By JEFF MARTIN and CURT ANDERSON Associated Press STONECREST, Ga. (AP) — Hundreds of Air Force members in dress blues have joined Roger Fortson’s family, friends and others at a suburban Atlanta megachurch to pay their final respects to the Black senior airman, who was shot and killed in his Florida home earlier this month
Continue ReadingBy NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican on Friday overhauled its process for evaluating alleged visions of the Virgin Mary, weeping statues and other seemingly supernatural phenomena that have marked church history, putting the brakes on making definitive declarations unless the event is obviously fabricated. The Vatican’s doctrine office revised norms
Continue ReadingBy MIKE STOBBE AP Medical Writer FORT COLLINS, Colorado (AP) — Tick season is starting across the U.S., and experts are warning the bloodsuckers may be as plentiful as ever. Another mild winter and other favorable factors likely means the 2024 tick population will be equal to last year or larger, some researchers say. “It’s
Continue ReadingBy GARY D. ROBERTSON Associated Press RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The final surviving member of a trio of African American youths who were the first to desegregate the undergraduate student body at North Carolina’s flagship public university has died. Ralph Frasier died last week in Florida at age 85. Frasier, his older brother LeRoy, and
Continue ReadingBy ADRIAN SAINZ Associated Press MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — A judge has sentenced a Tennessee man to 80 years in prison for raping a woman a year before he was charged with kidnapping and killing a school teacher who was on an early morning run. Cleotha Abston received 40 years in prison for aggravated rape,
Continue ReadingBy Zachary Cohen, Shania Shelton and Kyung Lah, CNN (CNN) — Former Donald Trump lawyer John Eastman pleaded not guilty in Phoenix on Friday on charges related to allegedly participating in a conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election results in Arizona. A grand jury in Arizona handed up indictments last month charging Eastman and over a dozen more Trump
Continue ReadingBy Issy Ronald, CNN (CNN) — The idea of coming face to face with a spider-like creature unexpectedly is enough to fill any arachnophobe with horror, let alone encountering one with large, spiky legs. But that is exactly what roamed around what’s currently northeast Illinois in the late Carboniferous Period about 300 million to 320
Continue ReadingBy Mitchell McCluskey, Eugenia Yosef and Sophie Tanno, CNN (CNN) — The Israeli military announced Saturday that it had recovered the body of a hostage from the Gaza Strip, one day after saying it had retrieved the remains of three others in the besieged territory. The hostage was identified as Ron Benjamin, who was killed
Continue ReadingBy JACK DURA Associated Press South Dakota voters will decide on abortion rights this fall, getting a chance at direct democracy on the contentious issue in a conservative state where a trigger law banning nearly all abortions went into effect after Roe v. Wade was overturned. The state’s top election official announced Thursday that about
Continue ReadingBy JACQUES BILLEAUD Associated Press PHOENIX (AP) — Attorney John Eastman pleaded not guilty on Friday to conspiracy, fraud and forgery charges for his role in the effort to overturn Donald Trump’s loss in Arizona to Joe Biden in the 2020 election. Eastman, who devised a strategy to try to persuade Congress not to certify
Continue ReadingJERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military says it found the bodies of three Israeli hostages in Gaza, including German-Israeli Shani Louk. A photo of Shani’s twisted body in the back of a pickup truck ricocheted around the world, bringing to light the scale of the Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel. The military on Friday
Continue ReadingBy DOUG FERGUSON AP Golf Writer LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Masters champion Scottie Scheffler was arrested Friday morning on his way to the PGA Championship, with stunning images showing him handcuffed as he was taken to jail for not following police orders during a pedestrian fatality investigation. In a span of four hours, the top-ranked
Continue ReadingBy DÁNICA COTO Associated Press PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — A weeklong search for a new prime minister has flooded the inboxes of a transitional presidential council with dozens of candidates jostling to become Haiti’s next leader. Political parties, business leaders, the diaspora and even religious institutions had until Friday to submit their choice for a
Continue ReadingBy LEKAN OYEKANMI and DAVID J. PHILLIP Associated Press HOUSTON (AP) — Power outages could last weeks in parts of Houston, an official warned Friday, after thunderstorms with hurricane-force winds tore through the city, knocking out electricity to nearly 1 million homes and businesses in the region, blowing out windows on downtown high rises and
Continue ReadingBy MARI YAMAGUCHI Associated Press TOKYO (AP) — The U.S. Ambassador to Japan has stressed the importance of increased deterrence and his country’s commitment to the alliance with its key ally as he visited two southwestern Japanese islands at the forefront of Tokyo’s tension with Beijing. Japan has been making a southwest shift of its
Continue ReadingBy John Fritze and Holmes Lybrand, CNN (CNN) — Justice Samuel Alito sought to head off mounting criticism Friday over a report that an inverted American flag was flown at his house in January 2021, telling Fox News that his wife hoisted the symbol of discontent in response to profane signs in the neighborhood. Alito
Continue ReadingBy STEVE KARNOWSKI Associated Press ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Former President Donald Trump will head to Minnesota on a day off from his hush money trial for a Republican fundraiser Friday night in a traditionally Democratic state that he boasts he can carry in November. Trump will headline the state GOP’s annual Lincoln Reagan
Continue ReadingBy TOM KRISHER and KIM CHANDLER Associated Press DETROIT (AP) — The United Auto Workers union faces the latest test of its ambitious plan to unionize auto plants in the historically nonunion South when a vote ends at two Mercedes-Benz factories near Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The voting Friday at an assembly plant and a battery-making facility
Continue ReadingBy NICHOLAS RICCARDI and MARGERY BECK Associated Press At rallies and in social media posts, former President Donald Trump has been trying to assure Republican voters that casting ballots by mail and other forms of early voting are “all good options.” But it’s going to be challenging for Trump and the Republican National Committee, which
Continue ReadingTBILISI, Georgia (AP) — Georgia’s prime minister has joined tens of thousands of people on march through the country’s capital to mark the Day of Family Purity. The event on Friday celebrated so-called traditional family values in Georgia where animosity toward sexual minorities is strong. The march was initiated by the Georgian Orthodox Church in
Continue Reading