Associated Press stories, Page 247
Trump has ordered the dismantling of the Education Department. Here’s what it does
WASHINGTON (AP) — Moving to fulfill a campaign promise, President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday calling for the dismantling of the Education Department, an agency Republicans have talked about closing for decades. The order says Education Secretary Linda McMahon will, “to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by...
Israel vows to take more land in Gaza to pressure Hamas into releasing hostages
JERUSALEM — Israel’s defense minister said Friday he has ordered ground forces to advance deeper into the Gaza Strip, and vowed to hold more land until Hamas releases the remaining hostages it holds. “The more Hamas continues its refusal to release the kidnapped, the more territory it will lose to...
Trump orders a plan to dismantle the Education Department while keeping some core functions
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday calling for the dismantling of the U.S. Education Department, advancing a campaign promise to take apart an agency that’s been a longtime target of conservatives. Trump has derided the Education Department as wasteful and polluted by liberal ideology. However, completing...
Top Russian official visits North Korea to meet Kim
SEOUL, South Korea — A top Russian security official traveled to North Korea on Friday to meet leader Kim Jong Un, after North Korea recently reportedly sent additional troops to Russia to support its war against Ukraine. A brief dispatch by Russia’s state-run news agency Tass reported that Sergey Shoigu,...
Sudan’s military says it has retaken Khartoum’s Republican Palace, seat of country’s government
CAIRO — Sudan’s military said Friday it retook the Republican Palace in Khartoum, the last heavily guarded bastion of rival paramilitary forces in the capital, after nearly two years of fighting. The seizure of the Republican Palace, surrounded by government ministries, represents a major symbolic victory for Sudan’s military against...
Russian drones strike Ukrainian city of Odesa, underlining challenges for even limited truce
KYIV, Ukraine — Russian drones pummeled the Ukrainian Black Sea port city of Odesa, injuring three people and sparking massive fires, officials said Friday, an attack that underlined Moscow’s intention to pursue aerial attacks even as it agreed to temporarily halt strikes on energy facilities. The strike came shortly before...
London’s Heathrow Airport closed for the day after a substation fire, disrupting travel
LONDON — Britain’s Heathrow Airport was closed all day Friday after a fire at a nearby electrical substation knocked out its power, disrupting flights for hundreds of thousands of passengers at Europe’s busiest travel hub. At least 1,350 flights to and from Heathrow were affected, flight tracking service FlightRadar 24...
No. 11 seed Drake holds on after blowing big lead, stuns MissouriVideo
WICHITA, Kan. — Bennett Stirtz scored 21 points, and No. 11 seed Drake, a team relying heavily on Division II transfers, held on after blowing most of a 15-point lead to beat sixth-seeded Missouri 67-57 on Thursday night in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Tavion Banks added 15...
Here’s how some human rights and LGBTQ+ groups prepared for major foreign aid cuts under Trump
In early 2024, Matthew Hart took a hard look at the upcoming elections around the world and worried that the outcomes did not look promising. “What we knew was that the winds were not in our favor. The winds were not in our sail, and we saw all around the...
The release of a 1961 plan to break up the CIA revives an old conspiracy theory about who killed JFK
A key adviser warned President John F. Kennedy after the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961 that the agency behind it, the CIA, had grown too powerful. He proposed giving the State Department control of “all clandestine activities” and breaking up the CIA. The page of Special...
Keith Mitchell settles for 5-way tie for Valspar Championship lead
PALM HARBOR, Fla. — Keith Mitchell thrived in a tough wind on a tough Copperhead course at Innisbrook on Thursday until he dropped two shots late in his round and had to settle for a 4-under-par 67 and a five-way share of the lead in the Valspar Championship. The gusts...
NCAA Tournament roundup: Creighton tops Louisville for 5th straight opening-round winVideo
Jamiya Neal scored a career-high 29 points and had 12 rebounds, Steven Ashworth connected from well beyond the arc on the way to 22 points, and ninth-seeded Creighton beat No. 8 seed Louisville, 89-75, on Thursday in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Coach Greg McDermott’s Bluejays (25-10) won...
Government cannot deport Georgetown scholar until court rules, judge orders
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A federal judge on Thursday ordered immigration officials not to deport a Georgetown scholar that the government detained until the court has had a chance to rule. U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles in Alexandria, Virginia, ordered that Badar Khan Suri “shall not be removed from the...
