FRANKFORT, Ky. — Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear joined with Republican lawmakers as he signed historic measures Friday that will legalize medical marijuana and sports wagering in Kentucky, calling it an example of divided government working to get the “tough things” done that voters want.
Things were mostly quiet Friday outside the Manhattan courthouse where former President Donald Trump was indicted. The next dramatic turn in the case not set to come until Tuesday, when Trump is set to formally surrender and begin the historic, shocking prospect of a former U.S. commander in chief being forced to stand before a judge in an arraignment. The indictment cam after a grand jury probe into hush money paid during the 2016 presidential campaign to squelch allegations of an extramarital sexual encounter. The Republican former president denies any wrongdoing and is denouncing the investigation as a “political persecution” by a Democratic district attorney.
FRANKFORT, Ky. — Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear joined with Republican lawmakers as he signed historic measures Friday that will legalize medical marijuana and sports wagering in Kentucky, calling it an example of divided government working to get the “tough things” done that voters want.
The federal government filed a lawsuit against railroad Norfolk Southern over environmental damage caused by a train derailment on the Ohio-Pennsylvania border that spilled hazardous chemicals into nearby creeks and rivers.
FRANKFORT, Ky. — A bill to legalize sports betting in Kentucky won final legislative approval Thursday, clearing the last hurdle in the Senate after days of uncertainty over whether backers could muster enough support.
Donald Trump has been indicted by a Manhattan grand jury, prosecutors and defense lawyers say, making him the first former U.S. president to face a criminal charge and jolting his bid to retake the White House next year. The charges center on payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign to silence claims of an extramarital sexual encounter. They mark an extraordinary development after years of investigations into Trump’s business, political and personal dealings. Trump, who has denied any wrongdoing and has repeatedly assailed the investigation, called the indictment “political persecution” and predicted it would damage Democrats in 2024. Trump is expected to surrender to authorities next week.
U.S. Army investigators are trying to determine what caused two Black Hawk medical evacuation helicopters to crash during a routine nightime training exercise in Kentucky. All nine soldiers aboard were killed. A statement from Fort Campbell says the two HH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, part of the 101st Airborne Division, crashed in Trigg County in southwestern Kentucky. The 101st Airborne confirmed the crash about 30 miles northwest of Fort Campbell. No one was hurt on the ground. The crash is under investigation, and an army spokesperson declined to comment on whether the helicopters collided in the air.
FRANKFORT, Ky. — A Kentucky House committee advanced a medical marijuana bill Thursday, putting lawmakers on the brink of legalizing access to medical cannabis for people suffering from a series of debilitating illnesses.
Well, it was nice while it lasted.
For every American killed by gunfire, an estimated two or more more survive, often with terrible injuries. Public health experts say that fact is crucial to understanding the full impact of guns on society. A new government study highlights a surge in people wounded by gunshots during the pandemic, when the number of people fatally shooting each other – and themselves -- also increased. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a study published Thursday that the number of people injured by gunfire rose 40% during the first two years of the COVID-19 outbreak, compared with 2019. In 2022, gunshot injuries were 20% higher than before the pandemic.
Banks will need to start reporting the demographics and income of small business loan applicants under new rules published by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Thursday.It’s a move that policymakers hope will lead to less discrimination and more transparency in the small business lending market in a similar way other laws have regulated the residential mortgage market for decades.
FRANKFORT, Ky. — Kentucky lawmakers on Thursday gave final passage to a bill to expand an address confidentiality program intended to protect domestic violence victims from their abusers.
House Republicans have passed a sprawling energy package that would counter virtually all of President Joe Biden’s agenda to address climate change. The bill approved Thursday would sharply increase domestic production of oil, natural gas and coal, and ease permitting restrictions that delay pipelines, refineries and other projects. It would boost production of critical minerals such as lithium, nickel and cobalt that are used in electric vehicles, computers, cellphones and other products. Democrats call the bill a giveaway to big oil companies. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer says the bill is “dead on arrival” in the Democratic-controlled Senate. Biden has threatened a veto.
The Kentucky Senate has convicted a former state prosecutor on three articles of impeachment. It was the Senate's first impeachment trial in more than a century. Senators voted 34-0 Thursday to convict ex-prosecutor Ronnie Goldy Jr. on each impeachment article. The action will bar Goldy from holding a future elected office in the state. Goldy was accused of promising a defendant favors in court in exchange for nude images. Goldy had failed to appear at a hearing last week before the Senate impeachment panel. Goldy had served as commonwealth’s attorney for Bath, Menifee, Montgomery and Rowan counties.
Concerned with preventing growing numbers of suicides, the US Navy is planning to make chaplains regular members of the crew on ships with more than 300 sailors, instead of only the largest carriers as in the past. The goal is for chaplains – who are both clergy in different denominations and naval officers – to connect with sailors, believers and non-believers alike, as life coaches. Complete confidentiality protects all their conversations, making them a relief valve for young sailors especially who are struggling with mental health and lack the usual coping mechanisms of online communication while at sea. Depression and anxiety have marked many young adults, especially post-pandemic, but struggles in the military carry unique challenges and security implications.
