Associated Press stories, Page 1040
Army sees safety, not ‘wokeness,’ as top recruiting obstacle
WASHINGTON — While some Republicans blame the covid-19 vaccine or “wokeness” for the Army’s recruiting woes, the military service says the bigger hurdles are more traditional ones: Young people don’t want to die or get injured, deal with the stress of Army life and put their lives on hold. They...
Sorrow turns to tension over Turkey earthquake response
ANTAKYA, Turkey — Six days after a massive earthquake killed more than 28,000 in Syria and Turkey, sorrow and disbelief are turning to anger and tension over a sense that there has been an ineffective, unfair and disproportionate response to the historic disaster. Many in Turkey express frustration that rescue...
Turkey detains building contractors as quake deaths pass 33K
ANTAKYA, Turkey — Turkish justice officials targeted more than 130 people allegedly involved in shoddy and illegal construction methods as rescuers extricated more survivors, including a pregnant woman and two small children, six days after a pair of earthquakes collapsed thousands of buildings. The death toll from the 7.8 magnitude...
Fox’s Super Bowl pregame planning is a year-long effort
PHOENIX — Even while watching last year’s Super Bowl, Bill Richards was planning how this year’s pregame show would look. Richards is the lead producer for Fox’s Super Bowl pregame show for the fifth time. The five hours leading up to Sunday’s showdown between the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia...
Scottie Scheffler holds WM Phoenix Open lead in bid to repeat
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Scottie Scheffler held onto the lead Saturday at the WM Phoenix Open in a bid to defend his title and regain the No. 1 spot in the world. The second-ranked Scheffler shot a 3-under-par 68 in front of some 200,000 fans at TPC Scottsdale to get to...
Chiefs-Eagles Super Bowl matchup could come down to trenches
PHOENIX — The all-star cast of players in the trenches should decide the Super Bowl champion. Sure, Patrick Mahomes and Jalen Hurts will make their share of plays. But Sunday’s game will come down to which team controls the line of scrimmage. The Philadelphia Eagles (16-3) reached this point mainly...
Trudeau: Warplane shot down object over northern Canada
OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Saturday that on his order a U.S. warplane shot down an unidentified object that was flying high over northern Canada, acting a day after U.S. planes took similar action over Alaska. Shortly before Trueau’s tweet, the North American Aerospace Defense Command said it...
1st infant in Kentucky surrendered anonymously at ‘baby box’
BOWLING GREEN, Ky. — Kentucky has seen its first infant anonymously dropped off at one of its “baby box” safe surrender locations. At a news conference Friday, Safe Haven Baby Boxes founder and CEO Monica Kelsey said the child was dropped off within the last seven days at a Bowling...
Jill Biden not shy about her ‘Philly girl’ sports fandom
WASHINGTON — Jill Biden won’t let even a White House gala get between her and the Philadelphia Eagles. After a late night entertaining governors with President Joe Biden at a black-tie dinner on Saturday, the first lady was heading for the Super Bowl in Arizona on Sunday with hopes of...
Penn State rallies but drops road game to MarylandVideo
COLLEGE PARK, Md. — Hakim Hart scored 15 of his season-high 23 points in the second half, and Maryland pulled away from Penn State late to earn a 74-68 win Saturday and remain undefeated at home in Big Ten play. The Terrapins improved to 13-1 at home, with their lone...
West Virginia sloppy in loss at 1st-place TexasVideo
AUSTIN, Texas — Sir’Jabri Rice scored 24 points in just 17 minutes, and No. 5 Texas defeated West Virginia, 94-60, on Saturday. Texas (20-5) remained in first place in the Big 12 at 9-3, while West Virginia (15-10, 4-8) lost for the sixth time in its last seven games against...
Wagner owner says war in Ukraine could drag on for years
KYIV, Ukraine — The owner of the Russian Wagner Group private military contractor actively involved in the fighting in Ukraine has predicted that the war could drag on for years. Yevgeny Prigozhin said in a video interview released late Friday that it could take 18 months to two years for...
