AP National News

BY DREW COSTLEY AP Science Writer The White House’s top official on environmental justice is stepping down a year after President Joe Biden took office with an ambitious plan to help disadvantaged communities and overhaul policies that have historically hurt them. The departure of Cecilia Martinez, senior director for environmental justice at the Council for

By BRIAN MELLEY Associated Press LOS ANGELES (AP) — A dramatic surge in coronavirus cases has sidelined more than 800 Los Angeles city police and firefighters and led to slightly longer ambulance and fire response times. That’s adding to concerns about shortages of critical staff including health care workers. Mayor Eric Garcetti said Thursday that

By The Associated Press Tributes to Peter Bogdanovich poured in following the death of the filmmaker, writer, critic and film historian. Bogdanovich, whose films included “The Last Picture Show” and “Paper Moon,” died Thursday at the age of 82. Among those who paid their respects were Francis Ford Coppola, Tatum O’Neal and Guillermo del Toro.

JERUSALEM (AP) — A truck and a van collided on a narrow two-lane highway in the occupied West Bank, killing seven Palestinians and injuring three. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declared a day of mourning for the victims, who he described as “martyrs of trying to make a living.” Thousands of Palestinian laborers work in Jewish

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Three former Minneapolis police officers charged with federal civil rights violations in George Floyd’s death will go on trial Jan. 20. The trial date was given Thursday in a docket filing, with proceedings to be held in St. Paul. Court records in November showed that juror summonses had gone out for that

By ZEKE MILLER and COLLEEN LONG Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — It may not be the fight he sought, but taking on Donald Trump is President Joe Biden’s calling. Biden offered himself as a guardian of American democracy in a visceral speech Thursday discussing the Jan. 6 insurrection that sought to overthrow his 2020 election

MONTREAL (AP) — Passengers who filmed themselves partying without masks aboard a chartered flight from Montreal to Mexico now face being stranded after three airlines have refused to fly them home to Canada. Sunwing Airlines cancelled the return charter flight from Cancun scheduled for Wednesday and Air Transat and Air Canada both said they will

By MIKE STOBBE AP Medical Writer NEW YORK (AP) — Health officials say five Americans died of rabies last year — the largest number in a decade. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday released a report focusing on three of the deaths, all stemming from contact with rabid bats. CDC officials said

By MIKE STOBBE AP Medical Writer NEW YORK (AP) — Health officials say five Americans died of rabies last year — the largest number in a decade. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday released a report focusing on three of the deaths, all stemming from contact with rabid bats. CDC officials said

By NOHA ELHENNAWY Associated Press CAIRO (AP) — Sudanese security forces have fired tear gas and live ammunition, killing at least three people as thousands took to the streets in the capital of Khartoum and other cities once again to protest the October military coup. In Omdurman, the twin city of Khartoum, two protesters were

By JONATHAN MATTISE Associated Press NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A winter storm blanketed parts of the South with snow, freezing rain and sleet Thursday, tying up roads in Tennessee and Kentucky as the system tracked a path through Appalachia toward the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast. The National Weather Service says Nashville saw snowfall of 6.3 inches.

By MARK GILLISPIE Associated Press CLEVELAND (AP) — Police in Ohio have released body camera footage showing an officer firing multiple rounds through a wooden privacy fence without warning at someone shooting gunfire into the air on the other side. Forty-six-year-old James Williams, of Canton, was shot in the chest minutes into the new year

By DYLAN LOVAN Associated Press LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — A federal appeals court has declined to lift a three-state ban on President Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for federal contractors. A judge in Louisville, Kentucky, in November issued the preliminary injunction that blocked the mandate. It includes two other states _ Tennessee and Ohio. A panel

By LINDSEY BAHR and JAKE COYLE AP Film Writers Peter Bogdanovich, the ascot-wearing cinephile and director of 1970s black-and-white classics like “The Last Picture Show” and “Paper Moon,” has died. He was 82. Bogdanovich died early Thursday morning at this home in Los Angeles, said his daughter Antonia Bogdanovich. She said he died of natural

By ANDREW SELSKY Associated Press SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Oregon election officials ruled that former New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof is not eligible to run for governor because he does not meet the state’s residency requirement. Secretary of State Shemia Fagan said it was obvious Kristof had been a New Yorker until recently, citing

By FABIOLA SÁNCHEZ Associated Press MEXICO CITY (AP) — While tortillas come to mind when Mexico is mentioned, every Jan. 6, Mexicans’ love of bread comes to the fore with the cutting of oval brioche decorated with candied fruit known as king cakes to celebrate Epiphany. Just hours before Mexicans took their first slices, hundreds

By DANICA KIRKA Associated Press LONDON (AP) — Prime Minister Boris Johnson has apologized after a government ethics investigator criticized the U.K. leader and his staff for failing to disclose messages he exchanged with a donor about financing the redecoration of his official residence. Christopher Geidt, the independent adviser on minister’s interests, wasn’t informed of

By VANESSA GERA Associated Press WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Amnesty International says it has independently confirmed that an Israeli company’s powerful spyware was used to hack a Polish senator when he was running the opposition’s 2019 parliamentary election campaign. The Associated Press reported last month that an internet watchdog group at the University of Toronto

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Richmond has awarded a contract for removing the city’s last major Confederate statue, along with nine other pedestals whose monuments have already been taken down. The winning bidder is the same company that recently took down the city’s Robert E. Lee memorial. The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that the contract will be

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The U.S. State Department says its special envoy to the Horn of Africa will end his appointment “in the coming days” after a year marked by deadly crises in Ethiopia and Sudan. Envoy Jeffrey Feltman plans to step down shortly after his current visit to Ethiopia, where more than a year