Associated Press stories, Page 424
Speaker Johnson begins fight for the House gavel, winning nod from Trump
WASHINGTON — Speaker Mike Johnson is beginning the hard fight for his gavel, a weeks-long campaign that starts Wednesday during internal House Republican leadership elections and will establish the new power centers in Congress for a Washington dominated by President-elect Donald Trump. While Johnson has no serious challenger, he faces...
What happens to Donald Trump’s criminal conviction? Here are a few ways it could go
NEW YORK — Donald Trump’s election victory created a conundrum for the judge overseeing his criminal case in New York. Can he go ahead and sentence the president-elect, or would doing so potentially get in the way of Trump’s constitutional responsibility to lead the nation? Court documents made public Tuesday...
Trump makes a victor’s return to Washington and pledges a smooth transition of powerVideo
WASHINGTON — Donald Trump made a victor’s return to Washington on Wednesday, visiting the White House for a nearly two-hour meeting with President Joe Biden and committing to a straightforward transition of power as the president-elect moves quickly to build out his new administration. Sitting in front of a crackling...
Silence descends around China’s deadliest mass killing in years as flowers cleared away
ZHUHAI, China — Online discussion about China’s deadliest mass killing in years was being censored Wednesday as authorities in a southern city cleared candles and flowers from the memorial to the 35 people dead. Police have offered little information about the 62-year-old driver who rammed his vehicle into a sports...
U.S. inflation rose slightly last month after 2 years of steady cooling but remained low
WASHINGTON — Inflation in the United States ticked up in October, driven by costlier rents, used cars and air fares, a sign that price increases might be leveling off after having slowed in September to their lowest pace since 2021. Consumer prices rose 2.6% from a year earlier, the Labor...
What makes walking so great for your health and what else you need to do
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Janet Rapp strode briskly down a paved path through the city zoo, waving at friends and stopping briefly to greet emus she knows by name. The 71-year-old retiree starts each morning this way with a walking club. “I’m obsessed,” she said. Not only does it ease her...
Norway’s Kon-Tiki Museum returns artifacts to Chile’s remote Easter Island
COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Artifacts and human remains taken by a Norwegian explorer and anthropologist in the late 1940s are being returned by a museum in Oslo to Chile’s remote territory of Easter Island in the mid-Pacific, the Kon-Tiki Museum said Wednesday. In 1947, explorer Thor Heyerdahl sailed on a log...
Trump’s economic agenda for his 2nd term is clouding the outlook for mortgage rates
LOS ANGELES — Donald Trump’s election win is clouding the outlook for mortgage rates even before he gets back to the White House. The president-elect campaigned on a promise to make homeownership more affordable by lowering mortgage rates through policies aimed at knocking out inflation. But his proposed economic agenda...
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz says he’ll ask for a vote of confidence in December
BERLIN — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has announced that he will ask for a vote of confidence on Dec. 16, paving the way forward for an early parliamentary election in February. Scholz declared his plans for a vote of confidence during a speech in parliament on Wednesday, one week after...
GM recalling big pickups and SUVs because the rear wheels can lock up, increasing risk of a crash
DETROIT — General Motors is recalling nearly 462,000 pickup trucks and big SUVs with diesel engines because the rear wheels can lock up, increasing the risk of a crash. The recall in the U.S. covers certain Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra 1500, 2500 and 3500 pickups from the 2020 through...
Trump’s defense choice stuns the Pentagon and raises questions about the Fox News host’s experience
WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump stunned the Pentagon and the broader defense world by nominating Fox News host Pete Hegseth to serve as his defense secretary, tapping someone largely inexperienced and untested on the global stage to take over the world’s largest and most powerful military. The news was met...
John Krasinski named People magazine’s 2024 Sexiest Man Alive
LOS ANGELES — Let the office debates begin — John Krasinski is People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive for 2024. The magazine announced the actor-writer-director as its pick Tuesday night during “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.” Krasinski starred in “The Office” before launching the “Quiet Place” franchise and leading the...
Penn State opens its season with 3rd straight rout, beats St. Francis (Pa.), 92-62Video
UNIVERSITY PARK — Puff Johnson scored 20 points, Ace Baldwin Jr. added 16 and Penn State rolled to a 92-62 victory over St. Francis (Pa.) on Tuesday night. It was the third straight rout by Penn State (3-0), which beat Binghamton (108-66) and UMBC (103-54). Johnson was 7 of 8...
