U.S./World category, Page 4
Military lawyer swiftly fired from immigration bench after defying Trump deportation push
MIAMI — A U.S. Army Reserve lawyer detailed as a federal immigration judge has been fired barely a month into the job after granting asylum at a high rate out of step with the Trump administration’s mass deportation goals, The Associated Press has learned. Christopher Day began hearing cases in...
Justice Department faces deadline day on Epstein files law
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department faces a Friday deadline to release investigative materials on the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, an inflection point in a controversy with deep intrigue and potential political ramifications for President Donald Trump. Congress overwhelmingly passed legislation last month that orders the Justice Department to publish...
The Kennedy Center has added Trump’s name to the memorial Congress created for John F. Kennedy
WASHINGTON — The Kennedy Center on Friday quickly added Donald Trump’s name to the performing arts center Congress designated as a living memorial to John F. Kennedy, a day after the center’s board of trustees voted to make the change. Blue tarps were hung in front of the building to...
How 1 anonymous tipster cracked the Brown University shooting case
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Information from a tipster who had a strange encounter with another man on a sidewalk outside Brown University was key to police identifying the suspect they believe killed two students at the school and then two days later gunned down a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor. Known...
Trump suspends green card lottery program that let Brown University, MIT shootings suspect into U.S.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump suspended the green card lottery program on Thursday that allowed the suspect in the Brown University and MIT shootings to come to the United States. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a post on the social platform X that at Trump’s direction she is...
Trump’s blockade of sanctioned Venezuelan oil raises new questions about legality
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s “blockade” of sanctioned oil tankers off Venezuela’s coast is raising new questions about the legality of his military campaign in Latin America, while fueling concerns that the U.S. could be edging closer to war. The Trump administration says its blockade is narrowly tailored and not...
Jury finds Wisconsin judge guilty of obstruction for helping immigrant evade federal agents
MILWAUKEE — A jury found a Wisconsin judge accused of helping a Mexican immigrant dodge federal authorities guilty of obstruction Thursday, marking a victory for President Donald Trump as he continues his sweeping immigration crackdown across the country. Federal prosecutors charged Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan with obstruction, a...
Coast Guard drops references to swastikas and nooses being ‘potentially divisive’
References in U.S. Coast Guard policy calling hate symbols “potentially divisive” were removed Thursday, and a U.S. senator said she was lifting a hold she had placed on a nomination for the service’s top job. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, whose agency oversees the Coast Guard, said on social media...
Man suspected in Brown University shooting and MIT professor’s killing is found dead, officials say
A frantic search for the suspect in last weekend’s mass shooting at Brown University ended Thursday at a New Hampshire storage facility where authorities discovered the man dead inside and then revealed he also was suspected of killing a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor. Claudio Neves Valente, 48, a former...
Romanian court sentences Wiz Khalifa to 9 months for drug possession
BUCHAREST, Romania — American rapper Wiz Khalifa was sentenced by a court in Romania on Thursday to nine months in jail for drug possession, more than a year after he took part in a music festival in the Eastern European country. Khalifa was stopped by Romanian police in July 2024...
Deaths reported after business jet crashed at an airport in North Carolina
STATESVILLE, N.C. — A sheriff said there were deaths Thursday in the crash of a business jet that was trying to land at a regional airport in Statesville, North Carolina. “I can confirm there were fatalities,” Iredell County Sheriff Grant Campbell said, though he declined to say how many. The...
Trump administration moves to cut off transgender care for children
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Thursday unveiled a series of regulatory actions designed to block access to gender-affirming care for minors, building on broader Trump administration restrictions targeting transgender Americans. The sweeping proposals — the most significant moves this administration has taken so far...
Judge says he’ll rule in May on Luigi Mangione’s fight to exclude evidence from NY murder trial
NEW YORK — Luigi Mangione’s pretrial hearing wrapped up Thursday with a judge saying he plans to rule in May on what evidence prosecutors will be able to use in his New York trial for the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Prosecutors rested their case after calling nearly 20...