West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice has signed a bill banning gender-affirming care for minors. With the Republican’s approval, West Virginia joins at least 10 other states that have enacted laws restricting treatments for transgender youth. The bill outlaws minors from being prescribed hormone therapy and fully reversible puberty blockers. It also bars minors from receiving gender-affirming surgery, something physicians say doesn’t even happen in West Virginia. Unlike measures in other states, however, West Virginia’s law contains a unique exemption. It permits doctors to prescribe medical therapy if a teenager is considered at risk for self-harm or suicide.
CHARLESTON — A protester forcibly removed from a chamber gallery at the West Virginia Capitol and later arrested for disrupting lawmakers as they moved to ban abortion last year will see all charges dropped against her, if she stays out of trouble for the next six months.
FRANKFORT, Ky. — Republican lawmakers in Kentucky on Wednesday swept aside the Democratic governor’s veto of a bill regulating some of the most personal aspects of life for transgender young people — from banning access to gender-affirming health care to restricting the bathrooms they can use.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday approved selling the leading version of naloxone without a prescription, setting the overdose-reversing drug on course to become the first opioid treatment drug to be sold over the counter.
CHARLESTON — West Virginia will no longer allow children under 16 to marry, after the governor signed a compromise bill Wednesday.
COLUMBUS, Ohio — The death penalty could be abolished in Ohio under upcoming bipartisan legislation announced Tuesday — the latest in what has been years of effort to end capital punishment in the state.
FRANKFORT, Ky. — Kentucky’s governor has cleared the way for a bill to take effect that gives parents a pathway to challenge school instructional materials they consider unfit for children.
Police say the Nashville school shooter legally bought seven firearms in recent years and hid the guns from their parents before killing three children and three adults at a Christian school. Police on Tuesday said the shooter did not specifically target their victims during the shooting at The Covenant School on Monday. The victims included three 9-year-olds and the head of the school. Shooter Audrey Hale was a former student at the school. Authorities say Hale was not known to them before the attack. Police say Hale was under a doctor’s care for an undisclosed emotional disorder.
A federal district court judge has upheld the approval of a $2.4 billion bankruptcy reorganization plan aimed at resolving tens of thousands of child sexual abuse claims against the Boy Scouts of America. The ruling docketed Tuesday rejects arguments by non-settling insurance companies and attorneys representing dissenting abuse survivors that the reorganization plan was not proposed in good faith and improperly strips the insurers and survivors of their rights. The ruling follows a September decision in which U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Laurie Selber Silverstein approved the plan. The plan would allow the Irving, Texas-based Boy Scouts of America to continue operating while compensating tens of thousands of men who say they were sexually abused as children while involved in Scouting.
The Federal Reserve’s bank supervisors warned Silicon Valley Bank’s management as early as the fall of 2021 of risks stemming from its unusual business model, a top Fed official said Tuesday, but its managers failed to take the steps necessary to fix the problems. The Fed official, Michael Barr, the nation’s top banking regulator, said during a Senate Banking Committee hearing that the Fed is considering whether stronger bank rules are needed to prevent a similar failure in the future. Silicon Valley Bank’s management was deficient, Barr said. In particular, he said, the interest rate model the bank used “was not at all aligned with reality.”
Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy says he’s growing increasingly concerned about President Joe Biden’s unwillingness to negotiate on lifting the nation’s borrowing authority. He says in a letter to the president dated Tuesday that the White House position “could prevent America from meeting its obligations and hold dire ramifications for the entire nation.” The White House says it's McCarthy and the Republicans who are to blame, refusing to put forward their own budget plan before formal negotiations. the Treasury Department has resorted to “extraordinary measures” to avoid default on the nation’s $31.4 trillion borrowing authority. But those measures will run out, possibly as early as June.
FRANKFORT, Ky. — A bill to criminalize hazing was signed by Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear on Monday, culminating a call for action by the family of a university student who died.
One hand-crocheted blanket came with a note saying “Welcome to the USA" and advising the recipient to dress warmly in Vermont. It was among at least 86 blankets sewn, knitted and crocheted by crafters as gifts for refugees to welcome them to their new community in Vermont. It’s part of the national Welcome Blanket project, a crowd-sourced artistic action supporting refugees settling in the U.S. The crafters attach a note to their blankets with details about their own family history with immigration or migration. The blankets that were made for the Vermont project were on display at a local museum before they were given away to refugees and immigrants last week.
Honda is recalling more than 330,000 vehicles because heating pads behind both side-view mirrors may not be bonded properly, which could lead to the mirror glass falling out and increase the risk of a crash. Vehicles included in the recall are 2020-2022 Odyssey, 2020-2022 Passport, 2020-2021 Pilot and 2020-2021 Ridgeline. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Tuesday that the vehicles don’t comply with the necessary rear visibility requirements. Honda dealers will replace the side-view mirrors on impacted vehicles free of charge.
U.S. highway safety regulators have opened an investigation into complaints that Tesla seat belts may not hold people in a crash. The investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration covers an estimated 50,000 Model X SUVs from the 2022 and 2023 model years. The agency says it has two complaints from Tesla owners that the front belts weren’t sufficiently connected at the factory. Documents posted by the agency Tuesday say the belt linkage and pretensioners, which tighten the belts before a crash, are anchored to the seat frames. Both complaints allege that the linkage and pretensioner separated from the frames when force was exerted. Neither involved a crash. A message was left early Tuesday for Tesla.