Former NFL, Michigan assistant coach Matt Weiss charged with hacking for athlete’s intimate photos
DETROIT — Former NFL and University of Michigan assistant football coach Matt Weiss hacked into the computer accounts of thousands of college athletes seeking intimate photos and videos, according to an indictment filed Thursday. Weiss, who worked for the Baltimore Ravens before joining the University of Michigan in 2021, was...
In the rapidly shifting world of work, many employees are unclear what’s expected of them
NEW YORK — When Nikelle Inman started a new job coaching first-generation college students, she looked forward to meeting with them one-on-one to talk about how to surmount obstacles and find resources to succeed. Instead, she and her fellow success coaches at a community college in North Carolina spent a...
Former Cy Young Award winner Jake Peavy returns to Padres as special assistant to CEO
SAN DIEGO — Jake Peavy, the 2007 NL Cy Young Award winner and member of the San Diego Padres Hall of Fame, has joined the team as special assistant to CEO Erik Greupner. Greupner said Thursday the three-time All-Star will assist multiple departments and serve as a team ambassador. “I’m...
LSU ‘walking double-double’ Aneesah Morrow is closing out her prolific career in March Madness
BATON ROUGE, La. — When Aneesah Morrow, LSU’s prolific forward, is around her family, she’ll sometimes be teased about her prodigious appetite. “She can probably outeat my sons,” Morrow’s mother, Nafeesah, said with a laugh this week as she also recalled telling LSU’s basketball staff, “you won’t have a problem...
Kirsty Coventry elected IOC president and is first woman, first African to lead global Olympic body
COSTA NAVARINO, Greece — Kirsty Coventry was elected president of the International Olympic Committee on Thursday and became the first woman and first African to get perhaps the biggest job in world sports. “It is a signal that we are truly global,” the Zimbabwe sports minister and two-time Olympic swimming...
Freshman star Cooper Flagg is ready to go for No. 1 seed Duke in NCAA’s East Region bracket
RALEIGH, N.C. — Duke freshman star Cooper Flagg says he’s good to go after spraining his left ankle last week, just in time for March Madness. The top-seeded Blue Devils said Flagg will be active for Friday’s first-round game against Mount St. Mary’s in the NCAA Tournament’s East Region. Meanwhile,...
Dolly Parton, ‘doing better,’ reappears to open Dollywood where her late husband had 1 rule
As the Grand Ole Opry marked 100 years Wednesday night, Reba McEntire said what many people may have been thinking: The party wasn’t the same without Dolly Parton throwing down. “It’s been a great night of celebration, but of course, it’s just not the same without you,” McEntire said to...
U.S. home sales rose in February as mortgage rates eased and more homes put up for sale
LOS ANGELES — Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes rose in February as easing mortgage rates and more properties on the market encouraged home shoppers. Existing home sales rose 4.2% last month from January to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.26 million units, the National Association of Realtors said...
A 1-month-old girl is pulled from the rubble in Gaza after an airstrike killed her parents
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip — As rescuers dug through the remains of a collapsed apartment building in Gaza’s Khan Younis on Thursday, they could hear the cries of a baby from underneath the rubble. Suddenly, calls of “God is great” rang out. A man sprinted away from the wreckage carrying...
American man held by the Taliban for over 2 years has been released, the State Department says
WASHINGTON — An American man who was abducted more than two years ago while traveling through Afghanistan as a tourist has been released by the Taliban in a deal with the Trump administration that Qatari negotiators helped broker, the State Department said Thursday. George Glezmann, an airline mechanic from Atlanta,...
NBA champ Celtics sold for record $6.1 billion to group led by private equity mogul Bill Chisholm
BOSTON — Private equity mogul William Chisholm agreed to buy the Boston Celtics on Thursday in a deal that values the NBA’s reigning champions and the most-decorated franchise in league history at a minimum of $6.1 billion — the largest price ever for American professional sports team. If the deal...
67,000 white South Africans have expressed interest in Trump’s plan to give them refugee status
CAPE TOWN, South Africa — The United States Embassy in South Africa said Thursday it received a list of nearly 70,000 people interested in refugee status in the U.S. under President Donald Trump’s plan to relocate members of a white minority group he claims are victims of racial discrimination by...
