Associated Press stories, Page 968
Semi-automatic rifle ban passes Washington state Legislature
BELLINGHAM, Wash. — A ban on dozens of semi-automatic rifles cleared the Washington state Legislature on Wednesday and the governor is expected to sign it into law. The high-powered firearms — once banned nationwide — are now the weapon of choice among young men responsible for most of the country’s...
Oklahoma official who discussed killing reporters resigns
OKLAHOMA CITY — A county commissioner in far southeast Oklahoma who was identified by a local newspaper as one of several officials caught on tape discussing killing reporters and lynching Black people has resigned from office, Gov. Kevin Stitt’s office confirmed Wednesday. Stitt spokesperson Carly Atchison said the office received...
Former Pennsylvania Congressman Bud Shuster dies at 91
HARRISBURG — Former U.S. Rep. Bud Shuster, an influential Republican lawmaker who strongly backed transportation projects but ran afoul of ethics guidelines, has died. He was 91. Shuster died peacefully at his farm Wednesday in Everett, Bedford County, surrounded by his family, including his son, Bill Shuster, who succeeded his...
Fulton County sanctioned over copying 2020 voting machine data
HARRISBURG — A Pennsylvania Republican-majority county government where two commissioners secretly allowed a third party to copy voting-machine data last year to help former President Donald Trump overturn his 2020 reelection defeat received contempt sanctions Wednesday from the state’s highest court. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled against Fulton County commissioners...
Texas cheerleaders shot after one says she entered wrong carVideo
ELGIN, Texas — A man shot and wounded two cheerleaders in a Texas supermarket parking lot after one of them said she mistakenly got into his car thinking it was her own — the latest in a string of recent U.S. shootings apparently sparked by someone showing up at the...
Bengals’ Joe Mixon pleads not guilty to menacing charge
CINCINNATI — Cincinnati Bengals running back Joe Mixon pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a misdemeanor charge of aggravated menacing over allegations that he threatened and pointed a gun at a woman in Cincinnati earlier this year. Mixon made his initial court appearance in Hamilton County Municipal Court, where bond was...
Tyre Nichols’ family sues Memphis police over beating, death
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The family of Tyre Nichols, who died after a brutal beating by five Memphis police officers, sued the officers and the city of Memphis on Wednesday, blaming them for his death and accusing officials of allowing a special unit’s aggressive tactics to go unchecked despite warning signs....
Uneasy marijuana industry seeks broader trade amid vast glut
TUMWATER, Wash. — The email went out to legal cannabis growers around Washington state, alerting them that another of their colleagues had gone under. “Liquidation sale,” it said. Attached was a spreadsheet of items up for grabs: LED grow lights for $500 apiece. Rotary evaporators for hash oil, $10,000. Across...
Are you a Facebook user? You could get some settlement cash
Anyone in the U.S. who has had a Facebook account at any time since May 24, 2007, can now apply for their share of a $725 million privacy settlement that parent company Meta has agreed to pay. Meta is paying to settle a lawsuit alleging the world’s largest social media...
Sudanese flee their homes as truce fails, fighting rages
KHARTOUM, Sudan — Terrified Sudanese who have been trapped for days in their homes by fighting in the capital of Khartoum fled on Wednesday, hauling out whatever belongings they could carry and trying to get out of the city, after an internationally brokered truce failed. Explosions shook the city as...
U.S.-made Patriot guided missile systems arrive in Ukraine
KYIV, Ukraine — American-made Patriot missiles have arrived in Ukraine, the country’s defense minister said Wednesday, providing Kyiv with a long-sought new shield against the Russian airstrikes that have devastated cities and civilian infrastructure. The U.S. agreed in October to send the surface-to-air systems, which can target aircraft, cruise missiles...
Alabama teens charged with murder in Sweet 16 party shootingVideo
DADEVILLE, Ala. — Two teenagers have been arrested and charged with murder in connection with a shooting that killed four young people at a Sweet Sixteen birthday party, Alabama investigators announced Wednesday. Tallapoosa County District Attorney Mike Segrest said the pair — Ty Reik McCullough, 17, and Travis McCullough, 16,...
