By ELAINE KURTENBACH AP Business Writer BANGKOK (AP) — China’s central bank has announced new rules meant to expand access to commercial bank loans for property developers. Real estate companies will be allowed to use bank loans pledged against commercial properties such as offices and shopping malls to repay their other loans and bonds. The
Continue ReadingBy KIM CHANDLER Associated Press MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Alabama, unless blocked by the U.S. Supreme Court, will attempt to put an inmate to death with nitrogen gas on Thursday night, a never before used execution method that the state claims will be humane but critics call cruel and experimental. Kenneth Eugene Smith, a 58-year-old
Continue ReadingBy JENNIFER PELTZ and LARRY NEUMEISTER Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump could return to a New York courtroom Thursday to defend himself against a lawsuit seeking more than $10 million for things he said about advice columnist E. Jean Carroll after she accused him of sexual assault. Trump’s first visit
Continue ReadingBy LINDSAY WHITEHURST and MICHAEL KUNZELMAN Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — A Trump White House official convicted of contempt of Congress for refusing to cooperate with a congressional investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol is set to be sentenced Thursday. Prosecutors are asking a judge to sentence Peter Navarro to
Continue ReadingMELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Two monuments symbolizing Australia’s colonial past have been damaged by protesters ahead of an increasingly polarizing national holiday that marks the anniversary of British settlement. A statue in Melbourne of British naval officer James Cook, who in 1770 charted Sydney’s coast, was sawn off at the ankles early Thursday, while a
Continue ReadingBy Danny Freeman and Aya Elamroussi, CNN (CNN) — An 18-year-old has been arrested in connection with the Philadelphia killing suspect who escaped custody during a medical transport, the city’s police department announced Friday. Authorities say they arrested Michael Diggs for allegedly picking up Shane Pryor, 17, after Pryor ran from two Philadelphia Juvenile Justice
Continue ReadingBy PATRICK WHITTLE Associated Press AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — A commission investigating a mass shooting that killed 18 people in Maine last year is scheduled to hear Thursday from a police agency that had contact with the shooter before he committed the killings. Democratic Gov. Janet Mills and state Attorney General Aaron Frey assembled the
Continue ReadingBy MICHAEL R. BLOOD AP Political Writer LOS ANGELES (AP) — Long-suffering California Republicans will see something on the March ballot that might shock them: a U.S. Senate candidate whose name they recognize. The state’s Republican Party has been in a decades-long tailspin in heavily Democratic California, where a GOP candidate hasn’t won a U.S.
Continue ReadingBy MICHAEL R. BLOOD AP Political Writer LOS ANGELES (AP) — Long-suffering California Republicans will see something on the March ballot that might shock them: a U.S. Senate candidate whose name they recognize. The state’s Republican Party has been in a decades-long tailspin in heavily Democratic California, where a GOP candidate hasn’t won a U.S.
Continue ReadingBy GABE STERN Associated Press/Report for America RENO, Nev. (AP) — A thinned-out primary field and a group of Nevada Republicans loyal to Donald Trump have put the former president on an easy path to sweep the state’s Republican delegates and made the third state in the GOP primary calendar a national non-factor. Nevada will
Continue ReadingBy LISA MASCARO and JILL COLVIN Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Long before Donald Trump announced his campaign to retake the White House, he launched a quieter campaign to rack up Republican endorsements. In early 2021, after Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden and inspired a mob of supporters to attack the Capitol trying to
Continue ReadingBy SEUNG MIN KIM and ZEKE MILLER Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is zeroing in on an expected rematch against Donald Trump after this week’s New Hampshire primaries, eager to sharpen the contrast with his predecessor. Ten months from Election Day, Biden’s write-in victory in a New Hampshire race he didn’t formally
Continue ReadingBy TOM ODULA Associated Press NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — A rhinoceros is pregnant through embryo transfer in the first successful use of a method that conservationists said might later make it possible to save the nearly extinct northern white rhino subspecies. In testing with another subspecies, the researchers created a southern white rhino embryo in
Continue ReadingBy DAVID McHUGH AP Business Writer FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — The European Central Bank will likely keep interest rates unchanged Thursday. Its meeting could see ECB boss Christine Lagarde sending a message to financial markets to cool it with expectations for rapid rate cuts. Stock markets are soaring on hopes that the ECB and the
Continue ReadingBy Francesca Annio and Jessie Yeung, CNN Tokyo (CNN) — A Japanese court on Thursday sentenced a 45-year-old man to death for setting fire to the renowned Kyoto Animation studio in 2019, which left 36 people dead in the country’s worst mass killing in almost 20 years, according to public broadcaster NHK. The defendant, Shinji
Continue ReadingBy MARI YAMAGUCHI Associated Press TOKYO (AP) — A Japanese court sentenced a man to death after finding him guilty of murder and other crimes Thursday for carrying out an arson attack on an anime studio in Kyoto that killed 36 people. The Kyoto District Court said it found the defendant, Shinji Aoba, mentally capable
Continue ReadingFORT SMITH, Northwest Territories (AP) — Canadian authorities say the death toll from a small plane crash in Canada’s Northwest Territories is six. The plane was carrying employees from the Rio Tinto mining company. The Northwest Territories coroner’s office said Wednesday that four passengers and two crew members from Northwestern Air Lease were killed. A
Continue ReadingBy KIM TONG-HYUNG and JIWON SONG Associated Press SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea said Thursday it conducted its first flight test of a new cruise missile, as it expands its military capabilities in the face of deepening tensions with the United States and neighbors. The report in state media came a day after
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A 4.2 magnitude earthquake struck near San Bernardino, the US Geological Survey confirmed. The earthquake was originally recorded as a 4.5-magnitude earthquake, however, it was downgraded to a M4.2 a few minutes later We’ve received calls from residents who felt shaking in the Banning-Beaumont area and the Coachella Valley. The San Bernardino County Fire Department
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The Palm Springs Police Department demonstrated how local law enforcement uses special weapons and tactics (SWAT) equipment and vehicles to visiting Costa Rican law enforcement officials. It’s important equipment local law enforcement use to de-escalate dangerous situations. “Things like barricaded suspects, potential hostage rescue situations, those things kind of develop out of nowhere. So we
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