AP National News

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Actor Anne Heche died from inhalation injury and burns after her fiery car crash and the death was ruled an accident, according to coroner’s results released Wednesday. Heche, 53, also had a fractured sternum caused by “blunt trauma,” according to information on the website of the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner.

LAGRANGE, Ga. (AP) — A man has been arrested in connection with three separate shootings along Interstate 85 in Alabama and Georgia that left one man seriously wounded. Sheriff’s deputies in Georgia say Jerel Raphael Brown of Montgomery, Alabama, was taken into custody after Wednesday’s shootings. Officials say he shot at vehicles in Montgomery and

By BOB CHRISTIE Associated Press PHOENIX (AP) — A Missouri man has been indicted for leaving a threatening message on the personal cellphone of the top election official in Arizona’s most populous county, federal officials said. The case is the second filed in the past month against people accused of threatening top election officials in

BATON ROUGE (AP) — Brad Pitt’s Make It Right Foundation and homeowners of the houses built by the program, in an area of New Orleans among the hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina, have reached a $20.5 million settlement. The Times-Picayune ‘ The New Orleans Advocate reported Wednesday that, pending approval by a judge, each of

By KEVIN McGILL Associated Press NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A day after New Orleans officials asked that the city’s police department be removed from federal oversight under a decade-old court order, the judge in the case said she fears hard-fought reforms are at risk. U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan stressed Wednesday that she was not

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Palestinian medics say a teenager was killed and dozens were wounded in clashes with Israeli forces overnight. The Palestinian Red Crescent emergency service said early Thursday that 18-year-old Waseem Khalifa was killed and 35 Palestinians were wounded in the northern West Bank city of Nablus. It was not immediately clear

By JESSE BEDAYN The Associated Press/Report for America DENVER (AP) — Denver’s top prosecutor says she is opening a grand jury investigation into the actions of three police officers who wounded six bystanders last month while shooting at an armed suspect in a crowded downtown Denver nightlife zone. The officers had been placed on administrative

By GARY FIELDS and NICHOLAS RICCARDI Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Hundreds of federal judges face the same task every day: review an affidavit submitted by federal agents and approve requests for a search warrant. But for U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart, the fallout from his decision to approve a search warrant has been far

By CHINEDU ASADU Associated Press ABUJA, Nigeria” A company sat (AP) — Authorities in Nigeria say more than 200 million Nigerians were plunged into darkness for several hours when striking electricity workers shut down the West African country’s power grid. Nigeria’s power transmission company says the nationwide blackout began Wednesday when several transmission lines and

By KEN SWEET AP Business Writer NEW YORK (AP) — The CEO of Bank of America said the recent debate over whether the U.S. economy is technically in a recession or not is missing the point. What matters is that current economic conditions are negatively impacting those who are most vulnerable. Brian Moynihan told The

LIBERTY, N.Y. (AP) — A fire consumed a building at the site of the long-closed Grossinger’s resort, once among the most storied and glamorous hotels in New York’s Catskills. The fire broke out Tuesday evening in a three-and-half story building on the old hotel property. The cause was under investigation. In its heyday after World

By MARGARET STAFFORD Associated Press KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas is suing the state of Missouri over a new law requiring the city to increase funding for its police department. The lawsuit filed Wednesday is the latest step in a long-running disagreement between mostly GOP state lawmakers and Kansas City

By PAUL BYRNE Associated Press KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A spate of explosions and fires has turned Russian-occupied Crimea from a secure rear base into a new battleground in the war, demonstrating both the Russians’ vulnerability and the Ukrainians’ capacity to strike deep behind enemy lines. Nine Russian warplanes were reported destroyed at an air

By HANNAH SCHOENBAUM Associated Press/Report for America RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Abortions in North Carolina are no longer legal after 20 weeks of pregnancy, a federal judge ruled Wednesday, eroding protections in one of the South’s few remaining safe havens for reproductive freedom. U.S. District Judge William Osteen reinstated an unenforced 20-week abortion ban, with

MONTPELIER STATION, VA (AP) — The U.S. Postal Service has closed a small Virginia post office over concerns about its location inside a historic train depot that also serves as a museum about racial segregation. In a statement on the closure, the postal service noted that the museum near former president James Madison’s Montpelier estate

By REBECCA BOONE Associated Press BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Medical groups and states across the U.S. are watching as a legal battle over abortion rights pits the deep-red state of Idaho against the Department of Justice. As of Wednesday, 20 states, the American College of Emergency Physicians and other medical groups have filed “friend of

By GRANT PECK and EDITH M. LEDERER Associated Press BANGKOK (AP) — The U.N. special envoy for Myanmar, Noeleen Heyzer, has met with the head of its military-installed government and urged him to halt all violence and support a political path back to civilian rule and democracy, Heyzer also called on Senior Gen. Min Aung

By MARK GILLISPIE Associated Press CLEVELAND (AP) — A federal judge in Cleveland awarded $650 million in damages Wednesday to two Ohio counties that sued CVS, Walgreens and Walmart over the way the national pharmacy chains distributed opioids to their communities. U.S. District Judge Dan Polster said in his ruling that the money will be

By KATE BRUMBACK Associated Press ATLANTA (AP) — Rudy Giuliani is facing a special grand jury in Atlanta after being ordered by a judge to appear before the panel investigating possible illegal attempts to influence the 2020 election in Georgia. The former New York mayor and attorney for then-President Donald Trump remained inside the Fulton