Month: May 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has left in place lawyer Michael Avenatti’s conviction for plotting to extort up to $25 million from Nike. The justices did not comment Tuesday in rejecting an appeal from the California-based lawyer, who represented porn actor Stormy Daniels in litigation against ex-President Donald Trump. The timing of the court’s

By SEUNG MIN KIM and BRUCE SHIPKOWSKI Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden will be formally nominated as the Democratic presidential nominee through a virtual roll call ahead of the party’s official convention in Chicago in August — a maneuver that will allow Biden to appear on the November ballot in Ohio. The

By FABIANO MAISONNAVE Associated Press CURACA, Brazil (AP) — All Spix’s macaws are majestically blue in the blazing sun of Brazil’s Northeast, but each bird is distinct to Candice and Cromwell Purchase. As the parrots soar squawking past their home, the couple can readily identify bird No. 17 by its smooth feathers and can tell

By NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis apologized Tuesday after he was quoted using a vulgar and derogatory term about gay men to reaffirm the Catholic Church’s ban on gay priests. The ruckus that ensued underscored how the church’s official teaching about homosexuality often bumps up against the unacknowledged reality that

By MIKE CORDER Associated Press THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — A former head of the Dutch intelligence agency and counterterrorism office is tipped to become the Netherlands’ next prime minister, leading a four-party coalition that includes Geert Wilders’ far-right Party for Freedom. Dick Schoof is a former head of the General Intelligence and Security Service

CHICAGO (AP) — Chicago police fatally shot a stabbing suspect and wounded the person he was trying to stab after the suspect refused to drop his weapon. Police say officers were patrolling late Monday when they saw a male attempting to stab a male in the street and ordered the suspect to drop his weapon.

By SOPHIKO MEGRELIDZE Associated Press TBILISI, Georgia (AP) — The Georgian parliament has overridden a presidential veto of the “foreign agents” legislation that has fueled Western concerns and sparked massive protests for weeks. The legislature, controlled by the ruling Georgian Dream party, dismissed President Salome Zourabichvili’s veto of the legislation that she and other critics

By GERALD IMRAY Associated Press CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — South African President Cyril Ramaphosa faces the prospect of his ruling party’s worst election result ever. Yet he’s still likely be reelected as leader of Africa’s most advanced country after Wednesday’s national vote. Several polls have support for his African National Congress at below

By LEKAN OYEKANMI and JOHN SEEWER Associated Press HOUSTON (AP) — Strong storms with damaging winds and baseball-sized hail pummeled Texas on Tuesday, leaving one person dead and about 1 million businesses and homes without power as much of the U.S. recovered from severe weather, including tornadoes, that killed at least 24 people during the

By MICHELLE CHAPMAN AP Business Writer T-Mobile is buying U.S. Cellular’s wireless operations and certain spectrum assets in a deal valued at $4.4 billion, and further consolidating the industry.  T-Mobile will get U.S. Cellular’s wireless operations and about 30% of spectrum assets across several spectrum bands. T-Mobile will also enter into a new master license

By ADRIANA MORGA Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — Many people start no-buy challenges at the beginning of the year and commit to keep going until the end of it. But making a list of the non-essential items you won’t spend money on for a set period of time and sticking to it is easier

Associated Press OpenAI says it’s setting up a safety and security committee and has begun training a new AI model to supplant the GPT-4 system that underpins its ChatGPT chatbot. The San Francisco startup said in a blog post Tuesday that the committee will advise the full board on “critical safety and security decisions” for

By MARI YAMAGUCHI Associated Press TOKYO (AP) — A Japanese town that erected a huge black screen last week in an attempt to stop tourists from snapping photos of Mount Fuji and overcrowding the area has discovered holes in the screen and is working to repair them, officials said Tuesday. Fujikawaguchiko, a popular spot to

By ADRIANA MORGA Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — The self-imposed rules of a no-buy challenge are simple: participants pledge to stop buying non-essential items, be they unneeded shoes, additional beauty products or other impulse buys for a set amount of time, usually 12 months. What started several years ago as a blogged-about experiment in

By MICHELLE CHAPMAN and THALIA BEATY AP Business Writers Melinda French Gates says she will be donating $1 billion over the next two years to individuals and organizations working on behalf of women and families globally, including on reproductive rights in the United States. It’s the second billion-dollar commitment French Gates has personally made in

BERLIN (AP) — Official data show another big increase in the number of people gaining German citizenship last year. According to figures released Tuesday, large numbers of people from Syria helped push naturalizations up to their highest level since at least 2000. The Federal Statistical Office says about 200,100 people were granted German citizenship in

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland’s top diplomat says that Congo has released a Polish man who was sentenced to life in prison on espionage charges. Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski said Tuesday on X that Mariusz Majewski is back in Europe. Sikorski posted a brief video of himself apparently talking to Majewski over the phone to

By JON GAMBRELL Associated Press DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Missile attacks twice damaged a Marshall Islands-flagged, Greek-owned ship Tuesday in the Red Sea off the coast of Yemen, with a private security firm saying radio traffic suggested the vessel took on water after being struck. No group claimed responsibility, but suspicion fell on

By YURI KAGEYAMA AP Business Writer TOKYO (AP) — Japanese automaker Toyota introduced plans to cast a futuristic spin on the traditional internal combustion engine. During a three-hour presentation at a Tokyo hall Tuesday, the car manufacturer giant announced it would offer lean compact engines that also run on so-called green fuels like hydrogen and

By ALBERT AJI Associated Press DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — For the first time in over a decade, 270 Syrians have traveled on a direct flight from Damascus to Saudi Arabia for the annual Islamic Hajj pilgrimage, according to the Syrian Transportation Ministry. Tuesday’s development marks an ongoing thaw in relations between Damascus and Riyadh, which

By WAFAA SHURAFA and SAMY MAGDY Associated Press DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli shelling and airstrikes killed at least 37 people, most of them sheltering in tents, outside the southern Gaza city of Rafah overnight and on Tuesday — pummeling the same area where strikes triggered a deadly fire days earlier in a

NEW YORK (AP) — Closing arguments in Donald Trump’s historic hush money trial have begun, giving prosecutors and defense lawyers one final opportunity to convince the jury of their respective cases before deliberations begin. Arguments are expected to last all day Tuesday, even stretching into the evening hours, with jury deliberations starting as early as

By KANIS LEUNG Associated Press HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong police on Tuesday arrested six people, including a former organizer of the city’s decades-long annual vigil that commemorated China’s Tiananmen Square crackdown, for allegedly publishing seditious social media posts. They were the first publicly known arrests under the city’s new national security law. Secretary