By MATTHEW BROWN and MATTHEW DALY Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Oil companies have offered $382 million for drilling rights in the Gulf of Mexico after courts rejected the Biden administration’s plans to scale back the sale to protect an endangered whale species. Wednesday’s auction was the last of several offshore oil and gas lease
Continue ReadingMEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — A Tennessee judge says she won’t immediately hand down a ruling on whether Ja Morant’s legal team successfully argued that the NBA star is immune from being sued by a teenager he punched during a pickup game in 2022. The Commercial Appeal reports Shelby County Circuit Court Judge Carol Chumney said
Continue ReadingBy SYLVIE CORBET and ELAINE GANLEY Associated Press PARIS (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron says a contentious immigration bill backed by the far right is imperfect and needs some fixes but is “what the French wanted.” He said Wednesday it doesn’t represent a far-right victory and is “the fruit of a compromise” after his
Continue ReadingBy MARK SHERMAN Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court will hear arguments in February on whether the Environmental Protection Agency can continue enforcing its anti-air-pollution “good neighbor” rule in 10 states. The rule is an effort to restrict smokestack emissions from power plants and other industrial sources that burden downwind areas with smog-causing
Continue ReadingBy PHILIP MARCELO Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — New York City lawmakers have passed a bill meant to ban solitary confinement in the city’s jails. The bill places a four-hour limit on isolating inmates who pose an immediate risk of violence to others or themselves in “de-escalation” units. Only those involved in violent incidents
Continue ReadingBy JEFF AMY Associated Press ATLANTA (AP) — Challengers are telling a federal judge that Georgia Republican state lawmakers’ new voting districts don’t cure illegal vote dilution and should be rejected. But the state of Georgia told the judge Wednesday that new congressional and state legislative maps comply with a court order to draw new
Continue ReadingBy SCOTT BAUER Associated Press MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin’s bipartisan elections commission, for a second time, has unanimously rejected a complaint against fake presidential electors who attempted to cast the state’s ballots for Donald Trump in 2020. The Wisconsin Elections Commission first rejected the complaint in March 2022. But a judge in May ordered
Continue ReadingBy JULIE CARR SMYTH Associated Press COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — An Ohio prosecutor says it’s not within his power to drop a criminal charge against a woman who miscarried at her home, regardless of the pressure that national attention is bringing to her case. Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins said in a news release late
Continue ReadingBy JOSEF FEDERMAN, WAFAA SHURAFA and SAMY MAGDY Associated Press JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military on Wednesday said it had uncovered a major Hamas command center in the heart of Gaza City, inflicting what it described as a serious blow to the Islamic militant group as pressure grows on Israel to scale back its
Continue ReadingBy JILL COLVIN and HANNAH FINGERHUT Associated Press AMES, Iowa (AP) — With less than a month to go before voting begins, Donald Trump’s Republican rivals are once again rallying to his defense. That’s after Colorado’s Supreme Court ruled to remove him from the state’s presidential primary ballot, declaring him ineligible under the U.S. Constitution’s
Continue ReadingBy Michelle Watson, CNN (CNN) — The Department of Justice has charged a high-ranking member of the terrorist organization Hezbollah for his alleged involvement in the 1994 bombing of a Buenos Aires Jewish community center, according to an indictment unsealed Wednesday by the DOJ. The 1994 attack – the worst in Argentina’s history – killed 85 people and injured about 300. Samuel Salman El
Continue ReadingBy JULIE CARR SMYTH Associated Press COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Republican U.S. Senate candidate Bernie Moreno has landed Donald Trump’s endorsement in the GOP race for a 2024 contender to unseat third-term Democrat Sherrod Brown, among his party’s most vulnerable incumbents. The former president and 2024 presidential candidate backed Moreno, a wealthy Cleveland businessman, in
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Paul Giamatti has been announced by the Palm Springs International Film Festival as the recipient of the Icon Award for his performance in The Holdovers. Giamatti has been honored the award for his role as an instructor at a New England prep school. His character must remain on campus during the holiday break to supervise
Continue ReadingBy STAN CHOE AP Business Writer NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street hit the brakes on its big rally Wednesday following disappointing profit reports from companies and warnings that the market had simply gone too far, too fast. The S&P 500 slumped 1.5% for its worst loss since beginning a monster-sized rally shortly before Halloween.
Continue ReadingBy BARBARA ORTUTAY AP Technology Writer The Federal Trade Commission is proposing sweeping changes to a decades-old law that regulates how companies can track and advertise to children, including turning off targeted ads to kids under 13 by default. The federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA, requires kid-oriented websites to get parents’ consent
Continue ReadingBy PATRICK WHITTLE, LISA RATHKE and MICHAEL CASEY Associated Press PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — The arrival of a heavy storm, flooding and power outages just before Christmas is complicating, and in some cases threatening to cancel, holiday plans for many New Englanders. The aftermath of the pre-Christmas storm has left hundreds of thousands in the
Continue ReadingBy RALPH D. RUSSO AP College Sports Writer Oregon State and Washington State are working on a deal to become affiliate members of the West Coast Conference for basketball and other Olympic sports for two years, two people with knowledge of the situation told The Associated Press on Wednesday. A deal could be done as
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By TOM MURPHY AP Health Writer Rite Aid has been banned from using facial recognition technology for five years over allegations that its surveillance system was used incorrectly to identify potential shoplifters, especially Black, Latino, Asian or female shoppers. The settlement with the Federal Trade Commission addresses charges that the struggling drugstore chain didn’t do
Continue ReadingBy Marshall Cohen, CNN (CNN) — After the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that former President Donald Trump is ineligible for office because of the Constitution’s “insurrectionist ban,” some prominent Republicans bashed the “unelected judges” for their decision. “We need elections that we can trust, that we can believe in,” GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said Tuesday at a campaign
Continue ReadingBy Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — New images captured by two of NASA’s space telescopes showcase how the light from young stars can deck the cosmos with holiday cheer. Groupings of stars resembling a Christmas tree aglow with lights and a scintillating snow globe shine in new observations taken by the Chandra X-ray Observatory and
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