AP National News

By LINDSAY WHITEHURST Associated Press SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Family and survivors of a bus crash that killed four Chinese tourists say the state of Utah didn’t do enough to make sure a remote highway was safe. The lawsuit filed Tuesday says the state failed to post warning signs, had a road design that

By AAMER MADHANI and JONATHAN LEMIRE Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden announced Wednesday that the United States is forming a new Indo-Pacific security alliance with Britain and Australia that will allow for greater sharing of defense capabilities — including helping equip Australia with nuclear-powered submarines. It’s a move that could deepen a

By MATTHEW BARAKAT Associated Press FALLS CHURCH, Va. (AP) — A divided federal appeals court has upheld the dismissal of an ACLU lawsuit challenging a portion of the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance of Americans’ international email and phone communications. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that the lawsuit must be dismissed

By The Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — Prosecutors, nearing the end of their case at the sex trafficking trial of R. Kelly, played recordings for a New York City jury Wednesday they say back up allegations the R&B singer abused women and girls. In court papers, prosecutors have described tapes of a profane Kelly

By LARRY NEUMEISTER Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — An Australian man who pleaded guilty to securities fraud for cheating investors in his cryptocurrency fund of over $50 million was sentenced to over seven years in prison Wednesday by a judge who questioned the sincerity of his apology. U.S. District Judge Valerie E. Caproni in

By CEDAR ATTANASIO Associated Press/Report for America NAMBÉ, N.M. (AP) — Carmaker Tesla has opened a store and repair shop on Native American land for the first time, marking a new approach to its yearslong fight to sell cars directly to consumers and cut car dealerships out of the process. The white-walled, silver-lettered Tesla store,

By CURT ANDERSON Associated Press ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — A Florida woman who vanished while on a cross-country trip in a converted camper van with her boyfriend is the subject of a nationwide search. Authorities on Wednesday said the boyfriend is a person of interest in the disappearance of 22-year-old Gabrielle “Gabby” Petito. The

By DIANE JEANTET Associated Press RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — A Brazilian Supreme Court Justice has requested additional time to review a controversial ruling that could loosen protections of Indigenous lands, which may leave the decision to Congress. The top court was evaluating on Wednesday a ruling that invalidated a claim by some Indigenous people to what

By EDITH M. LEDERER Associated Press UNITED NATIONS (AP) —  The U.N. Security Council is encouraging Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan to resume negotiations on the contentious issue of water availability from the dam that the Ethiopians are building on the main tributary of the Nile River. A brief presidential statement approved Wednesday by all 15

By LISA MASCARO AP Congressional Correspondent WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden’s “build back better” agenda is poised to be the most far-reaching federal investment since FDR’s New Deal or LBJ’s Great Society — a prodigious effort to tax the rich and shift money into projects and programs touching the lives of nearly every American.

NEW YORK (AP) — Jaap van Zweden will leave the New York Philharmonic at the end of the 2023-24 season after six years as music director, the shortest tenure of anyone in a half-century. Van Zweden cited the coronavirus pandemic as causing him to change priorities. He informed the orchestra at the end of a

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican prosecutors say gunmen who briefly abducted 23 migrants in northern Mexico had been planning to demand ransom from their relatives living in the United States. It is not clear why the armed gang that abducted a total of 39 people from a hotel early Tuesday later released them all, though

By LARRY NEUMEISTER Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — A federal judge on Wednesday rejected a request by lawyers for former President Donald Trump to delay the progression of a defamation lawsuit by a woman who accused him of rape. Judge Lewis A. Kaplan in Manhattan issued a brief denial of the request the lawyers

By MICHAEL TARM Associated Press YORKVILLE, Ill. (AP) — Lawyers say once powerful former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert and a man who accused him of child sexual abuse have reached a tentative out-of-court settlement over Hastert’s refusal to pay $1.8 million in exchange for the man’s silence. The lawyers would not release details of

By DREW COSTLEY AP Science Writer Los Angeles County supervisors voted unanimously Wednesday to phase out oil and gas drilling and ban new drill sites in the unincorporated areas of the nation’s most populous county. Over 1,600 active and idle oil and gas wells in the county could be shuttered after the 5-0 vote by

By STEFANIE DAZIO Associated Press LOS ANGELES (AP) — Public health officials in Los Angeles County will begin requiring proof of COVID-19 vaccination for patrons and workers at indoor bars, wineries, breweries, lounges and nightclubs next month. The new initiative in the nation’s most populous county begins Oct. 7, with proof of at least one

By JOSH BOAK Associated Press The U.S. Treasury Department issued a report Wednesday that detailed the high price and low wages for child care, a problem that makes it harder for parents to work and one that the Biden administration aims to fix with its budget proposal. Vice President Kamala Harris and Treasury Secretary Janet

By LARRY NEUMEISTER Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — A Florida businessman who admitted that his fraud-busting business was a fraud is citing the coronavirus threat as he asks a judge to release him early from his one-year prison term. David Correia made the request in court papers filed Wednesday in Manhattan federal court. Correia

By MATTHEW BROWN Associated Press BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — The Biden administration said Wednesday that federal protections may need to be restored for gray wolves in the western U.S. after Republican-backed state laws made it much easier to kill the predators. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service initial determination that the region’s wolves could again

By JOHN O’CONNOR AP Political Writer SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Wednesday signed into law a pledge to eliminate the state’s climate-damaging carbon emissions within a quarter-century, including money to keep clean-power nuclear plants running while shuttering coal-fired plants. The legislation invests in the development of renewable solar and wind energy.