. The symbolic declaration in the nation’s third-largest city follows weeks of rowdy public meetings with disruptions from demonstrators, including

By KATE BRUMBACK Associated Press ATLANTA (AP) — A defense attorney who has alleged that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has had an inappropriate romantic relationship with a special prosecutor hired for the Georgia election interference case against former President Donald Trump has called the two to testify at a hearing next month. Lawyer

By NOAH TRISTER AP Baseball Writer Cal Ripken Jr. and Grant Hill are part of the investor group that has agreed to buy the Baltimore Orioles. So are former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke. The group is headed by Baltimore native David Rubenstein. He is co-founder of the Carlyle

By HANNAH FINGERHUT Associated Press DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa lawmakers have declined to advance a bill that would have stripped “gender identity” from the state’s civil rights law. The proposal has been floated in recent years without success. It reached the first step in Iowa’s lawmaking process Wednesday, when it was rejected by

By GEOFF MULVIHILL Associated Press Even before pornographic and violent deepfake images of Taylor Swift began widely circulating in the past few days, state lawmakers across the U.S. had been searching for ways to quash such nonconsensual images of both adults and children. But in this Taylor-centric era, the problem has been getting a lot

By STEVE LeBLANC Associated Press BOSTON (AP) — A Boston doctor was found not guilty Wednesday on a charge of lewd acts near a 14-year-old girl on an airplane after a three-day trial in federal court in Boston. Lawyers for Dr. Sudipta Mohanty, 33, said more than a dozen passengers sitting in seats near Mohanty

By BRUCE SCHREINER Associated Press FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — Abortion-rights supporters are mounting another push to restore abortion access in Kentucky. But the lawmaker sponsoring the bill acknowledges the long odds against them. A near-total abortion ban has been in place in Kentucky since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. It bans abortions

NEW YORK (AP) — Melinda Ledbetter Wilson, the longtime wife and manager of Brian Wilson whom the Beach Boys co-founder often credited for stabilizing his famously troubled life, has died at age 77. Wilson died Tuesday at the couple’s home in Beverly Hills, California, Brian Wilson announced online. Brian Wilson’s spokesperson Lauren Mele said Wednesday

By ALEXANDRA OLSON and DAVID FISCHER Associated Press Writers MIAMI (AP) — A small venture capital firm faced tough questions from conservative judges Wednesday as it defended a grant program for Black women-owned businesses in a lawsuit that has become emblematic of a growing legal backlash against corporate diversity programs. The Fearless Fund is asking

By SEAN MURPHY Associated Press Writer OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — After facing fierce criticism, the head of Oklahoma’s public schools now says his agency is working to see if teachers improperly awarded up to $50,000 can keep the bonuses. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters made the comments on Wednesday. Walters and the Department

By COLLEEN LONG and MATTHEW DALY Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — White House senior adviser John Podesta will replace John Kerry as the top U.S. official on international climate change. Kerry announced earlier this month that he would step down from the top climate job to work on President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign. According to

SEBRING, Fla. (AP) — Officials say a sheriff’s deputy in central Florida took his own life outside the agency’s headquarters. The Highlands County Sheriff’s Office says 56-year-old Paul Robitaille worked as a detention deputy in the county courthouse in Sebring and had been with the agency since March 2007. Investigators say Robitaille asked his supervisor

By JENNIFER PELTZ.. Associated Press For about 15 years, Uriel Rincon told authorities he didn’t recognize the gunman who killed Run-DMC’s Jam Master Jay and wounded Rincon himself in the rap star’s recording studio. But on Wednesday, Rincon pointed across a Brooklyn federal courtroom and identified Karl Jordan Jr. as the shooter in one of

By STEPHEN GROVES, LISA MASCARO and MARY CLARE JALONICK Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — With time slipping to bolster Ukraine’s defenses, Senate negotiators struggled Wednesday to finalize a bipartisan deal that would pair policy changes at the U.S. southern border with wartime aid for Kyiv as their carefully negotiated compromise ran into strong resistance from