AP-National

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says the company will invest $2.2 billion over the next four years in new cloud and artificial intelligence infrastructure in Malaysia. It marks Microsoft’s single largest investment in the country, as the tech giant seeks to bolster support for AI development in the region and worldwide.

By DAVID KLEPPER and KRUTIKA PATHI Associated Press NEW DELHI (AP) — Bollywood stars seldom weigh in on politics, so videos showing two celebrities criticizing Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi — and endorsing his main opposition, the Congress party — were bound to go viral. But the clips of A-list actors Aamir Khan and Ranveer

By JEFF AMY Associated Press CONYERS, Ga. (AP) — U.S. Rep. David Scott faces multiple Democratic primary opponents in his quest for a 12th congressional term. He’s running in a sharply reconfigured suburban Atlanta district. With early voting underway ahead of the May 21 primary elections, the 78-year-old is trying to glide to renomination. Challengers

By MARIA CHENG and CHRISTINA MALKIA Associated Press KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — Congo is struggling to contain its biggest mpox outbreak, and scientists say a new form of the disease detected in a mining town might more easily spread among people. Since January, Congo has reported more than 4,500 suspected mpox cases and nearly 300

By STEFANIE DAZIO and AMY TAXIN Associated Press LOS ANGELES (AP) — A federal judge in Los Angeles has sentenced a scuba dive boat captain to four years in prison and three years supervised release for criminal negligence after 34 people died in a fire aboard the vessel in 2019. The tragedy was the deadliest

By DAVID BAUDER and CHRISTINE FERNANDO Associated Press Writers NEW YORK (AP) — Student journalists at campuses across the country are getting a pressure-filled, and dangerous, lesson in their chosen profession during a chaotic springtime of protests. Some student journalists at UCLA were beaten during a demonstration where violence interrupted this week, and Columbia University

By ANITA SNOW and MORGAN LEE Associated Press PHOENIX (AP) — Democratic Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs has relegated a Civil War-era ban on most abortions to the past by signing a bill Thursday to repeal it. Hobbs says the move is just the beginning of a fight to protect reproductive health care in Arizona. The

By LOLITA C. BALDOR Associated Press FORT LIBERTY, N.C. (AP) — The video is unsettling, with haunting images of faceless people, fire and soldiers. The voiceover is a cascade of recognizable historical voices as the screen pulses cryptic messages touting the power of words, ideas and “invisible hands.” Hints of its origin are tucked into

By CHEVEL JOHNSON RODRIGUE and KEVIN McGILL Associated Press NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival is usually akin to a 14-ring musical circus — a variety of musical acts playing simultaneously on stages spread throughout the sprawling infield and grandstand of a historic horse racing track. That changed Thursday afternoon,

By CHRIS MEGERIAN Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is rejecting calls from student protesters to change his approach to the war in Gaza while insisting that “order must prevail” on college campuses across the country. Biden on Thursday defended the right to free speech and said he opposes sending in the National

By BRUCE SCHREINER Associated Press GEORGETOWN, Ky. (AP) — Michael Blowen can step outside his house any day of the week and visit retired racehorses at Old Friends, the thoroughbred retirement farm he founded in Kentucky two decades ago that attentively cares for former winners and losers alike. From his home’s backdoor, Blowen can watch

By JONATHAN J. COOPER Associated Press PHOENIX (AP) — Arizona’s 1864 abortion ban will soon be gone from the state’s law books, but not from the campaign trail. Even after the state Senate voted Wednesday to repeal a law banning nearly all abortions, Democrats running in the battleground state say they will make the Civil

By KIRSTEN GRIESHABER Associated Press DUESSELDORF, Germany (AP) — Herbert Rubinstein was 5 years old when he and his mother where taken from the Jewish ghetto of Chernivtsi and put on a cramped cattle wagon waiting to take them to their deaths. It was 1941, and Romanians collaborating with Germany’s Nazis were rounding up tens

By AUDREY McAVOY Associated Press HONOLULU (AP) — Hawaii lawmakers appropriated funds for more firefighting equipment and a state fire marshal after the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century ripped through the historic Maui town of Lahaina and exposed shortcomings in the state’s readiness for such flames. The House and Senate passed the

By LISA MASCARO AP Congressional Correspondent WASHINGTON (AP) — Without wielding the gavel or holding a formal job laid out in the Constitution, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries might very well be the most powerful person in Congress right now. The minority leader of the House Democrats, it was Jeffries who provided the votes needed to keep