Oregon No. 1 in 2nd week of College Football Playoff rankings; Penn State 4thVideo
Undefeated Oregon stayed on top in the second batch of College Football Playoff rankings, while Tuesday’s poll shoved Georgia completely out of the bracket after its lopsided loss to Mississippi. Led by the Ducks, then Ohio State, the Big Ten captured four of the top five spots — a string...
Trump says Musk, Ramaswamy will form outside group to advise White House on government efficiency
WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday said Elon Musk and former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy will lead a new “Department of Government Efficiency” — which is not, despite the name, a government agency. The acronym “DOGE” is a nod to Musk’s favorite cryptocurrency, dogecoin. Trump said in a...
Kraft Heinz stops serving school-designed Lunchables because of low demand
Food and beverage manufacturer Kraft Heinz said Tuesday that it no longer is serving the Lunchables meals it created for U.S. schools. The company introduced the two packaged meals — one starring pizza and the other a turkey, cheddar cheese and cracker plate — at the beginning of the 2023-2024...
Investigators believe Wisconsin kayaker faked his own death before fleeing to eastern Europe
MADISON, Wis. — A Wisconsin man apparently faked his own drowning this summer so he could abandon his family and flee to eastern Europe, investigators say. Green Lake County Sheriff Mark Podoll said in a news release Friday that the Dodge County Sheriff’s Office informed his agency on Aug. 12...
Trump builds out national security team with picks of Pete Hegseth for Pentagon, Kristi Noem for DHS
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — President-elect Donald Trump moved to build out his national security team Tuesday, announcing he is nominating Fox News host and Army veteran Pete Hegseth to serve as his defense secretary and former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe to lead the Central Intelligence Agency. In...
The Big 12 leads the way when it comes to nail-biters with 13 games decided in the final minuteVideo
Seventh-ranked BYU and the Big 12 are taking games down to the wire. No other conference is keeping things so close this season. The Cougars (9-0, 6-0 Big 12) are one of four remaining undefeated FBS teams after their 22-21 win at Utah. Will Ferrin kicked a 44-yard field goal...
Minnesota QB Max Brosmer has proven this season the FCS transfer route can lead to successVideo
MINNEAPOLIS — When Max Brosmer was at New Hampshire, spring practice was conducted before dawn and, sometimes, even in the aftermath of a snowstorm. For the Wildcats to conduct those 6 a.m. workouts in the frigid air made colder still by the coastal winds, the field needed to be plowed...
Olympic champion wrestler Gable Steveson ends retirement, returns to University of MinnesotaVideo
Gable Steveson, who won a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, said Tuesday he is coming out of retirement and will return to the University of Minnesota for a fifth and final season of college wrestling. Steveson won gold as a freestyle heavyweight in Tokyo at age 21,...
Explosion at Kentucky business injures 11 workers, shatters windows in surrounding neighborhoodVideo
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — At least 11 employees were taken to hospitals after an explosion on Tuesday at a Louisville, Kentucky, business that produces natural color for foods and drinks. The explosion, which happened at Givaudan Sense Colour, knocked out windows and blew in doors in nearby homes and businesses. News...
Pentagon secrets leaker Jack Teixeira sentenced to 15 years in prison by a federal judge
BOSTON — A federal judge on Tuesday sentenced a Massachusetts Air National Guard member to 15 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to leaking highly classified military documents about the war in Ukraine. Jack Teixeira pleaded guilty earlier this year to six counts of willful retention and transmission of...
FAA prohibits U.S. airlines from flying to Haiti and U.N. suspends flights after plane was shot by gangsVideo
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — The Federal Aviation Administration announced Tuesday that it will prohibit U.S. airlines from flying to Haiti for 30 days after gangs shot a Spirit Airlines flight and the United Nations said it will suspend flights, “obviously limiting the flow of humanitarian aid and humanitarian personnel into the...
Supreme Court rejects push to move Georgia case against ex-Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court refused Tuesday to let former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows move the election interference case against him in Georgia to federal court, where he would have argued he was immune from prosecution. The justices did not detail their reasoning in a brief...
