Associated Press stories, Page 384
Bluesky has added 1 million users since U.S. election as people seek alternatives to X
LOS ANGELES — Social media site Bluesky has gained 1 million new users in the week since the U.S. election, as some X users look for an alternative platform to post their thoughts and engage with others online. Bluesky said Wednesday that its total users surged to 15 million, up...
Birth control and abortion pill requests have surged since Trump won the election
Hours after Donald Trump was elected president for the second time, Dr. Clayton Alfonso had two messages from patients seeking to replace their IUDs. Over the next few days, three women inquired about getting their tubes tied. All of them said the election was the reason they were making these...
U.S. overdose deaths are down, giving experts hope for an enduring decline
NEW YORK — The decline in U.S. drug overdose deaths appears to have continued this year, giving experts hope the nation is seeing sustained improvement in the persistent epidemic. There were about 97,000 overdose deaths in the 12-month period that ended June 30, according to provisional Centers for Disease Control...
Spurs coach Gregg Popovich had a stroke earlier this month, is expected to make full recovery
Basketball Hall of Famer Gregg Popovich has been away from the team because he suffered a mild stroke earlier this month, the San Antonio Spurs announced Wednesday. Popovich is in his 29th season as coach of the Spurs and there is no timetable for his return to the sideline, the...
Republican John Thune of South Dakota is elected the next Senate majority leader
WASHINGTON — Republicans have elected South Dakota Sen. John Thune as the next Senate majority leader, completing a momentous shift in their leadership that elevates a top deputy of Mitch McConnell into a key position as President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House. Thune, 63, is in his fourth...
What to know about Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick to serve as defense secretary
In picking Fox News Channel host Pete Hegseth to lead the Department of Defense, President-elect Donald Trump has selected a military veteran and popular conservative media personality with a large following of his own. Hegseth, 44, has developed a close rapport with Trump, who also reportedly considered him for a...
Speaker Johnson begins fight for the House gavel, winning nod from Trump
WASHINGTON — Speaker Mike Johnson is beginning the hard fight for his gavel, a weeks-long campaign that starts Wednesday during internal House Republican leadership elections and will establish the new power centers in Congress for a Washington dominated by President-elect Donald Trump. While Johnson has no serious challenger, he faces...
What happens to Donald Trump’s criminal conviction? Here are a few ways it could go
NEW YORK — Donald Trump’s election victory created a conundrum for the judge overseeing his criminal case in New York. Can he go ahead and sentence the president-elect, or would doing so potentially get in the way of Trump’s constitutional responsibility to lead the nation? Court documents made public Tuesday...
Trump makes a victor’s return to Washington and pledges a smooth transition of powerVideo
WASHINGTON — Donald Trump made a victor’s return to Washington on Wednesday, visiting the White House for a nearly two-hour meeting with President Joe Biden and committing to a straightforward transition of power as the president-elect moves quickly to build out his new administration. Sitting in front of a crackling...
Silence descends around China’s deadliest mass killing in years as flowers cleared away
ZHUHAI, China — Online discussion about China’s deadliest mass killing in years was being censored Wednesday as authorities in a southern city cleared candles and flowers from the memorial to the 35 people dead. Police have offered little information about the 62-year-old driver who rammed his vehicle into a sports...
U.S. inflation rose slightly last month after 2 years of steady cooling but remained low
WASHINGTON — Inflation in the United States ticked up in October, driven by costlier rents, used cars and air fares, a sign that price increases might be leveling off after having slowed in September to their lowest pace since 2021. Consumer prices rose 2.6% from a year earlier, the Labor...
What makes walking so great for your health and what else you need to do
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Janet Rapp strode briskly down a paved path through the city zoo, waving at friends and stopping briefly to greet emus she knows by name. The 71-year-old retiree starts each morning this way with a walking club. “I’m obsessed,” she said. Not only does it ease her...
Norway’s Kon-Tiki Museum returns artifacts to Chile’s remote Easter Island
COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Artifacts and human remains taken by a Norwegian explorer and anthropologist in the late 1940s are being returned by a museum in Oslo to Chile’s remote territory of Easter Island in the mid-Pacific, the Kon-Tiki Museum said Wednesday. In 1947, explorer Thor Heyerdahl sailed on a log...