Police say a former student killed three children and three adults at a Christian elementary school in Nashville, armed with two “assault-style” weapons and a handgun after elaborately planning the massacre by drawing out a detailed map and conducting surveillance of the building. Monday's massacre at The Covenant School in Nashville was the latest in a series of mass shootings in a country that has grown increasingly unnerved by bloodshed in schools. The victims include three 9-year-old children, the school’s top administrator, a substitute teacher and a custodian, and a familiar ritual played out in the chaos. Panicked parents rushed to the school to see if their children were safe and tearfully hugged their kids, and a stunned community planned vigils for the victims.
Poverty is adding to the challenges of recovering from a massive tornado that pushed through Mississippi. Two of the counties hit by the Friday storm are Sharkey and Humphreys. They have only a few thousand residents in communities scattered across wide expanses of cotton, corn and soybean fields in the flatlands of the Delta. Many people live paycheck to paycheck working jobs in agriculture. Sharkey’s poverty rate is 35%, and Humphreys is 33%. That compares with about 19% for Mississippi and under 12% for the entire U.S. On Monday, the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency revised the state’s death toll from the tornado to 21, down from 25.
The nation’s top financial regulator is asserting that Silicon Valley Bank’s own management was largely to blame for the bank’s failure earlier this month and says the Federal Reserve will review whether a 2018 law that weakened stricter bank rules also contributed to its collapse. “SVB’s failure is a textbook case of mismanagement,” Michael Barr, the Fed’s vice chair for supervision, said in written testimony that will be delivered Tuesday at a Senate hearing. Barr pointed to the bank’s “concentrated business model,” in which its customers were overwhelmingly venture capital and high-tech firms in Silicon Valley. He also contends that the bank failed to manage the risks of its bond holdings.
FRANKFORT, Ky. — A well-known Kentucky Republican on Monday blasted the GOP’s push for transgender legislation, calling it “a bad look for the party of Abraham Lincoln” in a radio ad coming days before lawmakers could vote to override the Democratic governor’s veto of the bill.
A federal lawsuit accuses automakers Kia and Hyundai of failing to install industry-standard anti-theft technology, resulting in thousands of thefts of vehicles in St. Louis. The Missouri city filed the lawsuit Monday seeking damages in excess of $75,000 plus punitive damages. Several other cities that have filed similar lawsuits, including Cleveland, Milwaukee, San Diego, Columbus, Ohio, and Seattle. Kias and Hyundais have been targeted since a TikTok social media challenge put a spotlight on their lack of an immobilizer, showing viewers how to hot-wire cars with a USB cord and a screwdriver. The thefts have reportedly resulted in eight fatalities across the U.S.
The U.S. government will restrict its use of commercial spyware tools that have been used to surveil human rights activists, journalists and dissidents around the world. President Joe Biden's order responds to growing U.S. and global concerns about programs that can capture text messages and other cellphone data. Some programs — so-called “zero-click” exploits — can infect a phone without the user clicking on a malicious link. While the U.S. and other governments routinely collect huge amounts of data, advocates warn that the commercial spyware market creates new opportunities for abuse and repression.
CHARLESTON — A new abortion provider is opening this year in Democratic-controlled Maryland — just across from deeply conservative West Virginia, where state lawmakers recently passed a near-total abortion ban.
EAST PALESTINE, Ohio — On the surface, everything looks normal.
WEST READING, Pa. — An explosion at a chocolate factory in Pennsylvania on Friday killed two people and left five people missing, authorities said. One person was pulled alive from the rubble overnight.
With at least 25 people dead in Mississippi, tornadoes that ravaged parts of the Deep South overnight were the deadliest in the state in more than a decade, according to National Weather Service records.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said Saturday he has been released from the rehabilitation facility where he had physical therapy for a concussion caused by a fall earlier this month.
A car was swept away and two passengers drowned early Friday in Missouri during torrential rains that were part of a severe weather system roaring across parts of the Midwest and South. Meanwhile, a suspected tornado touched down in north Texas as a storm system moving eastward threatens to spawn tornadoes. The National Weather Service is forecasting severe weather into Friday evening mostly from the lower Mississippi Valley to the Ohio Valley. The greatest tornado threat was expected in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee. Officials were searching for a missing person after flash flooding in another Missouri county. In Texas, an emergency management official says a likely tornado damaged some homes, but he had no reports of injuries.
Stocks shook off a weak start and ended higher on Wall Street even as worries about banks on both sides of the Atlantic continue to weigh on markets. The S&P 500 rose 0.6% Friday, marking its second straight weekly gain. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq composite also rose. Treasury yields stabilized after an early drop. Markets have been turbulent recently on worries that banks are weakening under the pressure of much higher interest rates. That’s led to rising concerns about a recession and uncertainty about what central banks will do with interest rates going forward.
FRANKFORT, Ky. — Kentucky’s Democratic governor issued an election-year veto Friday of a sweeping Republican bill aimed at regulating the lives of transgender youths that includes banning access to gender-affirming health care and restricting the bathrooms they can use.
