Associated Press stories, Page 1600
Movie producer charged with operating prostitution service
NEW YORK— A movie producer was arrested Thursday in California on a New York indictment accusing him of using a movie production company to operate an international prostitution business. Dillon Jordan, 49, of Arrowhead Lake, California, was arrested in San Bernardino County, California, and awaited an initial court appearance in...
Penn State trustees vote to raise tuition for 2021-22 school year
HARRISBURG — Penn State will impose its first tuition increase for incoming in-state undergraduate students since the 2017-18 school year, under a plan approved by trustees on Thursday. Incoming Pennsylvania resident students will see a 2.5% tuition increase at all campuses for the 2021-22 school year. At the University Park...
Chip and Joanna Gaines step up to help lead a new TV networkVideo
Chip and Joanna Gaines made a name for themselves thanks to their knack for renovating homes. Now they’re ready to put their skills to work on building an entire TV network. The couple known for restoring old homes and buildings into styles varying from industrial to farmhouse are making the...
Cleveland State to require coronavirus vaccinations despite law
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Cleveland State University said Thursday it will continue to require that students living on campus be vaccinated against the coronavirus despite a new law prohibiting public schools and colleges in Ohio from mandating the vaccine. The school, the only public university in the state with such a...
More than 60 dead, dozens missing as severe floods strike EuropeVideo
BERLIN — More than 60 people have died and dozens were missing Thursday as severe flooding in Germany and Belgium turned streams and streets into raging torrents that swept away cars and caused houses to collapse. Recent storms across parts of western Europe made rivers and reservoirs burst their banks,...
Covid-19 cases in Missouri reach highest level since JanuaryVideo
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Missouri’s health department on Thursday reported the highest daily count of new covid-19 cases since the dead of winter, and the association representing the state’s hospital is warning that the health care system is potentially on the brink of a crisis. The Missouri Department of Health...
Gunman found criminally responsible for killing 5 at Annapolis paper
ANNAPOLIS, Md. — A jury on Thursday found the gunman who killed five people at a Maryland newspaper criminally responsible, rejecting defense attorneys’ mental illness arguments. The jury of eight men and four women found that Jarrod Ramos could understand the criminality of his actions and conform his conduct to...
Pennsylvania man in ‘double suicide’ at Gianni Versace’s former mansion, police say
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.— Two men apparently killed themselves, police said, in a suite at the Miami Beach hotel that Gianni Versace turned into his mansion, nearly 24 years to the day after the fashion designer died on the building’s front steps. Their bodies were found by housekeeping on Wednesday, the...
Colin Kaepernick picture book to come out in April
NEW YORK — Colin Kaepernick will release a series of books through the children’s publisher Scholastic, starting with a picture story scheduled for next year. “I Color Myself Different” will come out in April, according to an announcement Thursday by Scholastic and Kaepernick Publishing, which the former NFL quarterback founded...
Louis Oosthuizen, Jordan Spieth lead way as normalcy returns to British Open
SANDWICH, England — Jordan Spieth rolled in putts like it was 2017. Louis Oosthuizen put those runner-up finishes in the last two majors out of mind and soared to the top of the leaderboard. They gave the British Open a familiar feel Thursday. Normalcy returned to the wind-swept links at...
Trump opines on coup while rejecting fears about his actionsVideo
Former President Donald Trump insisted Thursday that he wouldn’t have used the military to illegally seize control of the government after his election loss. But he suggested that if he had tried to carry out a coup, it wouldn’t have been with his top military adviser. In a lengthy statement,...
1st female sailor completes Navy special warfare training
WASHINGTON — For the first time, a female sailor has successfully completed the grueling 37-week training course to become a Naval Special Warfare combatant-craft crewman — the boat operators who transport Navy SEALs and conduct their own classified missions at sea. Navy officials said they would not identify the woman...
Miami security firm faces questions in Haiti assassination
MIAMI — For the owner of a small private security company with a history of avoiding paying debts and declaring bankruptcy, it looked like a good opportunity: Find people with military experience for a job in Haiti. Antonio “Tony” Intriago, owner of Miami-based CTU Security, seems to have jumped at...
