Oath Keeper from North Carolina pleads guilty to seditious conspiracy
WASHINGTON — A North Carolina man pleaded guilty on Wednesday to conspiring with other members of the far-right Oath Keepers militia group to forcefully halt the peaceful transfer of power after President Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral victory. William Todd Wilson, 44, is the third Oath Keepers member to plead guilty...
Arizona officials blast Attorney General Mark Brnovich for election report
PHOENIX — Republican officials who oversee elections in Maricopa County issued a blistering retort Wednesday to GOP Attorney General Mark Brnovich accusing the state’s top lawman of abusing his position and misleading the public about the 2020 election to advance his U.S. Senate campaign. The county officials issued a nine-page...
Fox chews through fence, kills 25 flamingos, duck at National Zoo
WASHINGTON — Zookeepers at the National Zoo made a macabre discovery this week, when they entered the outdoor enclosure that housed 74 flamingos. A wild fox from neighboring Rock Creek Park had apparently chewed a hole in the metal mesh fencing and wreaked havoc, killing 25 flamingos and injuring three...
Georgia man charged with murder after daughter dies in hot car
SNELLVILLE, Ga. — A Georgia man was charged with second-degree murder Wednesday when his 8-month-old daughter died after she was left in a hot car while he went to retrieve a gun from the police department and ended up getting arrested, authorities said. Davied Japez McCorry Whatley, 20, went to...
As U.S. poised to restrict abortion, other nations ease access
BOGOTA, Colombia — As women in the United States find themselves on the verge of possibly losing the constitutional right to abortion, courts in many other parts of the world have been moving in the opposite direction. That includes in a number of traditionally conservative societies — such as recently...
WHO: Covid continues to decline, except in Americas, Africa
GENEVA — The World Health Organization said Wednesday that the number of newly reported coronavirus cases and deaths globally continued to fall in the last week, continuing a decline that first began in March. In its weekly report on the pandemic, the U.N. health agency said there were about 3.8...
Kansas gamer pleads guilty for role in fatal ‘swatting’ case
WICHITA, Kan. — A Kansas man has pleaded guilty to his role in a hoax call that led to a fatal shooting of an innocent bystander by Wichita police in 2017. Shane Gaskell, 23, pleaded guilty Tuesday in federal court to wire fraud in case that drew national attention to...
Ukraine: Russia using ‘missile terrorism’ in wide attacksVideo
LVIV, Ukraine — Complaining that the West is “stuffing Ukraine with weapons,” Russia bombarded railroad stations and other supply-line targets across the country, as the European Union moved to further punish Moscow for the war Wednesday by proposing a ban on oil imports. Heavy fighting also raged at the Azovstal...
Mexican president to talk development, migration on tour
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador plans to begin a lightning, five-day tour Thursday to four Central American countries and Cuba to discuss his government’s approach to development and ways it might help alleviate the pressure to migrate. It will only be the third overseas trip...
Gov. Wolf calls draft opinion to overturn Roe v. Wade ‘un-American and unacceptable’
Gov. Tom Wolf said he is angry that a leaked draft ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court outlines an effort to overturn the Roe v. Wade abortion rights ruling Wolf, along with a group of lawmakers and reproductive rights advocates, met in Philadelphia on Wednesday to criticize the draft opinion...
Pope’s Ukraine diplomacy a political and spiritual tightrope
VATICAN CITY — His appeals for an Orthodox Easter truce in Ukraine went unheeded. His planned meeting with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church was canceled. A proposed visit to Moscow? Nyet. Even his attempt to showcase Russian-Ukrainian friendship fell flat. Pope Francis hasn’t made much of a diplomatic...
Texas student fatally stabbed at school; classmate jailed
BELTON, Texas — An 18-year-old student has died after he was stabbed during a fight at a Texas high school and another student was taken into custody, authorities said. Jose Luis Ramirez Jr. died after he was stabbed Tuesday morning in a campus bathroom at Belton High School, about 60...