One Tech Tip: Spend quality time with loved ones, not a screen, over the holidays
The Christmas holiday season is a time to step back from the busy pace of modern life and connect with our nearest and dearest instead of screens, apps and chatbots. Here are some suggestions on how to unplug from the online world for the next few weeks as you sit...
Trump Media to merge with nuclear fusion company that wants to power AI
Trump Media & Technology will merge with a fusion power company in an all-stock deal that the companies said Thursday is valued at more than $6 billion. Devin Nunes, the Republican congressman who resigned in 2021 to become the CEO of Trump Media, will be co-CEO of the new company...
DOJ vowed to punish those who disrupt Trump’s immigration crackdown. Dozens of cases have crumbled
WASHINGTON — The federal agent described her wounds as “boo-boos.” Nevertheless, the Justice Department aggressively pursued the alleged perpetrator. They jailed Sidney Lori Reid on a charge of felony assault, accusing her of injuring the agent during a July protest of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in Washington, D.C. When...
Rural schools hit by Trump’s grant cuts have few options for making up for the lost money
SHELBYVILLE, Ky. — When the funding for Shannon Johnson’s job as a school mental health counselor came to an abrupt end, two years into a five-year grant, she thought about the work left to be done. Johnson taught elementary and middle-school students in rural Kentucky how to navigate conflict, build...
Powerball jackpot reaches estimated $1.5 billion; Pa. ticket wins $1 million
While there was no big winner in Wednesday night’s Powerball drawing, one ticket sold in Pennsylvania won $1 million. Without a main winner, the jackpot climbed to an estimated $1.5 billion for Saturday’s drawing. The $1 million-winning ticket sold in Pennsylvania was one of five nationwide to match the five...
Top EU court rules Polish Constitutional Tribunal is not independent
WARSAW, Poland — The European Union’s top court ruled on Thursday that Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal was not “independent and impartial” because of politicized appointments made under the previous conservative Polish government. In its ruling, the EU’s Court of Justice said the Polish Constitutional Tribunal had “infringed the principle of effective...
Lifting of U.S. sanctions on Syria could spur refugee returns, says UN official
BEIRUT — The head of the U.N. refugee agency in Lebanon said Thursday that the move by the United States to lift sweeping sanctions on Syria could encourage more refugees to return to their country. The U.S. Senate voted Wednesday to permanently remove the so-called Caesar Act sanctions after the...
Israel launches intense airstrikes in Lebanon as deadline looms to disarm Hezbollah
BEIRUT — Israel carried out a series of airstrikes on southern and northeastern Lebanon on Thursday as a deadline looms to disarm the militant Hezbollah group along the countries’ tense frontier. The strikes came a day before a meeting of the committee monitoring the enforcement of a U.S.-brokered ceasefire that...
Trump demands Venezuela pay for seized U.S. oil assets after calling for ‘blockade’
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump demanded Wednesday that Venezuela return assets that it seized from U.S. oil companies years ago, justifying anew his announcement of a “blockade” against oil tankers traveling to or from the South American country that face American sanctions. Trump cited the lost U.S. investments in Venezuela...
U.S. government admits negligence in helicopter-plane collision that killed 67 in Washington
WASHINGTON — The U.S. government admitted Wednesday that the Federal Aviation Administration and the Army played a role in causing the collision last January between an airliner and a Black Hawk helicopter near the nation’s capital, killing 67 people. The official response to the first lawsuit filed by one of...
Imprisoned Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell seeks release, citing ‘new evidence’
NEW YORK — Jeffrey Epstein’s former girlfriend and longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell asked a federal judge on Wednesday to set aside her sex trafficking conviction and free her from a 20-year prison sentence, saying “substantial new evidence” has emerged proving that constitutional violations spoiled her trial. Maxwell maintained in a...
FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino says he plans to resign next month as bureau’s No. 2 official
WASHINGTON — FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino said Wednesday that he will resign from the bureau next month, ending a brief and tumultuous tenure in which he clashed with the Justice Department over the handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files and was forced to reconcile the realities of his law...