Deante Johnson putback lifts Cleveland State past Robert Morris
CLEVELAND — Deante Johnson tipped in an offensive rebound with two seconds left to give Cleveland State a 57-55 win over Robert Morris on Friday night. Drew Lowder drove the lane as the clock wound down, but his shot caromed off and the initial putback attempt carried long, but Johnson...
Protest outside U.K. asylum-seeker hotel ends in 15 arrests
LONDON— An anti-migration protest outside a hotel housing asylum-seekers in northwest England turned violent and resulted in the arrests of 15 people, local police said Saturday. The Merseyside Police department said a police officer and two civilians sustained minor injuries during the disturbance on Friday night in Knowsley, a village...
Schools become flashpoint for Republicans eyeing White House
NEW YORK — Former President Donald Trump has called for parents to elect and fire school principals. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has banned instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade. And Nikki Haley, the former U.N. ambassador who is expected to announce her White House...
Survivors still being found as quake death toll tops 28,000
LATAKIA, Syria — Ibrahim Zakaria lost track of time drifting into and out of consciousness while trapped for nearly five days in the rubble of his home following the massive earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria this week. The 23-year-old cellphone shop worker from the Syrian town of Jableh survived...
Migrants seeking U.S. sponsors find questionable offers online
Pedro Yudel Bruzon was looking for someone in the U.S. to support his effort to seek asylum when he landed on a Facebook page filled with posts demanding up to $10,000 for a financial sponsor. It’s part of an underground market that’s emerged since the Biden administration announced it would...
U.S. blacklists 6 Chinese entities over balloon program
BEIJING — The United States has blacklisted six Chinese entities it said were linked to Beijing’s aerospace programs as part of its retaliation over an alleged Chinese spy balloon that traversed U.S. airspace. The economic restrictions announced Friday followed the Biden administration’s pledge to consider broader efforts to address Chinese...
IRS won’t tax most relief payments made by states last year
The IRS announced Friday that most relief checks issued by states last year aren’t subject to federal taxes, providing 11th hour guidance as tax returns start to pour in. A week after telling payment recipients to delay filing returns, the IRS said it won’t challenge the taxability of payments related...
Toronto mayor steps down after affair with ex-staffer
TORONTO — The mayor of Canada’s largest city has stepped down after acknowledging he had an affair with a former staffer. Toronto Mayor John Tory said at a late Friday night news conference that he developed a relationship with an employee in his office. The 68-year-old was known as a...
AP source: Trump team turns over items marked as classified
WASHINGTON — Lawyers for former President Donald Trump have in recent months voluntarily turned over to federal investigators additional papers marked as classified as well as a laptop belonging to a Trump aide, a person familiar with the situation said Friday night. The legal team also provided an empty folder...
Ousted election clerk hit with ethics lawsuit in New Mexico
SANTA FE, N.M. — A local elections regulator in rural New Mexico who was recently declared missing from work and replaced is now facing possible sanctions from a commission that oversees ethics and conduct by government officials. The civil lawsuit against Yvonne Otero was filed Tuesday by the State Ethics...
New AI voice-cloning tools ‘add fuel’ to misinformation fire
NEW YORK — In a video from a Jan. 25 news report, President Joe Biden talks about tanks. But a doctored version of the video has amassed hundred of thousands of views this week on social media, making it appear he gave a speech that attacks transgender people. Digital forensics...
Lawyer: Trump conditionally offers DNA to compare against accuser’s dress
NEW YORK — Former President Donald Trump is willing to provide a DNA sample to be compared against stains on the dress of a woman who accused him of rape, though only under certain conditions, his lawyer said Friday. Attorney Joseph Tacopina told a Manhattan federal court judge in a...
Andy Reid aims to lead Chiefs past former team in Super BowlVideo
PHOENIX — Andy Reid already proved he can win the big game in Kansas City after coming up short several times throughout his 14 seasons in Philadelphia. Leading the Chiefs to a victory over the Eagles in the Super Bowl on Sunday further would cement his Hall of Fame credentials...
