Associated Press stories, Page 2574

COPENHAGEN — The wife of a Norwegian multimillionaire missing since Oct. 31 probably has been kidnapped, police said Wednesday, adding that her suspected abductors have demanded a ransom reported to be $10.3 million. Police say they have no suspects in the disappearance of Anne-Elisabeth Falkevik Hagen, the 68-year-old wife of...

SACRAMENTO — President Trump threatened Wednesday to withhold money to help California cope with wildfires, a day after new Gov. Gavin Newsom asked him to double the federal investment in forest management. Trump again suggested poor forest management is to blame for California’s deadly wildfires and said he’s ordered the...

CAMDENTON, Mo. — A 6-year-old boy who was reported missing by his father in August has been found safe, hidden in an attic crawl space in the southwest Missouri home of his mother and her boyfriend, authorities said Wednesday. Braedence Jones was found Tuesday in the crawl space with his...

DES MOINES, Iowa — Billionaire investor and Democratic activist Tom Steyer said Wednesday that he will not run for the White House in 2020 and will instead focus on calling for President Donald Trump’s impeachment. Steyer, who has spent $50 million on his Need to Impeach campaign and announced plans...

DES MOINES, Iowa — Farmers already reeling from low prices and uncertainty amid the nation’s trade dispute with China are welcoming a decision to extend a deadline for federal aid because of the partial government shutdown. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Purdue on Tuesday announced the Agriculture Department would extend a...

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Jewelry, clothing and other Elvis Presley-related memorabilia have been sold at auction in Tennessee. Elvis Presley Enterprises says the auction at The Guest House Graceland netted more than $600,000 Tuesday on what would have been his 84th birthday. The Guest House is a hotel located steps from...

NEW YORK — The owners of New York City’s Chrysler Building are putting the landmark Art Deco skyscraper on the market. The building’s owners, the Abu Dhabi Investment Council and New York developer Tishman Speyer, have hired commercial real estate firm CBRE Group Inc. to market the office tower, CBRE...

WASHINGTON — Sharing false information on Facebook is old. People over 65 and ultra conservatives shared about seven times more fake information masquerading as news on the social media site than younger adults, moderates and super liberals during the 2016 election season, a new study finds. The first major study...

WYOMING, Pa. — Police say a woman smashed her way into a closed Pennsylvania police station looking for an officer she’d been sexually harassing ever since he arrested her. Police say 27-year-old Ashley Keister of Nanticoke used a large cigarette butt receptacle to smash glass doors into the West Wyoming...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The Hubble Space Telescope’s premier camera has shut down because of a hardware problem. NASA said the camera stopped working Tuesday. Hubble’s three other science instruments are still working fine, with celestial observations continuing. This third incarnation of the wide field camera was installed by spacewalking...

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran confirmed Wednesday it is holding U.S. Navy veteran Michael R. White at a prison in the country, making him the first American known to be detained under President Donald Trump’s administration. White’s detention adds new pressure to the rising tension between Iran and the U.S., which...

DETROIT — Toyota is recalling 1.7 million vehicles in North America to replace potentially deadly Takata front passenger air bag inflators. The move announced Wednesday includes 1.3 million vehicles in the U.S. and is part of the largest series of automotive recalls in the nation’s history. Takata inflators can explode...

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is directing dozens of wildlife refuges to return to work to make sure hunters and others have access despite the government shutdown, according to an email obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press. The partial restaffing of 38 wildlife refuges is angering wildlife...

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. — A teenager has fallen from the ninth floor of a high-rise condominium building in Florida and died. WKMG-TV quotes Miami Beach police as saying that Samuel Farkas fell off a balcony at the La Costa condominium. They say the teenager would have turned 16 on Wednesday....

CLEVELAND — The Browns didn’t have to go far to find their new coach. Freddie Kitchens was already in the building. The 44-year-old Kitchens, who had a dazzling eight-week run as the team’s interim offensive coordinator, is finalizing a contract to become Cleveland’s ninth coach since the franchise’s 1999 rebirth,...

MAGNOLIA, Miss. — Just days before her death, a Mississippi woman called deputies to her home for help with two daughters now accused of fatally shooting and stabbing their mother, officials said. Pike County Sheriff’s Office Chief Investigator Chris Bell said deputies went to Ericka Hall’s residence last week when...

LAWRENCE, Kan. — Kansas running back Pooka Williams has been granted diversion in a domestic battery case. The Kansas City Star reports Williams appeared in court Wednesday. If he successfully completes diversion, the domestic battery charge would be kept off his record. An affidavit alleges that Williams punched an 18-year-old...

PHOENIX — Police have served a search warrant to get DNA from all male employees at a long-term care facility in Phoenix where a patient who was in a vegetative state for years gave birth, triggering reviews by state agencies and putting a spotlight on safety concerns for severely disabled...

RALEIGH, N.C. — Police in North Carolina say two women sexually assaulted a transgender woman at a Raleigh bar. News outlets report 38-year-old Amber Harrell and 31-year-old Jessica Fowler are charged with second-degree kidnapping and sexual battery. The woman told Raleigh police she was inside the bar’s bathroom in December...

HARRISBURG — A Pennsylvania state watchdog agency is criticizing how county-level agencies investigate thousands of complaints they receive about elder abuse and how the state ensures complaints are investigated adequately. Among the shortcomings identified by the Office of State Inspector General were failures to properly investigate complaints under timelines required...

NEW YORK — Kevin Hart says he won’t be hosting the Academy Awards. “No,” was his response when asked Wednesday on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” Hart says it’s too late to prepare. Hart added it’s “hard to predict what can happen.” But he doesn’t want “people to think there’s a...

NEW YORK — Cardi B has 13 reasons to celebrate: She’s nominated for 13 honors at the 2019 iHeartRadio Music Awards. IHeartMedia announced Wednesday that the rapper is the most nominated act, competing for honors such as song of the year for “Girls Like You” with Maroon 5 and female...

MOSCOW — The Russian lawyer at the heart of the investigation into possible collusion between President Donald Trump’s election campaign and Russia has rejected the U.S. charges leveled against her. Natalya Veselnitskaya, who attended the 2016 Trump Tower meeting that is a focus of the U.S. investigation, was charged Tuesday...

UTICA, N.Y. — A central New York man charged with the deaths of his 90-year-old grandmother and her 87-year-old landlord said in court that he “chopped” up the women “in the name of the Lord.” According to the Observer-Dispatch , Naythen Aubain was taken into Utica City Court on Tuesday...

WASHINGTON — In his prime-time speech to the nation, President Donald Trump declared a border crisis that’s in sharp dispute, wrongly accused Democrats of refusing to pay for border security and ignored the reality of how drugs come into the country as he pitched his wall as a solution to...