Month: May 2023

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas would set new standards and ratings for sexually explicit material in order to ban books from public and charter school libraries, under a bill given final passage by the state Senate late Tuesday night and sent to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott. The Texas move is the latest attempt to ban

By GRACE GARCES BORDALLO and SARAH BRUMFIELD Associated Press HAGATNA, Guam (AP) — Powerful Typhoon Mawar smashed the U.S. territory of Guam and continued lashing the Pacific island with high winds and heavy rain Thursday, knocking down trees, walls and power lines and creating a powerful storm surge that threatened to wash out low-lying areas.

By JIM MUSTIAN and JOSHUA GOODMAN Associated Press SHREVEPORT, La. (AP) — The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has allowed one of the nation’s largest wholesale drug distributors to keep shipping highly addictive painkillers for nearly four years after a judge recommended it be stripped of its license for its “cavalier disregard” of thousands of suspicious

BEIJING (AP) — China’s new ambassador to the U.S. is taking office amid disputes over trade, access to computer chips and Washington’s support for self-governing Taiwan. Chinese state media said Xie Feng arrived in New York on Tuesday and told reporters that relations between the world’s two largest economies face “serious difficulties and challenges.” Exchanges

By ILAN BEN ZION Associated Press JERUSALEM (AP) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has passed a new two-year budget, a step that could bring some stability to his coalition and clear the way for it to press ahead with its religious, pro-settlement agenda. The vote dragged on overnight, with the budgets for 2023 and

By HYUNG-JIN KIM Associated Press SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea is about to conduct its first commercial-grade satellite launch as rival North Korea is pushing to place its first military spy satellite into orbit. The South Korean satellite will be launched by a domestically made rocket on Wednesday under the country’s space development

By NICK PERRY Associated Press WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — New Zealand’s central bank has raised its benchmark interest rate to 5.5% but signaled its next move would be a cut, sparking a sell-off in the currency. Wednesday’s quarter-point rate rise was the 12th straight hike imposed by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand since

By JAKE OFFENHARTZ Associated Press NEWBURGH, N.Y. (AP) — Before he left Mauritania, the West African nation of his birth, Mohamed thought of New York as a place of “open arms,” a refuge for immigrants fleeing dire circumstances. Now that he’s here, seeking political asylum from a government he feared would kill him, he doesn’t

QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — Ecuador’s National Electoral Council has announced that early presidential elections would be held on Aug. 20 after President Guillermo Lasso dissolved the National Assembly by decree last week and brought forward the vote scheduled for 2025. Lasso’s decision to dissolve the opposition-led legislature came as lawmakers tried to impeach him for

MOSCOW (AP) — A Russian court has extended the arrest of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich by three months. The decision came in a closed-door hearing emblematic of the secrecy that has marked the case against the first United States correspondent since the Cold War to be detained in Russia on spying charges. Gershkovich,

By TIM REYNOLDS AP Basketball Writer MIAMI (AP) — Down nine early in the third quarter, down 3-0 in the series, the Boston Celtics knew their season was completely on the brink. Three minutes later, everything looked different. Jayson Tatum had 33 points and 11 rebounds, Jaylen Brown added 17 points and the Celtics staved

By ELLEN KNICKMEYER Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Like the blue and yellow flags that popped up around the U.S. when Russia invaded Ukraine 15 months ago, U.S. popular support for Washington’s backing of Ukraine has faded a little but remains widespread, a survey by the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy and

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and members of his extremist group will be the first Jan. 6 defendants sentenced for seditious conspiracy in a series of hearings beginning this week. The hearings could forecast the punishments coming for top Proud Boys leaders convicted

By RICK RYCROFT and ROD McGUIRK Associated Press SYDNEY (AP) — Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has struck new agreements with his Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese on migration and green hydrogen. During his visit to Australia, Modi also raised concerns about attacks on Hindu temples in Sydney. Modi was welcomed Tuesday by around 20,000 cheering

By TRENTON DANIEL and ERIC TUCKER Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump speaks about his legal woes in a way that would make most defense attorneys wince. A recent sampling: In a March interview on Fox News, the former president said he had “the right to take” classified documents with him to his Florida

By GARY D. ROBERTSON Associated Press RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A North Carolina redistricting ruling has set up a possible electoral windfall for congressional Republicans in preserving their U.S. House majority next year, declaring that judges should stay out of scrutinizing seat boundaries for partisan advantage. While Democrats only need to flip five GOP seats