AP National News

Associated Press SURIN ISLANDS, Thailand (AP) — When Hook was a child, he started his days by jumping off the boat that his family lived on and into the ocean. By age 3, he could already swim and dive in shallow waters. His home was a kabang, a boat, that his family sailed in Thailand’s

KILLEEN, Texas (AP) — A pickup truck driver fleeing police careened through the doors of a JCPenney store at a busy Texas mall, injuring five people before he was fatally shot by officers, authorities said. A 53-year-old man identified as John Darrel Schultz of Kempner drove a truck and crashed into the department store in

WASHINGTON (AP) — Lara Trump, the daughter-in-law of President-elect Donald Trump, says she’s removing herself from consideration to be a Florida senator. That ends speculation she could replace Sen. Marco Rubio, who has been tapped to be the incoming administration’s secretary of state. Lara Trump posted Saturday on X that she “decided to remove my

Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — New York’s governor has ordered more than a dozen state prison staffers fired over the fatal beating of an inmate earlier this month. Gov. Kathy Hochul said Saturday that she has directed the state’s corrections department commissioner to begin the process of terminating 14 workers involved in the fatal

AP Sports Writer OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Hall of Famer Rickey Henderson, the brash speedster who shattered stolen base records and redefined baseball’s leadoff position, has died. He was 65. Henderson died on Friday. The Athletics said Saturday they were “shocked and heartbroken by his passing,” but did not specify a cause of death. Known

Associated Press QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — As Christmas approaches and people decorate their homes with lights, Ecuadoreans are getting some relief from the severe power cuts that have hounded the country this year with President Daniel Noboa saying there will be no power rationing for residential areas – for the time being. But some of

Associated Press WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Mark Burnett, the power producer who helped reintroduce Donald Trump to a national television audience with “The Apprentice,” is being tapped by the president-elect as special envoy to the United Kingdom in his upcoming administration. “With a distinguished career in television production and business, Mark brings a

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece’s coast guard says it continues to search for survivors or victims of a speedboat that capsized carrying migrants off the eastern Greek island of Rhodes. The capsizing, the result of the boat’s maneuvering to evade a patrol vessel, according to authorities, left eight confirmed dead. A total of 18 migrants,

Associated Press Federal officials have joined with the state of Arizona to begin fulfilling a settlement agreement that was reached with the Hopi Tribe nearly three decades ago, marking what tribal officials described as a historic day. Government attorneys filed condemnation documents on Friday to transfer dozens of square miles of state land into trust

AP National Writer STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) — In a time of incessant change, Penn State linebacker Dominic DeLuca is a throwback. The former walk-on’s team might be one too. DeLuca was guaranteed nothing when he arrived on campus nearly four years ago without the promise of a scholarship or much of anything else. He

AP Business Writer Amazon delivery drivers and Starbucks baristas are on strike in a handful of U.S. cities as they seek to exert pressure on the two major companies to recognize them as unionized employees or to meet demands for an inaugural labor contract. The strikes that started Thursday and Friday followed other recent standoffs

Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — After days of threats and demands, Donald Trump had little to show for it once lawmakers passed a budget deal in the early hours of Saturday, narrowly averting a pre-Christmas government shutdown. The president-elect successfully pushed House Republicans to jettison some spending, but he failed to achieve his central goal

Associated Press KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — A ferry overloaded with people returning home for Christmas capsized on the Busira River in northeastern Congo, leaving 38 people confirmed dead and over 100 others missing, officials and eyewitnesses said Saturday. Twenty people have been rescued so far. The sinking of the ferry late Friday came less than

Associated Press The 14-year old student killed at a Wisconsin Christian school this week is remembered as a talented teenager who shared her gifts of music and art with many. Funeral services were held Saturday morning for Rubi Patricia Vergara. She was shot and killed along with teacher Erin West Monday by a fellow student

AP Technology Writer Suchir Balaji, a former OpenAI engineer and whistleblower who helped train the artificial intelligence systems behind ChatGPT and later said he believed those practices violated copyright law, has died, according to his parents and San Francisco officials. He was 26. Balaji worked at OpenAI for nearly four years before quitting in August.

Associated Press GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AP) — Guyana’s government has formally protested to Venezuela following the completion by Venezuela’s armed forces of a bridge built on a remote river island shared by both countries. Work on the bridge, which links Venezuela’s mainland to a military base, has caused a decades-old row over border lines in the

MAGDEBURG, Germany (AP) — Four women and a 9-year-old boy were killed and 200 people were injured when a man drove into a Christmas market teeming with holiday shoppers in the German city of Magdeburg — an attack that has left Germans mourning the victims and with a shaken sense of security. How did the

Associated Press TIRANA, Albania (AP) — Albania’s prime minister said Saturday the government will shut down the video service TikTok for one year, blaming it for inciting violence and bullying, especially among children. Albanian authorities held 1,300 meetings with teachers and parents following the stabbing death of a teenager in mid-November by another teen after

Associated Press Blake Lively has accused her “It Ends With Us” director and co-star Justin Baldoni of sexual harassment on the set of the movie and a subsequent effort to “destroy” her reputation in a legal complaint. The complaint obtained by The Associated Press, which The New York Times reported was filed Friday with the

Associated Press BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is drawing a direct link between immigration and an attack in Germany where a man drove into a Christmas market teeming with holiday shoppers, killing at least five people and injuring 200 others. Orbán on Saturday also implied that the 27-nation bloc’s migration policies

Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden signed a bill into law Saturday that averts a government shutdown, bringing a final close to days of upheaval after Congress approved a temporary funding plan just past the deadline and refused President-elect Donald Trump’s core debt demands in the package. The deal funds the government at

Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — The top uniformed police officer in the New York Police Department has resigned amid allegations he demanded sex from a subordinate. Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Saturday she accepted the resignation of Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey on Friday night, effective immediately. John Chell, the department’s chief of patrol,

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — The Pakistani Taliban says it carried out a deadly attack on a military checkpoint in the country’s northwest. It’s the militant group’s latest assault on troops in the restive province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which borders Afghanistan. The group said it killed 35 soldiers and injured 15 others in an early Saturday

Associated Press ROME (AP) — The Vatican has taken the first main step to implement Pope Francis’ wish that Belgium’s late king be beatified for having abdicated for a day rather than approve legislation to legalize abortion. The Holy See’s saint-making office on Dec. 17 established a historical commission, made up of experts in Belgian

Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress is allocating more than $100 billion in emergency aid to address extensive damage caused by hurricane and other disasters. The money is in a bill passed early Saturday by Congress after this week’s scramble to find consensus on a government spending bill. The money is being provided after back-to-back

AP Sports Writer The Washington Commanders’ path to returning to nation’s capital is clear after an on-again, off-again saga in Congress ended with a late reprieve. The U.S. Senate passed a resolution early Saturday to transfer the land including old RFK Stadium from the federal government to the District of Columbia. A provision to do