House Republicans have narrowly passed legislation that would fulfill a campaign promise to give parents a role in what’s taught in public schools. It has little chance in the Democrat-run Senate and critics say it would propel a far-right movement that has led to book bans, restrictions aimed at transgender students and raucous school board meetings across the country. Speaker Kevin McCarthy made the “Parents' Bill of Rights Act” a priority during the early weeks of his tenure. Friday's vote was an early test of unity for House Republicans, who have a thin majority.
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio senators reacting to the East Palestine train derailment proposed state oversight of wayside detectors that can spot railway defects, among other safety provisions, in a nearly $13.5 billion transportation budget that passed Thursday with bipartisan support.
FRANKFORT, Ky. — A bill aimed at defusing classroom disruptions was signed into law Thursday by Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, who said it would allow school administrators to intervene before situations escalate.
For the first time, autism is being diagnosed more frequently in Black and Hispanic children than in white kids in the U.S. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday released the new estimates of how common autism is. It estimates that 1 in 36 children who were age 8 in 2020 had autism. That's up from 1 in 44 two years earlier. But the rate rose faster for children of color than for white kids. Experts attribute the change to improved screening and autism services for all kids, and to increased awareness and advocacy for Black and Hispanic families.
Ford’s electric vehicle business has lost $3 billion before taxes during the past two years and will lose a similar amount this year as the company invests heavily in the new technology. The figures were released Thursday as Ford rolled out a new way of reporting its financial results. The new business structure separates electric vehicles, the profitable internal combustion and commercial vehicle operations into three operating units. Company officials said the electric vehicle unit will be profitable before taxes by late 2026 with an 8% profit margin. Chief Financial Officer John Lawler said Model e should be viewed as a startup company within Ford.
The battle between the U.S. and China over TikTok came into full view when the social media platform’s CEO testified before Congressional lawmakers. Shou Zi Chew’s hearing is happening at what he’s called a “pivotal moment” for the hugely popular short video sharing app. TikTok is owned by parent company ByteDance, which has offices in Beijing. The platform has 150 million American users but it's been dogged by persistent claims that it threatens national security and user privacy, or could be used to promote pro-Beijing propaganda and misinformation. Chew attempted to persuade lawmakers not to pursue a ban on the app or force its sale to new owners.
The Manhattan district attorney investigating Donald Trump has rebuffed House Republicans’ request to turn over documents. The office called the effort an “unprecedented inquiry” into an ongoing probe. In a letter obtained by The Associated Press, the general counsel for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg admonished the congressional requests as “an unlawful incursion into New York’s sovereignty.” The response from Bragg’s office comes days after the Republican chairmen of three House committees sent a letter to him, seeking information about his actions in the Trump case, which they characterized as an “unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial authority.”
Two decades ago, U.S. spy agencies wrongly believed Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. That intelligence drove the rationale for one of America's most costly and deadly wars. Those intelligence failures deeply shaped American spy agencies and a generation of officers and lawmakers trained to be more skeptical. They also helped drive a major reorganization of the U.S. intelligence community. But they did lasting damage to the credibility of U.S. intelligence. A new AP-NORC poll finds that only 18% of U.S. adults have a great deal of confidence in the government’s intelligence gathering agencies.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The Muslim holy month of Ramadan began at sundown on Wednesday, as the faithful prepared for a month of dawn-to-dusk fasting intended to bring them closer to God and to remind them of the suffering of those less fortunate.
An audit of Kentucky State University’s finances has revealed a “chaotic accounting environment.” The state auditor's office found undocumented credit card transactions, extravagant bonuses, and a lack of controls that put millions of dollars in federal grant funding at risk. The findings were released Wednesday. The auditor’s report contains 20 findings identified as “significant issues." The office has referred its findings to federal and state prosecutors. Kentucky lawmakers last year ordered the examination to drill down into the finances at the historically Black university. The audit primarily focused on KSU’s financial and internal policies between mid-2018 and mid-2021.
A bipartisan consensus that Congress should act to toughen regulations on railroads is emerging in the U.S. Senate. The Senate Commerce Committee is examining a fiery hazardous train derailment last month on the Ohio-Pennsylvania border. Republicans and Democrats on the committee peppered Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw with questions Wednesday on what enhanced safety measures he would support. Shaw offered support for some safety enhancements but declined to endorse several key parts of the bipartisan Railway Safety Act of 2023. The bill includes requirements that trains have crews of at least two people, expands the classification for highly hazardous flammable trains and increases fines for safety violations.
The Chevrolet Camaro has for decades been the dream car of many teenage American males. Now it is going out of production. General Motors is the maker of the brawny muscle car and it says it will stop producing the current generation early next year. The future of the car is a bit murky. GM says a new generation may be in the works. Chevrolet Vice President Scott Bell said they're not announcing a successor but the production halt is not the end of the Camaro's story. The current sixth-generation Camaro that was introduced in 2016 has done well on the racetrack, but sales have been tailing off in recent years. GM says the last of the 2024 model year Camaros will come off the assembly line in Lansing, Michigan, in January.