Biden ends large-scale logging on huge Alaska rainforest
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration said Thursday it is ending large-scale, old-growth timber sales on the nation’s largest national forest — the Tongass National Forest in Alaska — and will instead focus on forest restoration, recreation and other non-commercial uses. The announcement by the U.S. Forest Service reverses a Trump...
Panthers buy out final 2 years of Keith Yandle’s contract
The Florida Panthers bought out the remainder of veteran defenseman Keith Yandle’s contract on Thursday. Yandle was signed for two more seasons at a salary cap hit of $6.35 million. The buyout saves Florida $4 million against the cap next season, just under $1 million in 2022-23 and costs an...
EU likely to decide on Moderna covid shot for kids next week
AMSTERDAM — A top official at the European Medicines Agency said a decision on whether to recommend that Moderna’s covid-19 vaccine be authorized for children is expected late next week. If approved, it would be the first such license for the shot’s use in children globally. At a press briefing...
2 runners dropped from Kenya Olympic team over doping tests
NAIROBI, Kenya — Kenya was forced to drop two runners from its Olympic team just over a week before the Tokyo Games because they haven’t taken the required number of out-of-competition doping tests, an official said on Thursday. That has given 1,500-meter world champion Timothy Cheruiyot a last-minute place on...
Britain women’s soccer team will take a knee at Olympics
The British women’s soccer team plan to take a knee before kickoff at the Tokyo Olympics. The players have been performing the anti-racism stance with their separate teams over the last year and the IOC relaxed its rules this month to allow Olympic athletes to make gestures of protest in...
Rehabbed mama manatee and her calf set free in Florida river
ORANGE CITY, Fla. — A baby manatee and its injured mother are now swimming in Florida’s St. Johns River after undergoing four months of rehabilitation at Sea World Orlando. They were released Wednesday near Blue Springs State Park, The Daytona Beach News-Journal reported. It was a bit of good news...
Netflix plans to offer video games in push beyond films, TV
Netflix Inc., marking its first big move beyond TV shows and films, is planning an expansion into video games and has hired a former Electronic Arts Inc. and Facebook Inc. executive to lead the effort. Mike Verdu will join Netflix as vice president of game development, reporting to Chief Operating...
More than 20 dead, dozens missing in heavy Europe floods
BERLIN — More than 20 people have died and dozens of people were missing Thursday in Germany and neighboring Belgium after heavy flooding turned streams and streets into raging torrents, sweeping away cars and causing buildings to collapse. Storms across parts of western Europe in recent days caused rivers and...
$10 million rewards bolster White House anti-ransomware bid
BOSTON — The Biden administration will offer rewards up to $10 million for information leading to the identification of foreign state-sanctioned malicious cyber activity against critical U.S. infrastructure — including ransomware attacks — and the White House has launched a task force to coordinate efforts to stem the ransomware scourge....
Israel arrests dozens of Hamas-linked students in West Bank
JERUSALEM — Israel says it arrested “dozens” of Palestinian students in the occupied West Bank who are linked to the Hamas militant group. The military said late Wednesday that those arrested belong to a Hamas student group at Birzeit University and were “directly involved in terror activities, including money transfers,...
Child tax credit starts hitting families’ bank accountsVideo
WASHINGTON — The child tax credit had always been an empty gesture to millions of parents like Tamika Daniel. That changed Thursday when the first payment of $1,000 hit Daniel’s bank account — and dollars started flowing to the pockets of more than 35 million families around the country. Daniel,...
Khris Middleton sends Bucks past Suns to tie NBA Finals
MILWAUKEE — Khris Middleton’s big finish has the NBA Finals all even. Middleton scored 40 points, including 10 straight for the Milwaukee Bucks down the stretch to send them past the Phoenix Suns, 109-103 on Wednesday night in Game 4. Middleton’s hot hand and a big block from Giannis Antetokounmpo...
