Month: February 2024

By MICHELLE L. PRICE Associated Press COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — At least one member of the Republican National Committee is working to slow Donald Trump’s attempted takeover of the organization by pushing to keep the committee neutral until Trump is officially the presidential nominee and avoid picking up his legal bills. Two draft resolutions are

HAVANA (AP) — Cuban singer and cabaret diva Juana Bacallao has died. She was 98 and had still performed until recently. Cuba’s Ministry of Culture said that Bacallao died Saturday after spending several days at a hospital in Havana. Officials didn’t say why she was hospitalized. Bacallao was known for her husky voice, risque personality

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — A court in Cyprus has ordered two men to remain in police custody for six days on suspicion of people smuggling. The men were identified as the drivers of two boats that brought 146 Syrian refugees and one Lebanese migrant to the east Mediterranean island nation. Police said Saturday the suspects

By CAROLYN THOMPSON Associated Press Tributes poured in Saturday for Flaco, the beloved Eurasian eagle-owl that became a feel-good New York story after escaping its Central Park Zoo enclosure and flying free around Manhattan. Flaco was found dead on a New York City sidewalk Friday night after apparently flying into a building. It was a

By ROBERT YOON Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — South Carolina isn’t the only state holding a presidential contest this weekend. Republican party officials in two Wyoming counties will meet on Saturday to begin awarding the first of the state’s 29 delegates to the Republican National Convention this summer, but the contest won’t much resemble the

By JOSH FUNK AP Business Writer Billionaire Warren Buffett is known as one of the world’s greatest investors, and the 93-year-old has a devout following of people who admire his track record and appreciate his sage advice on life and investing. Buffett’s latest annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders released Saturday morning was filled with

By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA Associated Press ERBIL, Iraq (AP) — Iraq’s intelligence department says it has captured two members of the Islamic State group in an operation outside the country and brought them home. Authorities said Saturday that they confessed to committing crimes during the rule of the extremist organization. The Iraqi National Intelligence Service didn’t

By GERALD IMRAY Associated Press CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — Polls suggest South Africa faces a historic turning point in a national election in May. The ruling African National Congress could lose its majority for the first time having transformed from a liberation movement to a governing party at the end of apartheid in

CHICAGO (AP) — An Illinois judge who sparked outrage by reversing a man’s rape conviction involving a 16-year-old girl has been removed from the bench after a judicial oversight body found he circumvented the law and engaged in misconduct. The Illinois Courts Commission removed Adams County Judge Robert Adrian from the bench Friday after sustaining

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board say a helicopter that was carrying the CEO of one of Nigeria’s largest banks and five others left a shallow crater when it crashed earlier this month in Southern California’s Mojave Desert. Debris was scattered across 100 yards. The agency released a preliminary investigation

By BOUAZZA BEN BOUAZZA Associated Press TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — A court in Tunisia has sentenced former president Moncef Marzouki to eight years in prison in absentia as part of the country’s crackdown on opponents of President Kais Saied. The charges against Marzouki stemmed from remarks he made that authorities said violated laws prohibiting incitement

By MOGOMOTSI MAGOME Associated Press DURBAN, South Africa (AP) — South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa has highlighted the achievements of his ruling African National Congress, which has ruled the country for all of its 30 years of democracy, as it heads into a tight race in May’s election. Ramaphosa delivered the party’s manifesto to thousands

By DANICA KIRKA Associated Press LONDON (AP) — The U.K.’s governing Conservative Party has suspended ties with one if its lawmakers after he accused London Mayor Sadiq Khan of being controlled by Islamists as tensions over the Israel-Hamas war roil British politics. The party said on Saturday that Lee Anderson was suspended after he refused

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Officials say six members of a religious congregation in Haiti and a teacher have been kidnapped while gathered in front of a school in the capital. The members are men from the Congregation of Brothers of Sacred Heart. Religious officials said in a statement Friday that the school where the kidnapping

By DÁNICA COTO Associated Press SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Authorities in the eastern Caribbean said they were trying to locate two people believed to be U.S. citizens who were aboard a yacht that was hijacked by three escaped prisoners from Grenada. The Royal Grenada Police Force said in a statement released Friday that

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. (AP) — A New Jersey man has been acquitted in a retrial in the beating death of a college student from Tennessee a decade ago. Jurors in Middlesex County deliberated for five hours before acquitting Timothy Puskas of all charges Wednesday in the 2014 death of 22-year-old former Rutgers student William McCaw.

By KEN MILLER Associated Press EDMOND, Okla. (AP) — More than two dozen people gathered at an Oklahoma church for a vigil for Nex Benedict, a nonbinary teenager who died one day after a fight in a high school bathroom. The vigil Friday night at All Saints Episcopal Church in McAlester was one of two

By SYLVIE CORBET Associated Press PARIS (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron was greeted with boos and whistles at the opening of the Paris Agricultural Fair on Saturday by angry farmers who blame him for not doing enough to support them. Macron was scheduled to visit the event, which draws crowds of visitors every year.

By ALEXA ST. JOHN Associated Press Areli Sanchez’s daughter, Aida, used to be one of 20 million American kids who ride a diesel bus to school each day. Aida has asthma. When she was little, she complained about the smell and cloud of fumes on her twice-daily trip. “When she would come home from school

By JOSH FUNK AP Business Writer OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Warren Buffett credited his longtime partner — the late Charlie Munger — with being the architect of the Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate he has received the credit for leading and warned shareholders in his annual letter Saturday not to listen to Wall Street pundits or financial

By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER Associated Press LEWISTON, Maine (AP) — The head of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives says he fears that a drumbeat of mass shootings and other gun violence across the United States could make Americans numb to the bloodshed. Director Steve Dettelbach worries that could foster apathy to

By JULIE CARR SMYTH and KIMBERLEE KRUESI Associated Press COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The resignation letter was short and direct. “I can no longer be under an oath to uphold the New Constitution of Ohio,” wrote Sabrina Warner in her letter announcing she was stepping down from the state’s Republican central committee. It was just

By STEPHANIE LIECHTENSTEIN Associated Press VIENNA (AP) — Police in Vienna say they have launched a criminal investigation after three women were found dead in a brothel. A witness discovered traces of blood outside the building near the Danube River and alerted police on Friday evening. A police spokesperson told The Associated Press on Saturday

By CHINEDU ASADU Associated Press ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — West Africa’s regional bloc known as ECOWAS has lifted travel, commercial and economic sanctions imposed on Niger which were aimed at reversing the coup staged in the country last year. A senior official announced at the bloc’s meeting on Saturday that the sanctions are being lifted