Stocks rallied on Wall Street, including the banks most beaten down by the industry's crisis. The S&P 500 rose 1.3% Tuesday for its first back-to-back gain in two weeks. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the government could offer the banking industry more assistance if needed. The Dow and the Nasdaq also rose. Markets around the world have pinballed this month on worries the banking system may be cracking under the pressure of the fastest set of hikes to interest rates in decades. Treasury yields rose in another dramatic swing as the Federal Reserve began its latest meeting on interest rates.
Switzerland’s government says it’s ordering Credit Suisse to temporarily suspend bonuses for employees after orchestrating a plan for the No. 2 Swiss bank to be taken over by rival UBS. The Swiss Department of Finance said Tuesday that federal law allows the government to set “remuneration-related measures” in cases involving Switzerland’s biggest banks. Authorities in Switzerland scrambled late last week and this weekend to cobble together a $3.25 billion sale of Credit Suisse to UBS. An outflow of deposits and years of trouble raised fears that it could fail and trigger an international financial crisis after the collapse of two U.S. banks.
WASHINGTON — Norfolk Southern’s CEO is offering support for some parts of a bipartisan Senate bill to put tougher safety regulations on railroads after last month’s fiery hazardous materials train derailment on the Ohio-Pennsylvania border.
U.S. cases of a dangerous fungus tripled over just three years, and more than half of states have now reported it. Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wrote about the infections. They say the COVID-19 pandemic is likely part of the reason for the spread. Hospital workers were strained by coronavirus patients, and that likely shifted their focus away from disinfecting some other kinds of germs. The fungus is called Candida auris. It's a form of yeast that is usually not harmful to healthy people but can be a deadly risk to fragile hospital and nursing home patients. Some strains are so-called superbugs that are resistant to antibiotic drugs.
Google has announced it’s allowing more people to interact with “Bard." That's the artificially intelligent chatbot the company is building to counter Microsoft’s early lead in a pivotal battleground of technology. In Bard’s next stage, Google is opening a waitlist to use an AI tool that’s similar to the ChatGPT technology that Microsoft began deploying in its Bing search engine to much fanfare last month. Until now, Bard had only been available to a small group of “trusted testers” hand-picked by Google. The company isn’t saying how many people will be given access to Bard in the next step of the technology’s development.
FRANKFORT, Ky. — Gov. Andy Beshear on Monday signed into law a bipartisan measure that’s meant to bolster access to health care across Kentucky by injecting additional revenue into hospitals.
RENO, Nev. — State lawmakers nationwide are responding to the deadliest overdose crisis in U.S. history by pushing harsher penalties for possessing fentanyl and other powerful lab-made opioids that are connected to about 70,000 deaths a year.
NEW YORK — Spring has sprung!
West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice has signed a bill banning gender-affirming care for minors. With the Republican’s approval, West Virginia joins at least 10 other states that have enacted laws restricting treatments for transgender youth. The bill outlaws minors from being prescribed hormone therapy and fully reversible puberty blockers. It also bars minors from receiving gender-affirming surgery, something physicians say doesn’t even happen in West Virginia. Unlike measures in other states, however, West Virginia’s law contains a unique exemption. It permits doctors to prescribe medical therapy if a teenager is considered at risk for self-harm or suicide.
CHARLESTON — A protester forcibly removed from a chamber gallery at the West Virginia Capitol and later arrested for disrupting lawmakers as they moved to ban abortion last year will see all charges dropped against her, if she stays out of trouble for the next six months.
FRANKFORT, Ky. — Republican lawmakers in Kentucky on Wednesday swept aside the Democratic governor’s veto of a bill regulating some of the most personal aspects of life for transgender young people — from banning access to gender-affirming health care to restricting the bathrooms they can use.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday approved selling the leading version of naloxone without a prescription, setting the overdose-reversing drug on course to become the first opioid treatment drug to be sold over the counter.
CHARLESTON — West Virginia will no longer allow children under 16 to marry, after the governor signed a compromise bill Wednesday.
COLUMBUS, Ohio — The death penalty could be abolished in Ohio under upcoming bipartisan legislation announced Tuesday — the latest in what has been years of effort to end capital punishment in the state.
FRANKFORT, Ky. — Kentucky’s governor has cleared the way for a bill to take effect that gives parents a pathway to challenge school instructional materials they consider unfit for children.
Police say the Nashville school shooter legally bought seven firearms in recent years and hid the guns from their parents before killing three children and three adults at a Christian school. Police on Tuesday said the shooter did not specifically target their victims during the shooting at The Covenant School on Monday. The victims included three 9-year-olds and the head of the school. Shooter Audrey Hale was a former student at the school. Authorities say Hale was not known to them before the attack. Police say Hale was under a doctor’s care for an undisclosed emotional disorder.
A federal district court judge has upheld the approval of a $2.4 billion bankruptcy reorganization plan aimed at resolving tens of thousands of child sexual abuse claims against the Boy Scouts of America. The ruling docketed Tuesday rejects arguments by non-settling insurance companies and attorneys representing dissenting abuse survivors that the reorganization plan was not proposed in good faith and improperly strips the insurers and survivors of their rights. The ruling follows a September decision in which U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Laurie Selber Silverstein approved the plan. The plan would allow the Irving, Texas-based Boy Scouts of America to continue operating while compensating tens of thousands of men who say they were sexually abused as children while involved in Scouting.
