RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina State Auditor Beth Wood has pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors for misusing a state-issued vehicle for personal activities. The plea and resulting 12 months of unsupervised probation happened in Wake County court Friday — the day resigned from the post she’s held for 15 years. The sentencing and resignation
Continue ReadingAssociated Press The Treasury Department is spelling out the rules for tax credits designed to stimulate production of sustainable aviation fuel. That’s fuel that creates fewer greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuel made from fossil fuels. Environmentalists said Friday they are concerned that the guidelines could boost fuel made from corn and sugar cane. They
Continue ReadingBY ALEX DANIELS of The Chronicle of Philanthopy Chronicle of Philanthropy A donor-advised fund devoted to supporting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals has leapt from being a relatively minor charity to one with an asset size comparable to behemoths like the Andrew W. Mellon and David and Lucile Packard foundations. The SDG Impact Fund,
Continue ReadingBy JOHN LEICESTER and JILL LAWLESS Associated Press LE PECQ, France (AP) — The vehicle’s headlights silhouetted the exhausted teenager walking alone in the rain in deepest rural France, with a skateboard tucked under his arm. “I said to myself, ‘That’s strange. It’s 3 am in the morning, it’s raining, he’s all by himself on
Continue ReadingBy Amy Woodyatt, CNN (CNN) — Flat-faced dogs are all the rage – and have been for a while. With its wrinkly nose and bat-like ears, the French bulldog – which recently climbed to take the title of the most popular dog breed in the US, according to the American Kennel Club’s 2022 registration statistics
Continue ReadingBy LLAZAR SEMINI Associated Press TIRANA, Albania (AP) — Albania has returned 20 icons to neighboring North Macedonia, which were stolen a decade ago. The return on Friday marked the final stretch on a long, 10-year road with “much inter-institutional and international cooperation.” Albania’s Culture Minister Elva Margariti said at the handover ceremony in the
Continue ReadingNEW YORK (AP) — Federal prosecutors have charged a pair of former elite sprinters as part of a widening case alleging a conspiracy to supply banned performance-enhancing drugs for athletes in advance of the Tokyo Olympics. An indictment unsealed in the Southern District of New York charges O’Neil Wright and Dewayne Barrett with working to
Continue ReadingBy SAMUEL PETREQUIN Associated Press BRUSSELS (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron says he’d still consider talking with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin if it helps to forge a “sustainable peace” between Ukraine and Russia. Macron and Putin enjoyed a good working relationship before Russia invaded its neighbor in February 2022. In the weeks leading
Continue ReadingBy Jason Morris, Zachary Cohen and Pamela Kirkland, CNN Atlanta (CNN) — A federal appeals court appeared skeptical of former Donald Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows’ attempt to move his Georgia election interference criminal case to federal court during a hearing Friday morning. Meadows attorney George Terwilliger argued that he should be protected
Continue ReadingBy 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
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