Month: April 2024

By TIM REYNOLDS AP Basketball Writer There’s a 64-win team in Boston that ran away with the league’s best record. The defending champions in Denver, a group that won 57 games. A fearless young bunch in Oklahoma City, whose No. 1 seed was no fluke. A trio of Villanova alums in New York, who turned

By STEPHEN GROVES, LISA MASCARO and KEVIN FREKING Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — With rare bipartisan momentum, the House pushed ahead Friday on a foreign aid package of $95 billion for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and humanitarian support as a robust coalition of lawmakers helped it clear a procedural hurdle to reach final votes this weekend.

By KRISTIN M. HALL and TOM KRISHER Associated Press CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP) — Employees at a Volkswagen factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee, overwhelmingly voted to join the United Auto Workers union Friday in a historic first test of the UAW’s renewed effort to organize nonunion factories. The union wound up getting 2,628 votes, or 73% of

ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) — The Federal Aviation Administration will investigate after a flight at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport was instructed to cross a runway where another flight was starting its takeoff, the agency said. A JetBlue flight was starting its takeoff roll on runway 4 at the airport in Arlington, Virginia, just outside Washington,

By ZEN SOO Associated Press HONG KONG (AP) — Apple says it has removed Meta’s WhatsApp messaging app and its Threads social media app from the App Store in China on Beijing’s orders. Apple said that the apps were removed from the store on Friday, after Chinese authorities cited national security concerns. The nature of

By TRAVIS LOLLER and MICHAEL PHILLIS Associated Press John Maas spent years buying and outfitting a 17-foot aluminum boat called the Superskiff 1 so he could take customers fishing for sea trout and flounder in the Gulf of Mexico. But before the Mississippi captain could make his first charter trip in 2010, the BP Deepwater

By FATIMA HUSSEIN and JULIA FRANKEL Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is imposing sanctions on two entities accused of fundraising for extremist Israeli-occupied West Bank settlers who have harassed and attacked Palestinians. Also sanctioned was the founder of an organization whose members regularly assault Palestinians. The announcement from the U.S. Treasury Department

By GIADA ZAMPANO Associated Press ROME (AP) — An Italian court has dismissed a long-running case against migrant rescue ship crews of three humanitarian organizations. It dropped charges accusing crew members of collaborating with smugglers as they helped rescue thousands of migrants at sea. The judges in the Sicilian city of Trapani decided not to

By DALATOU MAMANE and JACK THOMPSON Associated Press NIAMEY, Niger (AP) — A UN report says drug seizures have soared in the West African Sahel region in recent years, indicating the conflict-ridden region is becoming an influential hotspot for trafficking. In 2022, 1,466 kilograms of cocaine were seized in Mali, Chad, Burkina Faso and Niger

By MARIA SHERMAN AP Music Writer NEW YORK (AP) — Could there be a Taylor Swift new album rollout without a few additional surprises? No. On Friday, the pop star released her 11th album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” an amalgamation of her previous work and reflecting the artist who — at the peak of her

By ANGELA CHARLTON and MASHA MACPHERSON Associated Press PARIS (AP) — Police say they found no weapons on a man detained at the Iranian Consulate in Paris after responding to a report of a suspicious man possibly carrying a grenade and an explosives vest. Television footage and social media showed police surrounding the building on

By MATTHEW DALY Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency has designated two forever chemicals used in cookware, carpets and firefighting foams as hazardous substances. Friday’s action is intended to ensure quicker cleanup of the toxic compounds and require those responsible for contamination to pay for its removal. Designation as a hazardous substance

Israel’s long-term credit rating is being downgraded by S&P, which cited the risk of military escalation with Iran. It is the second major U.S. credit ratings agency to do so. There was an apparent drone attack at a major air base and a nuclear site near the central city of Isfahan early Friday, which is

NEW YORK (AP) — Opening statements in Donald Trump’s hush money case are set to begin next week after a jury of 12 people and six alternates was seated Friday. The seating of the jury sets the stage for weeks of testimony in a case charging Trump with falsifying business records to suppress stories about

By CHINEU ASADU and JOHN MINCHILLO Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — A Nigerian chess champion and child education advocate has played chess nonstop for 60 hours. Tunde Onakoya was attempting to break the Guinness World Record for the longest chess marathon. Onakoya started the attempt Wednesday in New York City’s Times Square and aims

By KELVIN CHAN AP Business Writer LONDON (AP) — Olympic organizers have unveiled their plans to use artificial intelligence in sports, joining the global rush to capitalize on the rapidly advancing technology. The International Olympic Committee outlined its agenda for taking advantage of AI. Officials said it could be used to help identify promising athletes,

By MARI YAMAGUCHI Associated Press TOKYO (AP) — The American envoy to the United Nations has called for countries armed with atomic weapons to pursue nuclear disarmament as she visited the atomic bomb museum in Nagasaki, Japan. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who became the first U.S. cabinet member to visit Nagasaki, stressed the importance of dialogue and

By ROBERT YOON Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump will go before voters next week in Pennsylvania’s presidential primaries. It’s a prelude to the November general election, when the commonwealth is expected to again play a critical role in the race for the White House. The Democratic and

By NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press CAPRI, Italy (AP) — The United States told the Group of Seven foreign ministers that it received “last minute” information from Israel about a drone action in Iran, Italy’s foreign minister said. Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, who chaired the meeting of ministers of industrialized countries, said the United States

By TARA COPP and LOLITA C. BALDOR Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon can get weapons moving to Ukraine quickly once Congress passes a long-delayed aid bill. That’s because it has a network of storage sites in the U.S. and Europe. Those sites already hold some of the munitions and air defense components that

By JAN M. OLSEN Associated Press COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — The head of the European Union’s executive branch says that Finland’s decision to close its border crossings with Russia over a surge in migrants is a security matter for the whole 27-member bloc to consider. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen made the remarks

By JAN M. OLSEN Associated Press COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Firefighters in Copenhagen stabilizing the burned-out husk of Copenhagen’s historic Old Stock Exchange tried to use giant shears on a crane Friday to cut away dangling scaffolding, but suffered a setback when the implement fell into the debris. A large blaze broke out at the

By BECKY BOHRER and MATTHEW DALY Associated Press JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — The U.S. oil industry’s top lobbying group says Biden administration rules restricting oil and gas leasing in 13 million acres of Alaska’s petroleum reserve are “misguided.” The American Petroleum Institute says the rules limit development in a region “intended by Congress to bolster

By MUNIR AHMED Associated Press ISLAMABAD (AP) — An important ally of Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif demanded the government lift a two-month-old ban on the social media platform X, saying it violates citizens’ right to speech and expression. The ban on X has been in place since February, when the party of imprisoned former