The Federal Reserve’s bank supervisors warned Silicon Valley Bank’s management as early as the fall of 2021 of risks stemming from its unusual business model, a top Fed official said Tuesday, but its managers failed to take the steps necessary to fix the problems. The Fed official, Michael Barr, the nation’s top banking regulator, said during a Senate Banking Committee hearing that the Fed is considering whether stronger bank rules are needed to prevent a similar failure in the future. Silicon Valley Bank’s management was deficient, Barr said. In particular, he said, the interest rate model the bank used “was not at all aligned with reality.”
Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy says he’s growing increasingly concerned about President Joe Biden’s unwillingness to negotiate on lifting the nation’s borrowing authority. He says in a letter to the president dated Tuesday that the White House position “could prevent America from meeting its obligations and hold dire ramifications for the entire nation.” The White House says it's McCarthy and the Republicans who are to blame, refusing to put forward their own budget plan before formal negotiations. the Treasury Department has resorted to “extraordinary measures” to avoid default on the nation’s $31.4 trillion borrowing authority. But those measures will run out, possibly as early as June.
FRANKFORT, Ky. — A bill to criminalize hazing was signed by Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear on Monday, culminating a call for action by the family of a university student who died.
One hand-crocheted blanket came with a note saying “Welcome to the USA" and advising the recipient to dress warmly in Vermont. It was among at least 86 blankets sewn, knitted and crocheted by crafters as gifts for refugees to welcome them to their new community in Vermont. It’s part of the national Welcome Blanket project, a crowd-sourced artistic action supporting refugees settling in the U.S. The crafters attach a note to their blankets with details about their own family history with immigration or migration. The blankets that were made for the Vermont project were on display at a local museum before they were given away to refugees and immigrants last week.
Honda is recalling more than 330,000 vehicles because heating pads behind both side-view mirrors may not be bonded properly, which could lead to the mirror glass falling out and increase the risk of a crash. Vehicles included in the recall are 2020-2022 Odyssey, 2020-2022 Passport, 2020-2021 Pilot and 2020-2021 Ridgeline. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Tuesday that the vehicles don’t comply with the necessary rear visibility requirements. Honda dealers will replace the side-view mirrors on impacted vehicles free of charge.
U.S. highway safety regulators have opened an investigation into complaints that Tesla seat belts may not hold people in a crash. The investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration covers an estimated 50,000 Model X SUVs from the 2022 and 2023 model years. The agency says it has two complaints from Tesla owners that the front belts weren’t sufficiently connected at the factory. Documents posted by the agency Tuesday say the belt linkage and pretensioners, which tighten the belts before a crash, are anchored to the seat frames. Both complaints allege that the linkage and pretensioner separated from the frames when force was exerted. Neither involved a crash. A message was left early Tuesday for Tesla.
Police say a former student killed three children and three adults at a Christian elementary school in Nashville, armed with two “assault-style” weapons and a handgun after elaborately planning the massacre by drawing out a detailed map and conducting surveillance of the building. Monday's massacre at The Covenant School in Nashville was the latest in a series of mass shootings in a country that has grown increasingly unnerved by bloodshed in schools. The victims include three 9-year-old children, the school’s top administrator, a substitute teacher and a custodian, and a familiar ritual played out in the chaos. Panicked parents rushed to the school to see if their children were safe and tearfully hugged their kids, and a stunned community planned vigils for the victims.
Poverty is adding to the challenges of recovering from a massive tornado that pushed through Mississippi. Two of the counties hit by the Friday storm are Sharkey and Humphreys. They have only a few thousand residents in communities scattered across wide expanses of cotton, corn and soybean fields in the flatlands of the Delta. Many people live paycheck to paycheck working jobs in agriculture. Sharkey’s poverty rate is 35%, and Humphreys is 33%. That compares with about 19% for Mississippi and under 12% for the entire U.S. On Monday, the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency revised the state’s death toll from the tornado to 21, down from 25.
The nation’s top financial regulator is asserting that Silicon Valley Bank’s own management was largely to blame for the bank’s failure earlier this month and says the Federal Reserve will review whether a 2018 law that weakened stricter bank rules also contributed to its collapse. “SVB’s failure is a textbook case of mismanagement,” Michael Barr, the Fed’s vice chair for supervision, said in written testimony that will be delivered Tuesday at a Senate hearing. Barr pointed to the bank’s “concentrated business model,” in which its customers were overwhelmingly venture capital and high-tech firms in Silicon Valley. He also contends that the bank failed to manage the risks of its bond holdings.
FRANKFORT, Ky. — A well-known Kentucky Republican on Monday blasted the GOP’s push for transgender legislation, calling it “a bad look for the party of Abraham Lincoln” in a radio ad coming days before lawmakers could vote to override the Democratic governor’s veto of the bill.
A federal lawsuit accuses automakers Kia and Hyundai of failing to install industry-standard anti-theft technology, resulting in thousands of thefts of vehicles in St. Louis. The Missouri city filed the lawsuit Monday seeking damages in excess of $75,000 plus punitive damages. Several other cities that have filed similar lawsuits, including Cleveland, Milwaukee, San Diego, Columbus, Ohio, and Seattle. Kias and Hyundais have been targeted since a TikTok social media challenge put a spotlight on their lack of an immobilizer, showing viewers how to hot-wire cars with a USB cord and a screwdriver. The thefts have reportedly resulted in eight fatalities across the U.S.