Trump’s economic agenda for his 2nd term is clouding the outlook for mortgage rates
LOS ANGELES — Donald Trump’s election win is clouding the outlook for mortgage rates even before he gets back to the White House. The president-elect campaigned on a promise to make homeownership more affordable by lowering mortgage rates through policies aimed at knocking out inflation. But his proposed economic agenda...
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz says he’ll ask for a vote of confidence in December
BERLIN — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has announced that he will ask for a vote of confidence on Dec. 16, paving the way forward for an early parliamentary election in February. Scholz declared his plans for a vote of confidence during a speech in parliament on Wednesday, one week after...
GM recalling big pickups and SUVs because the rear wheels can lock up, increasing risk of a crash
DETROIT — General Motors is recalling nearly 462,000 pickup trucks and big SUVs with diesel engines because the rear wheels can lock up, increasing the risk of a crash. The recall in the U.S. covers certain Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra 1500, 2500 and 3500 pickups from the 2020 through...
Trump’s defense choice stuns the Pentagon and raises questions about the Fox News host’s experience
WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump stunned the Pentagon and the broader defense world by nominating Fox News host Pete Hegseth to serve as his defense secretary, tapping someone largely inexperienced and untested on the global stage to take over the world’s largest and most powerful military. The news was met...
John Krasinski named People magazine’s 2024 Sexiest Man Alive
LOS ANGELES — Let the office debates begin — John Krasinski is People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive for 2024. The magazine announced the actor-writer-director as its pick Tuesday night during “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.” Krasinski starred in “The Office” before launching the “Quiet Place” franchise and leading the...
Penn State opens its season with 3rd straight rout, beats St. Francis (Pa.), 92-62Video
UNIVERSITY PARK — Puff Johnson scored 20 points, Ace Baldwin Jr. added 16 and Penn State rolled to a 92-62 victory over St. Francis (Pa.) on Tuesday night. It was the third straight rout by Penn State (3-0), which beat Binghamton (108-66) and UMBC (103-54). Johnson was 7 of 8...
Oregon No. 1 in 2nd week of College Football Playoff rankings; Penn State 4thVideo
Undefeated Oregon stayed on top in the second batch of College Football Playoff rankings, while Tuesday’s poll shoved Georgia completely out of the bracket after its lopsided loss to Mississippi. Led by the Ducks, then Ohio State, the Big Ten captured four of the top five spots — a string...
Trump says Musk, Ramaswamy will form outside group to advise White House on government efficiency
WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday said Elon Musk and former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy will lead a new “Department of Government Efficiency” — which is not, despite the name, a government agency. The acronym “DOGE” is a nod to Musk’s favorite cryptocurrency, dogecoin. Trump said in a...
Kraft Heinz stops serving school-designed Lunchables because of low demand
Food and beverage manufacturer Kraft Heinz said Tuesday that it no longer is serving the Lunchables meals it created for U.S. schools. The company introduced the two packaged meals — one starring pizza and the other a turkey, cheddar cheese and cracker plate — at the beginning of the 2023-2024...
Investigators believe Wisconsin kayaker faked his own death before fleeing to eastern Europe
MADISON, Wis. — A Wisconsin man apparently faked his own drowning this summer so he could abandon his family and flee to eastern Europe, investigators say. Green Lake County Sheriff Mark Podoll said in a news release Friday that the Dodge County Sheriff’s Office informed his agency on Aug. 12...
Trump builds out national security team with picks of Pete Hegseth for Pentagon, Kristi Noem for DHS
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — President-elect Donald Trump moved to build out his national security team Tuesday, announcing he is nominating Fox News host and Army veteran Pete Hegseth to serve as his defense secretary and former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe to lead the Central Intelligence Agency. In...
The Big 12 leads the way when it comes to nail-biters with 13 games decided in the final minuteVideo
Seventh-ranked BYU and the Big 12 are taking games down to the wire. No other conference is keeping things so close this season. The Cougars (9-0, 6-0 Big 12) are one of four remaining undefeated FBS teams after their 22-21 win at Utah. Will Ferrin kicked a 44-yard field goal...
