By FATIMA HUSSEIN Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The Congressional Budget Office says it expects inflation to nearly hit the Federal Reserve’s 2% target rate in 2024, as overall growth is expected to slow and unemployment is expected to rise into 2025, according to updated economic projections for the next two years. The office’s Current
Continue ReadingBy THOMAS BEAUMONT and HANNAH FINGERHUT Associated Press CORALVILLE, Iowa (AP) — Donald Trump was uncharacteristically serious when he implored an audience in eastern Iowa to carry him to a blowout in next month’s Republican caucuses. “The margin of victory is very important, it’s just very important,” Trump told about 1,000 people attending a Wednesday
Continue ReadingBANGKOK (AP) — Prosecutors in Thailand have indicted a member of the country’s Senate on six charges involving narcotics trafficking, money laundering and association with a transnational criminal organization. Senator Upakit Pachariyangkun denied all the charges when he appeared Thursday at Criminal Court in Bangkok, and was granted release on bail. Upakit’s case is linked
Continue ReadingBy JILL LAWLESS and JOHN LEICESTER Associated Press LONDON (AP) — A French prosecutor said on Friday that the mother of a British teenager who was found six years after he went missing may have gone to Finland and that his grandfather appears to have died. The 17-year-old, Alex Batty, was found Wednesday in southwest
Continue ReadingMADRID (AP) — A senior Spanish official says the deployment of two Spanish surveillance planes to watch for migrant boats heading on the treacherous route from West Africa to Spain’s Canary Islands has enabled authorities to stop 59 canoes from Senegal and Gambia. The vessels carried around 7,200 migrants over the past two months. Spanish
Continue ReadingBy Paradise Afshar and Holly Yan, CNN (CNN) — Two Illinois cousins who have spent most of their lives locked up for crimes they never committed walked free Thursday after 42 years behind bars – the latest in a series of exonerations this week involving innocent people wrongfully imprisoned for decades. James Soto, 62, and David
Continue ReadingBy LINDSAY WHITEHURST and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Jurors on Friday began their second day of deliberations to decide how much Rudy Giuliani must pay two former Georgia election workers for spreading lies about them after the 2020 election that led to a barrage of racist threats and upended their lives.
Continue ReadingBy MARCIA DUNN AP Aerospace Writer CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A NASA telescope has captured the biggest solar flare in years, which temporarily knocked out radio communication on Earth. The sun spit out the huge flare on Thursday, resulting in two hours of radio interference in parts of the U.S. and other sunlit parts
Continue ReadingNEW YORK (AP) — A small explosion at an electrical facility caused a momentary power outage in New York City. Lights flickered, a subway line was disrupted and some elevators and escalators briefly stopped running. The brief outage just before midnight Thursday affected most of the city. The president of the power utility Con Edison
Continue ReadingBy EMMA BURROWS Associated Press LONDON (AP) — Moldova and Georgia celebrated after European Union leaders buoyed their aspirations to join the 27 member nation bloc by removing key hurdles on their long path toward membership. Lawmakers in both the Moldovan and Georgian parliaments waved EU flags and played the bloc’s anthem at the opening
Continue ReadingBy SAM MEDNICK Associated Press DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — A court of the West African regional bloc has ordered the release and reinstatement of Niger’s democratically elected president. The legal team of President Mohamed Bazoum said on Friday that the ECOWAS Court of Justice ruled that Bazoum and his family were arbitrarily detained after mutinous
Continue ReadingBy JILL COLVIN Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — After Donald Trump attended South Carolina’s annual Palmetto Bowl, video of the crowd chanting “We want Trump!” as the former president arrived at Williams-Brice Stadium spread across conservative social media. It was much the same two weeks earlier when the GOP front-runner attended an Ultimate Fighting
Continue ReadingBy Kaitlyn Schwanemann, CNN (CNN) — Calvin Lawrence has dedicated his career to artificial intelligence. But even after decades of experience in computer engineering, he said one thing remains incredibly rare. “I’ve worked on many AI projects over the last 25 years, not more than two [of my colleagues] looked like me,” Lawrence, who is Black, said. Artificial intelligence
Continue ReadingBy DANIEL SHAILER Associated Press MEXICO CITY (AP) — Guatemala violated Indigenous rights by permitting a huge nickel mine on tribal land almost two decades ago, according to a ruling from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. Friday’s landmark verdict marks a monumental step in a four-decade struggle for Indigenous land rights and a bitter
Continue ReadingBy STAN CHOE AP Business Writer NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street is hanging around its record highs on Friday and on track to close out its longest weekly winning streak in six years. The S&P 500 was 0.1% lower in morning trading and within 1.7% of its all-time high set early last year. It’s
Continue ReadingBy JILL LAWLESS Associated Press LONDON (AP) — Prince Harry’s victory against Mirror Group Newspapers on Friday over what a British judge called “habitual” illegal activity is a landmark moment in the long and twisting saga of lawbreaking by Britain’s tabloid press. Judge Timothy Fancourt ruled that Mirror newspapers had hired private investigators to snoop
Continue ReadingNEW YORK (AP) — Bill Maher has had a few second thoughts, or at least some variations on the first ones. Next June, Simon & Schuster will publish “What This Comedian Said Will Shock You,” in which the outspoken host of HBO’s “Real Time With Bill Maher” revisits some of his on-air commentary. The publisher
Continue ReadingBy RIAZ KHAN Associated Press PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistani officials say members of the country’s security forces and five militants have been killed after insurgents attacked a regional police headquarters and two military posts. The attacks early Friday came three days after a suicide bomber in the same region rammed his car into a
Continue ReadingBy ALICIA RANCILIO Associated Press The wandering Jack Reacher, created by novelist Lee Child, returns in a second season of “Reacher” on Prime Video. Alan Ritchson stars as the former Army intelligence officer who prefers to travel America with just a toothbrush, never staying in one place long enough to form attachments. In season two,
Continue ReadingBy MIKE CORDER Associated Press BREDA, Netherlands (AP) — A paradox at the heart of the Netherlands’ permissive pot policy has gone up in smoke in two Dutch cities as “coffeeshops” began selling the country’s first legally cultivated cannabis. The move is part of an experiment to regulate the pot trade in the Netherlands. But
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