The U.S. government will restrict its use of commercial spyware tools that have been used to surveil human rights activists, journalists and dissidents around the world. President Joe Biden's order responds to growing U.S. and global concerns about programs that can capture text messages and other cellphone data. Some programs — so-called “zero-click” exploits — can infect a phone without the user clicking on a malicious link. While the U.S. and other governments routinely collect huge amounts of data, advocates warn that the commercial spyware market creates new opportunities for abuse and repression.
CHARLESTON — A new abortion provider is opening this year in Democratic-controlled Maryland — just across from deeply conservative West Virginia, where state lawmakers recently passed a near-total abortion ban.
EAST PALESTINE, Ohio — On the surface, everything looks normal.
WEST READING, Pa. — An explosion at a chocolate factory in Pennsylvania on Friday killed two people and left five people missing, authorities said. One person was pulled alive from the rubble overnight.
With at least 25 people dead in Mississippi, tornadoes that ravaged parts of the Deep South overnight were the deadliest in the state in more than a decade, according to National Weather Service records.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said Saturday he has been released from the rehabilitation facility where he had physical therapy for a concussion caused by a fall earlier this month.
A car was swept away and two passengers drowned early Friday in Missouri during torrential rains that were part of a severe weather system roaring across parts of the Midwest and South. Meanwhile, a suspected tornado touched down in north Texas as a storm system moving eastward threatens to spawn tornadoes. The National Weather Service is forecasting severe weather into Friday evening mostly from the lower Mississippi Valley to the Ohio Valley. The greatest tornado threat was expected in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee. Officials were searching for a missing person after flash flooding in another Missouri county. In Texas, an emergency management official says a likely tornado damaged some homes, but he had no reports of injuries.
Stocks shook off a weak start and ended higher on Wall Street even as worries about banks on both sides of the Atlantic continue to weigh on markets. The S&P 500 rose 0.6% Friday, marking its second straight weekly gain. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq composite also rose. Treasury yields stabilized after an early drop. Markets have been turbulent recently on worries that banks are weakening under the pressure of much higher interest rates. That’s led to rising concerns about a recession and uncertainty about what central banks will do with interest rates going forward.
FRANKFORT, Ky. — Kentucky’s Democratic governor issued an election-year veto Friday of a sweeping Republican bill aimed at regulating the lives of transgender youths that includes banning access to gender-affirming health care and restricting the bathrooms they can use.
House Republicans have narrowly passed legislation that would fulfill a campaign promise to give parents a role in what’s taught in public schools. It has little chance in the Democrat-run Senate and critics say it would propel a far-right movement that has led to book bans, restrictions aimed at transgender students and raucous school board meetings across the country. Speaker Kevin McCarthy made the “Parents' Bill of Rights Act” a priority during the early weeks of his tenure. Friday's vote was an early test of unity for House Republicans, who have a thin majority.
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio senators reacting to the East Palestine train derailment proposed state oversight of wayside detectors that can spot railway defects, among other safety provisions, in a nearly $13.5 billion transportation budget that passed Thursday with bipartisan support.
FRANKFORT, Ky. — A bill aimed at defusing classroom disruptions was signed into law Thursday by Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, who said it would allow school administrators to intervene before situations escalate.
For the first time, autism is being diagnosed more frequently in Black and Hispanic children than in white kids in the U.S. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday released the new estimates of how common autism is. It estimates that 1 in 36 children who were age 8 in 2020 had autism. That's up from 1 in 44 two years earlier. But the rate rose faster for children of color than for white kids. Experts attribute the change to improved screening and autism services for all kids, and to increased awareness and advocacy for Black and Hispanic families.
Ford’s electric vehicle business has lost $3 billion before taxes during the past two years and will lose a similar amount this year as the company invests heavily in the new technology. The figures were released Thursday as Ford rolled out a new way of reporting its financial results. The new business structure separates electric vehicles, the profitable internal combustion and commercial vehicle operations into three operating units. Company officials said the electric vehicle unit will be profitable before taxes by late 2026 with an 8% profit margin. Chief Financial Officer John Lawler said Model e should be viewed as a startup company within Ford.
The battle between the U.S. and China over TikTok came into full view when the social media platform’s CEO testified before Congressional lawmakers. Shou Zi Chew’s hearing is happening at what he’s called a “pivotal moment” for the hugely popular short video sharing app. TikTok is owned by parent company ByteDance, which has offices in Beijing. The platform has 150 million American users but it's been dogged by persistent claims that it threatens national security and user privacy, or could be used to promote pro-Beijing propaganda and misinformation. Chew attempted to persuade lawmakers not to pursue a ban on the app or force its sale to new owners.
The Manhattan district attorney investigating Donald Trump has rebuffed House Republicans’ request to turn over documents. The office called the effort an “unprecedented inquiry” into an ongoing probe. In a letter obtained by The Associated Press, the general counsel for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg admonished the congressional requests as “an unlawful incursion into New York’s sovereignty.” The response from Bragg’s office comes days after the Republican chairmen of three House committees sent a letter to him, seeking information about his actions in the Trump case, which they characterized as an “unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial authority.”