Winnipeg’s Morgan Barron receives 75-plus stitches after skate to face
LAS VEGAS — Winnipeg Jets forward Morgan Barron took a skate to his face Tuesday night, requiring more than 75 stitches, but he returned to the ice less than a period later. Barron was injured in the first period during a big scramble in front of the Vegas Golden Knights’...
Court hearing delayed for airman accused in documents leak
BOSTON — A hearing to decide whether a Massachusetts Air National Guardsman charged with leaking highly classified military documents should remain jailed while awaiting trial has been delayed to give the defense more time to prepare. Jack Teixeira, 21, was supposed to appear in Boston federal court on Wednesday for...
Iraq’s years of carnage still engrained in Baghdad streets
BAGHDAD — There are places around Baghdad where I’ll sometimes say a silent prayer for the dead when I pass — on certain residential streets, at a particular restaurant, in a square where minibuses gather. Today, people go about their daily business in these places, perhaps no longer thinking of...
Torch-carrying marchers indicted in Charlottesville rally
RICHMOND, Va. — Nearly six years after a large gathering of white nationalists in Charlottesville erupted in violent clashes with counterprotesters, a grand jury in Virginia has indicted multiple people on felony charges for carrying flaming torches with the intent to intimidate. The Albemarle County Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office said in...
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising commemorated on 80th anniversary
WARSAW, Poland — Presidents and Holocaust survivors and their descendants commemorated the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising on Wednesday with a poignant sense that the responsibility for carrying on the memory of the Holocaust is passing from the witnesses to younger generations. Germany’s president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said the...
Charges put focus on Jehovah’s Witnesses’ handling of abuseVideo
YORK HAVEN — A Pennsylvania grand jury in recent months accused nine men with connections to the Jehovah’s Witnesses of child sexual abuse in what some consider the nation’s most comprehensive investigation yet into abuse within the faith. The sets of charges filed in October and February have fueled speculation...
Supreme Court temporarily extends access to abortion pill
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court has temporarily extended women’s access to an abortion pill until Friday while the justices consider whether to allow restrictions on mifepristone to take effect as a legal challenge to the medication’s Food and Drug Administration approval continues. In an order signed by Justice Samuel Alito...
Uvalde families plead for languishing Texas gun bills
AUSTIN, Texas — Parents whose children were killed in the Robb Elementary School massacre made sobbing pleads for stricter gun laws before legislators early Wednesday on languishing proposals that appeared headed to stall in the face of a Republican majority. The emotional late-night hearing — which started Tuesday morning and...
Tennessee moves to shield gun firms after school shooting
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — In the wake of a deadly school shooting last month, Republican lawmakers in Tennessee awarded final passage Tuesday to a proposal that would further protect gun and ammunition dealers, manufacturers and sellers against lawsuits. The Senate’s 19-9 vote sends the bill to Republican Gov. Bill Lee, despite...
Colorado gun control bills progress; semi-auto ban unlikely
DENVER — Months after the state’s latest mass shooting, Colorado’s Democratic-controlled Legislature has passed a package of gun control measures that are expected to be signed by the state’s governor and more closely align it with the liberal strongholds of California and New York. The proposals include strengthening red flag...
In memoir, former Cuomo aide says ‘nothing goes unaddressed’
ALBANY, N.Y. — A memoir from the top aide to former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo during the deadliest days of the covid-19 pandemic, and an investigation that concluded he sexually harassed 11 women, will come out in the fall. Union Square & Co. will release “What’s Left Unsaid: My...
DeSantis appointees begin reshaping Disney World’s district
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ appointees on Wednesday began trying to reshape Disney World’s governing body with proposals to eliminate a planning board and prohibit mask mandates and covid-19 vaccine requirements in an evolving showdown between the Republican governor and the world’s best-known entertainment company. The...
Neighbor: Man in wrong-turn shooting disliked trespassersVideo
When Kaylin Gillis and her friends took a wrong turn into an upstate New York driveway last weekend, they couldn’t have known the property was owned by a man who, according to a neighbor, had grown increasingly bitter over the years at people driving onto his land by mistake. This...