By SAMYA KULLAB Associated Press KHARKIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian soldiers say they are worried fortifications are not being built quicky enough as Russian forces continue to advance along the front lines. Poorly built defensive lines, including trenches, foxholes and firing positions, are part of the reason outgunned Ukrainians forces have had to withdraw, because

By MICHAEL R. SISAK, PHILIP MARCELO, ERIC TUCKER and JAKE OFFENHARTZ Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — Jurors in the hush money trial of Donald Trump heard a recording Thursday of him discussing with his then-lawyer and personal fixer a plan to purchase the silence of a Playboy model who has said she had an

By JULIE WATSON, CHRISTOPHER L. KELLER, CAROLYN THOMPSON and STEFANIE DAZIO Associated Press LOS ANGELES (AP) — Police have arrested more than 2,100 people during pro-Palestinian protests at college campuses across the United States in recent weeks, sometimes using riot gear, tactical vehicles and flash-bang devices to clear tent encampments and occupied buildings. One officer

PHOENIX (AP) — WNBA star Brittney Griner said she thought about killing herself during her first few weeks in a Russian jail after her 2022 arrest on drug-related charges. Griner spoke for the first time about her monthslong detention in Russia during an hourlong interview that aired Wednesday night on ABC. Her memoir, “Coming Home,”

By CARLOS MUREITHI Associated Press NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — African climate-tech startups are increasingly raising money from private sources, but while those funds for climate solutions are growing, a huge gap remains in meeting the actual financial needs for climate action in Africa. Africa requires an estimated $277 billion annually to implement its climate goals.

By ANDREW DALTON AP Entertainment Writer LOS ANGELES (AP) — Former Nickelodeon producer and writer Dan Schneider sued the makers of “Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV” on Wednesday, alleging the makers of the documentary series wrongly implied that he sexually abused the child actors he worked with. Schneider filed the defamation

By ROD McGUIRK Associated Press MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Solomon Islands lawmakers have elected former Foreign Minister Jeremiah Manele as prime minister in a development that suggests the South Pacific island nation will maintain close ties with China. Manele used his first speech as leader to promise to govern with integrity and to put his

By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal appeals court has rejected a bid to release from jail a former FBI informant who is charged with fabricating a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme involving President Joe Biden’s family. Alexander Smirnov’s lawyers had urged the California-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn a

By GENE JOHNSON Associated Press SEATTLE (AP) — A federal appeals court panel on Wednesday rejected a long-running lawsuit brought by young Oregon-based climate activists who argued that the U.S. government’s role in climate change violated their constitutional rights. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals previously ordered the case dismissed in 2020, saying that

By HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH Associated Press Student journalists on the Columbia University campus knew what was coming long before police with riots shields arrived to begin arresting the pro-Palestinian protesters who had occupied a building. They had watched the situation spiral as the protesters stood their ground, refusing to abandon Hamilton Hall. Several began sleeping on

By JACK DURA Associated Press Supporters of a South Dakota abortion rights initiative submitted far more signatures than required Wednesday to make the ballot this fall. But its outcome is unclear in the conservative state, where Republican lawmakers strongly oppose the measure and a major abortion rights advocate doesn’t support it. The effort echoes similar

By EDITH M. LEDERER Associated Press UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Russia has circulated a U.N. resolution calling on all countries to take urgent action to prevent putting weapons in outer space “for all time” a week after it vetoed a U.S.-Japan resolution to stop an arms race in space. The Russian draft resolution goes further

By KEVIN McGILL Associated Press NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Voting rights advocates say they will go to the Supreme Court in hopes of preserving a new majority Black congressional district in Louisiana for the fall elections. Wednesday’s declaration was the latest step in a complicated legal fight that could determine the fate of political careers

By MATTHEW BARAKAT Associated Press ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — The judge presiding over the trial of a military contractor accused of contributing to detainees’ mistreatment at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq two decades ago is speculating that the jury may not be able to reach a verdict. Federal judge Leonie Brinkema spoke to lawyers

By JAKE OFFENHARTZ Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — Before police officers poured into Columbia University on Tuesday night, arresting more than 100 people as they cleared an occupied school building and tent encampment, New York City Mayor Eric Adams said he received a piece of intelligence that shifted his thinking about the campus demonstrations