Two decades ago, U.S. spy agencies wrongly believed Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. That intelligence drove the rationale for one of America's most costly and deadly wars. Those intelligence failures deeply shaped American spy agencies and a generation of officers and lawmakers trained to be more skeptical. They also helped drive a major reorganization of the U.S. intelligence community. But they did lasting damage to the credibility of U.S. intelligence. A new AP-NORC poll finds that only 18% of U.S. adults have a great deal of confidence in the government’s intelligence gathering agencies.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The Muslim holy month of Ramadan began at sundown on Wednesday, as the faithful prepared for a month of dawn-to-dusk fasting intended to bring them closer to God and to remind them of the suffering of those less fortunate.
An audit of Kentucky State University’s finances has revealed a “chaotic accounting environment.” The state auditor's office found undocumented credit card transactions, extravagant bonuses, and a lack of controls that put millions of dollars in federal grant funding at risk. The findings were released Wednesday. The auditor’s report contains 20 findings identified as “significant issues." The office has referred its findings to federal and state prosecutors. Kentucky lawmakers last year ordered the examination to drill down into the finances at the historically Black university. The audit primarily focused on KSU’s financial and internal policies between mid-2018 and mid-2021.
A bipartisan consensus that Congress should act to toughen regulations on railroads is emerging in the U.S. Senate. The Senate Commerce Committee is examining a fiery hazardous train derailment last month on the Ohio-Pennsylvania border. Republicans and Democrats on the committee peppered Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw with questions Wednesday on what enhanced safety measures he would support. Shaw offered support for some safety enhancements but declined to endorse several key parts of the bipartisan Railway Safety Act of 2023. The bill includes requirements that trains have crews of at least two people, expands the classification for highly hazardous flammable trains and increases fines for safety violations.
The Chevrolet Camaro has for decades been the dream car of many teenage American males. Now it is going out of production. General Motors is the maker of the brawny muscle car and it says it will stop producing the current generation early next year. The future of the car is a bit murky. GM says a new generation may be in the works. Chevrolet Vice President Scott Bell said they're not announcing a successor but the production halt is not the end of the Camaro's story. The current sixth-generation Camaro that was introduced in 2016 has done well on the racetrack, but sales have been tailing off in recent years. GM says the last of the 2024 model year Camaros will come off the assembly line in Lansing, Michigan, in January.
Stocks rallied on Wall Street, including the banks most beaten down by the industry's crisis. The S&P 500 rose 1.3% Tuesday for its first back-to-back gain in two weeks. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the government could offer the banking industry more assistance if needed. The Dow and the Nasdaq also rose. Markets around the world have pinballed this month on worries the banking system may be cracking under the pressure of the fastest set of hikes to interest rates in decades. Treasury yields rose in another dramatic swing as the Federal Reserve began its latest meeting on interest rates.
Switzerland’s government says it’s ordering Credit Suisse to temporarily suspend bonuses for employees after orchestrating a plan for the No. 2 Swiss bank to be taken over by rival UBS. The Swiss Department of Finance said Tuesday that federal law allows the government to set “remuneration-related measures” in cases involving Switzerland’s biggest banks. Authorities in Switzerland scrambled late last week and this weekend to cobble together a $3.25 billion sale of Credit Suisse to UBS. An outflow of deposits and years of trouble raised fears that it could fail and trigger an international financial crisis after the collapse of two U.S. banks.
WASHINGTON — Norfolk Southern’s CEO is offering support for some parts of a bipartisan Senate bill to put tougher safety regulations on railroads after last month’s fiery hazardous materials train derailment on the Ohio-Pennsylvania border.
U.S. cases of a dangerous fungus tripled over just three years, and more than half of states have now reported it. Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wrote about the infections. They say the COVID-19 pandemic is likely part of the reason for the spread. Hospital workers were strained by coronavirus patients, and that likely shifted their focus away from disinfecting some other kinds of germs. The fungus is called Candida auris. It's a form of yeast that is usually not harmful to healthy people but can be a deadly risk to fragile hospital and nursing home patients. Some strains are so-called superbugs that are resistant to antibiotic drugs.
Google has announced it’s allowing more people to interact with “Bard." That's the artificially intelligent chatbot the company is building to counter Microsoft’s early lead in a pivotal battleground of technology. In Bard’s next stage, Google is opening a waitlist to use an AI tool that’s similar to the ChatGPT technology that Microsoft began deploying in its Bing search engine to much fanfare last month. Until now, Bard had only been available to a small group of “trusted testers” hand-picked by Google. The company isn’t saying how many people will be given access to Bard in the next step of the technology’s development.
FRANKFORT, Ky. — Gov. Andy Beshear on Monday signed into law a bipartisan measure that’s meant to bolster access to health care across Kentucky by injecting additional revenue into hospitals.
RENO, Nev. — State lawmakers nationwide are responding to the deadliest overdose crisis in U.S. history by pushing harsher penalties for possessing fentanyl and other powerful lab-made opioids that are connected to about 70,000 deaths a year.
NEW YORK — Spring has sprung!
