AP National News

By TERRY SPENCER Associated Press FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — The attorney for parents suing to overturn the governor’s executive order banning strong student mask mandates says the order violates the authority of school districts to decide health issues. Attorney Craig Whisenhunt represents the parents. He argued in court Thursday that Gov. Ron DeSantis is

By ERIC OLSON AP College Football Writer LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — College football programs are transitioning from traditional paper tickets to digital ticketing. Many fans like the feel of holding a ticket in their hand and hanging on to them as keepsakes. Others welcome the convenience of having a barcode on their smartphone scanned at

By BRENDAN FARRINGTON Associated Press TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida attorney general says the state will receive $5 million after a settlement with a nonprofit domestic violence agency and its former CEO over exorbitant pay the state said should have gone to domestic abuse shelters. Attorney General Ashley Moody and Gov. Ron DeSantis announced the

By KATHY GANNON and ELLEN KNICKMEYER Associated Press The Islamic State offshoot that Americans blame for a deadly suicide attack outside the Kabul airport coalesced in eastern Afghanistan six years ago, and rapidly grew into one of the more dangerous terror threats globally. Despite years of military targeting by the U.S.-led coalition, the group known

By AMY BETH HANSON Associated Press HELENA, Mont. (AP) — A Connecticut woman has been sentenced to seven days in jail and is banned from Yellowstone National Park for two years after other tourists captured photos and video of her walking on thermal features in the Norris Geyser Basin. The 26-year-old woman pleaded guilty to

By ANDREW DeMILLO Associated Press LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — The Arkansas Medical Board is investigating reports that inmates at a county jail were prescribed the anti-parasitic drug ivermectin to combat COVID-19 even though it hasn’t been approved to treat the coronavirus. Board Director Amy Embry on Thursday declined to elaborate on the panel’s investigation,

By NINIEK KARMINI and DON BABWIN Associated Press JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — A Chicago woman convicted of assisting her then-boyfriend in her mother’s murder and stuffing the body in a suitcase on Indonesia’s tourist island of Bali in 2014 will be released from prison in October after serving six years of a 10-year sentence, her

By MARIA VERZA Associated Press MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s president again sidestepped questions Thursday about the reinstatement of the U.S. “Remain in Mexico” policy. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Mexico will continue helping the United States on immigration. But he noted “it can’t go on forever,” and said attention must turn to development

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — “Making a Murderer” subject Steven Avery has appealed his latest unanimous legal defeat, asking the Wisconsin Supreme Court to take the case. The 59-year-old Avery filed the request Wednesday. Avery is serving a life sentence for the 2005 killing of photographer Teresa Halbach. The case became the focus of a popular

By BRYAN ANDERSON Associated Press/Report for America RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina Senate Republicans on Thursday passed a bill to limit how teachers can discuss certain racial concepts inside the classroom. The proposal seeks to bar educators from compelling students to personally adopt any ideas from a list of 13 beliefs. The measure passed

By FABIOLA SÁNCHEZ and ALEXIS TRIBOULARD Associated Press MEXICO CITY (AP) — An all-woman Afghan robotics team known as the “Afghan Dreamers” are now safe in Mexico, and say they want to help others who remain in their country after the Taliban takeover. “We are concerned with what will happen to our home,” said Saghar,

By SUDHIN THANAWALA and JAY REEVES Associated Press Kentucky and Texas joined a growing list of states that are seeing record numbers of hospitalized COVID-19 patients in a surge that is overwhelming doctors and nurses and afflicting more children. Intensive care units around the nation are packed with patients extremely ill with the coronavirus —

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A $100 million fix to stop a San Francisco luxury high-rise from sinking and tilting even more is on hold while engineers try to learn why the building has sunk another inch (2.5 centimeters) during the repair. Doug Elmets, spokesman for the Millennium Tower, said in a statement that pile installation

ANAMOSA, Iowa (AP) — An inmate who confessed in court to using a hammer to kill a nurse and correctional officer during an escape attempt at an Iowa prison has been sentenced to life in prison. Thomas Woodard Jr. was sentenced Thursday after pleading guilty earlier this month to two counts of first-degree murder, as

AARON MORRISON Associated Press A decades-old fight to expand and protect voting rights will intensify this weekend, when multiracial coalitions of civil, human and labor rights leaders hold rallies in Washington and across the nation to urge passage of federal voter protections eroded since the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It’s a united front that

LONDON (AP) — A Scottish court on Thursday dismissed extradition proceedings against a Catalan politician sought by Spain over Catalonia’s failed independence bid. Clara Ponsati was accused of sedition by Spain over her role as education minister in Catalonia’s unsuccessful 2017 effort to secede, which involved a referendum that wasn’t sanctioned by the Spanish government.

By RISHABH R. JAIN Associated Press NEW DELHI (AP) — Police accompanied by activists from a children’s rights group raided automobile repair shops on the edge of the Indian capital on Thursday and removed 17 children who were employed illegally. Activists from Bachpan Bachao Andolan, or Save the Children Movement, whose founder, Kailash Satyarthi, was

By TAMEEM AKHGAR and JOSEPH KRAUSS Associated Press Salgy Baran got the highest score in all of Afghanistan on her university entrance exams this year, but she has no answers for what comes next. The 18-year-old graduate wants to stay in the country and become a doctor. But as with so many other Afghans, those

By MARCIA DUNN AP Aerospace Writer CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Blue Origin launched artwork painted on a capsule and a moon-landing navigation experiment into space Thursday, a month after sending founder Jeff Bezos on the company’s first passenger flight. No one was aboard for Thursday’s 10-minute flight, which included other experiments from NASA and

By CARLA K. JOHNSON and NICKY FORSTER Associated Press The U.S. is projected to see nearly 100,000 more COVID-19 deaths between now and Dec. 1, according to the nation’s most closely watched forecasting model. But health experts say that toll could be cut in half if nearly everyone wore a mask in public spaces. In