EU takes major step toward Russian oil ban, new sanctions
BRUSSELS — The European Union’s top official on Wednesday called on the 27-nation bloc to ban oil imports from Russia and target the country’s biggest bank and major broadcasters in a sixth package of sanctions over the war in Ukraine. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, addressing the European...
Election 2022: JD Vance wins Ohio’s GOP Senate primary
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Bestselling author JD Vance has won Ohio’s contentious and hyper-competitive GOP Senate primary, buoyed by Donald Trump’s endorsement in a race widely seen as an early test of the former president’s hold on his party as the midterm season kicks into high gear. Vance’s win brings to...
Norman Mineta, transportation secretary in 9/11 era, dies
ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Norman Mineta, who broke racial barriers for Asian Americans serving in high-profile government posts and ordered commercial flights grounded after the 9/11 terror attacks as the nation’s federal transportation secretary, died Tuesday. He was 90. John Flaherty, Mineta’s former chief of staff, said Mineta died peacefully at...
D.C. reaches $750K settlement in Trump inaugural lawsuit
WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump’s businesses and inaugural committee have reached a deal to pay Washington, D.C., $750,000 to resolve a lawsuit that alleged the committee overpaid for events at his hotel and enriched the former president’s family in the process, according to the District of Columbia’s attorney general....
Even as covid cases rise, mask mandates stay shelved
NEW YORK — An increase in covid-19 infections around the U.S. has sent more cities into new high-risk categories that are supposed to trigger indoor mask wearing, but much of the country is stopping short of bringing back restrictions amid deep pandemic fatigue. For weeks, much of upstate New York...
‘Still in shock’: Abortion defenders, foes stunned by Supreme Court leak
The owner of an Alabama abortion clinic was flying home from a conference with other abortion providers Monday night when a leaked Supreme Court draft opinion began ricocheting around the world. As Dalton Johnson read it, he was struck by the harshness of the language that would end the constitutional...
Yazidis, displaced again, fear more strife in Iraqi homeland
ZAKHO, Iraq — Iraqis in a northern town still traumatized by memories of the Islamic State group feared more violence Tuesday after hostilities between the military and a local militia erupted, people internally displaced by the fighting said. Tensions reached a fever pitch when Iraq’s military launched an offensive in...
U.S. Capitol officer fires gun in break room, gets suspended
WASHINGTON — A U.S. Capitol Police officer fired a gun inside a break room in a House office building on Tuesday and was promptly suspended — the latest stain for a police department struggling to regain the public’s trust following the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection and a recent communications failure...
Ukrainian fighters: Russian forces storming Mariupol plant
ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine — Russian forces Tuesday began storming the steel mill containing the last pocket of resistance in Mariupol, Ukrainian defenders said, just as scores of civilians evacuated from the bombed-out plant over the weekend reached relative safety in Ukrainian-held territory. Osnat Lubrani, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine, said...
Biden blasts ‘radical’ Roe draft, warns other rights at risk
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Tuesday blasted a “radical” draft Supreme Court opinion that would throw out the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion rights ruling that has stood for a half century and warned that other rights including same-sex marriage and birth control are at risk if the court...
Minnesota appeals court: Trump flag protected free speech
BUFFALO, Minn. — The Minnesota Court of Appeals has sided with a man who said he shouldn’t have been fined for flying a huge Donald Trump flag atop a crane over his business, calling it a protected expression of free speech. The Buffalo City Council had found the 30- by...
New coronavirus variants emerge: BA.4, BA.5 likely reinfecting omicron survivors
A pair of new omicron subvariants has emerged, raising the possibility that survivors of earlier omicron strains can get reinfected. BA.4 and BA.5 have gained increasing attention in South Africa as weekly coronavirus cases tripled in the last two weeks, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. “It really came...
Slovakia, Hungary won’t back EU sanctions on Russian energy
BUDAPEST, Hungary — Slovakia and Hungary said Tuesday that they will not support sanctions against Russian energy that the European Union is preparing over the war in Ukraine, saying they are too reliant on those supplies and there are no immediate alternatives. The EU’s executive branch, the European Commission, has...
