Month: January 2024

By MICHAEL GOLDBERG Associated Press/Report for America JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi’s State Health Officer says even as the state improves some of its poor health outcomes, more of its people die preventable deaths than residents of any other state. State Health Officer Dr. Daniel Edney called for state leaders to work with health officials

By PAT GRAHAM AP Sports Writer Shawn Barber, the Canadian pole vault record holder and 2015 world champion, has died from medical complications. He was 29. Barber died Wednesday at home in Kingwood, Texas, his agent, Paul Doyle, confirmed to The Associated Press. A cause of death was not known yet. Barber had been experiencing

WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal judge overseeing the 2020 election interference against Donald Trump has rejected his lawyers’ bid to hold special counsel Jack Smith’s team in contempt for actions prosecutors took after the judge put the case on hold. But the judge said Thursday that no further “substantive” court filings should be submitted without

By ALANIS THAMES AP Sports Writer MIAMI (AP) — A breakaway team of Cuban players who defected from the country had their club debut delayed this week when the Colombian government canceled a tournament there. Players with the Cuban Professional Baseball Federation, or FEPCUBE, say Colombia nixed the tournament over opposition to the Cuban team’s

By CHRISTINA LARSON AP Science Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists have mapped the largest coral reef deep in the ocean, stretching hundreds of miles off the U.S. Atlantic coast. While researchers have known since the 1960s that some coral were present off the Atlantic, the reef’s size remained a mystery until new underwater mapping technology

By KATE BRUMBACK Associated Press ATLANTA (AP) — Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is accusing the estranged wife of a special prosecutor she hired of trying to obstruct her criminal election-interference case against former President Donald Trump and others by seeking to question her in the couple’s divorce proceedings. A motion filed last week

NEW YORK (AP) — More than a half a million beds sold at retailers like Walmart and Wayfair are under recall because they can break during use, which has resulted in dozens of injuries. The recall impacts several different models and sizes of upholstered low profile standard and platform beds from Home Design, Inc. The

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida will seek to streamline regulations and offer incentives to help make health care more accessible under two bills unanimously passed by the Senate. The votes on Thursday quickly pushed forward Republican Senate President Kathleen Passidomo’s top session priority. The bills would make it easier for foreign doctors and out-of-state health

By AMY TAXIN Associated Press SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — A prosecutor has told jurors that a murder defendant acted callously in killing a 6-year-old boy in a car-to-car shooting on a Southern California freeway in 2021. Twenty-six-year-old Marcus Eriz is charged with killing Aiden Leos while the boy’s mother was driving him to kindergarten

By MICHAEL HILL Associated Press FORT EDWARD, N.Y. (AP) — The boyfriend of a 20-year-old woman fatally shot in the neck when they pulled into the wrong driveway described to a jury the moment when he heard a shot pierce the car, and then saw his girlfriend slumped over in the passenger seat. Blake Walsh

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia (AP) — Thousands of people have rallied across Slovakia as protests intensify against a plan by the new government of populist Prime Minister Robert Fico to amend the penal code. The protests in 24 cities and towns Thursday took place hours after President Zuzana Čaputová voiced her strong opposition to the changes, saying they could

By ISABELLA VOLMERT Associated Press INDIANPOLIS (AP) — The Indiana state House of Representatives has unanimously passed bill that defines antisemitism as religious discrimination in education code. Opponents to the bill say it could be used to shut down support for Palestinians and criticism of Israel in classrooms and on campuses. The bill now advances

By AYANNA ALEXANDER and JONATHAN J. COOPER Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — A top No Labels leader says Nikki Haley “would deserve serious consideration” for the group’s nomination if it decides to run a third-party candidate for president. No Labels co-chair and former Sen. Joe Lieberman said Thursday that Haley’s record as governor of South

By JEFF AMY Associated Press ATLANTA (AP) — A billionaire couple is giving $100 million to Atlanta’s Spelman College, which the women’s school says is the largest-ever single donation to a historically Black college or university. Thursday’s donation is by Ronda Stryker and her husband. She’s the billionaire granddaughter of the founder of medical device

By CHRISTINA A. CASSIDY Associated Press When New Hampshire voters cast their ballots in Tuesday’s first-in-the-nation primary, many will do so using scanners that are at least 15 years old — with some potentially dating back to Bill Clinton’s presidency. Election experts say the aging AccuVote ballot tabulators in use across roughly half the state’s

By RIO YAMAT Associated Press LAS VEGAS (AP) — The Nevada Supreme Court won’t reconsider former “Dances With Wolves” actor Nathan Chasing Horse’s request to dismiss a sprawling indictment that accuses him of leading a cult, taking underage wives and sexually abusing Indigenous women and girls. “Rehearing denied,” two of three justices who heard oral

By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER and CLAUDIA LAUER Associated Press A Justice Department report released Thursday details a myriad of failures by police who responded to the shooting at a school in Uvalde, Texas, when children waited desperately for over an hour before officers stormed a classroom to take the gunman down. The federal review, which

BERLIN (AP) — Germany’s parliament has approved legislation that is intended to ease deportations of unsuccessful asylum-seekers as Chancellor Olaf Scholz seeks to defuse migration as a political problem. The legislation approved Thursday foresees increasing the maximum length of pre-deportation custody from 10 days to 28 and specifically facilitating the deportation of people who are

NEW YORK (AP) — An estimated 320 journalists around the world were imprisoned because of their work toward the end of 2023. That’s from the Committee to Protect Journalists, which on Thursday issued its annual census as of Dec. 1, 2023. The committee has been doing this since 1992, and last year had the second-highest

By TOM ODULA Associated Press NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Authorities in Kenya say a donkey cart carrying a suspected improvised bomb has blown up at a checkpoint on the Kenya-Somalia border, killing one Kenyan police officer and critically wounding four others. A police report says the cart pulled by two donkeys and ridden by one

By MIKE STOBBE AP Medical Writer NEW YORK (AP) — Wastewater testing does a good job at detecting mpox infections, U.S. health officials said in a report Thursday that bolsters a push to use sewage to track more diseases. U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers found that over the course of a week,

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey’s leading soccer club Basaksehir says it’s ended its contract with Israeli player Eden Karzev following a disciplinary probe of his social media post calling for the release of hostages held in Gaza by the Hamas militant group. Thursday’s announcement comes days after another Israeli player, Sagiv Jehezkel, was briefly detained

By MATTHEW LEE AP Diplomatic Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Antony Blinken is planning to visit four African countries as the Biden administration tries to keep its eyes on all corners of the world while being consumed by crises in Ukraine, the Mideast and the Red Sea. The State Department says Blinken will

LJUBLJANA, Slovenia (AP) — Slovenia has decided to set up temporary facilities for handling migrant arrivals at the border with Croatia, citing a surge in crossings. Authorities will put up a fence, two accommodation containers, tents and sanitary facilities at the former border crossing in Obrezje. The government said on Thursday that the facilities will