U.S. House votes to condemn China over balloon surveillance
WASHINGTON — The House voted unanimously Thursday to condemn China’s balloon surveillance program as a “brazen violation” of U.S. sovereignty, a rare and swift bipartisan rebuke of Beijing as questions mount about the craft the U.S. says was part of a vast aerial spy program. The 419-0 action comes as...
Pilot shortage puts pressure on airline operations
GOODYEAR, Ariz. — Until last summer, Ashley Montano had never flown. Now she was preparing to land a small plane with three passengers after a previous touch-and-go that had been rough. “The plane is a bit heavy, so give it just a little more power to make a smooth landing,”...
Senate panel probes holiday meltdown at Southwest Airlines
A pilots’ union president has told Congress that Southwest Airlines’ December meltdown happened because the airline grew too fast during the pandemic and didn’t update critical technology, then botched the recovery including operating 500 empty flights while passengers were stranded over the holidays. In prepared testimony for a Senate hearing...
Arrested journalist covering Ohio train derailment was ‘just trying to do my job’Video
A journalist for NewsNation television station was arrested Wednesday in East Palestine, Ohio after a press conference about lifting evacuation orders related to a damaging train derailment. The correspondent, Evan Lambert, was recording a live broadcast for NewsNation around 5 p.m. and was arrested by law enforcement officers after he...
Supreme Court might have easy outs on elections, immigration
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court soon could find itself with easy ways out of two high-profile cases involving immigration and elections, if indeed the justices are looking to avoid potentially messy, divisive decisions. Off-ramps in those cases could prove attractive in a term with no shortage of big cases that...
The pandemic missing: The kids who didn’t go back to school
She’d be a senior right now, preparing for graduation in a few months, probably leading her school’s modern dance troupe and taking art classes. Instead, Kailani Taylor-Cribb hasn’t taken a single class in what used to be her high school since the height of the coronavirus pandemic. She vanished from...
Earthquake hits Indonesia, killing 4 as restaurant collapses
JAKARTA, Indonesia — A shallow earthquake shook Indonesia’s easternmost province of Papua on Thursday, killing four people who were unable to escape when a floating restaurant collapsed into the sea. The U.S. Geological Survey said the magnitude 5.1 earthquake hit residential areas in Jayapura, near Papua’s northern coast and was...
Air near Ohio derailment safe for residents to return home
EAST PALESTINE, Ohio — Evacuated residents can return to the Ohio village where crews burned toxic chemicals after a train derailed five days ago near the Pennsylvania state line now that monitors show no dangerous levels in the air, authorities said Wednesday. Around-the-clock testing inside and outside the evacuation zone...
Death toll rises, rescues dwindle in earthquake aftermathVideo
ANTAKYA, Turkey — A teenager was pulled largely unscathed from beneath the rubble of a collapsed building in the Turkish city of Gaziantep early Friday, in a dramatic rescue that belied the reality that the chances of finding many more survivors four days after a catastrophic earthquake killed tens of...
Sen. John Fetterman hospitalized after feeling lightheaded, no evidence of a new stroke, spokesman says
U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, the Pennsylvania Democrat who suffered a stroke during his campaign last year, was hospitalized Wednesday night after feeling lightheaded while attending a Senate Democratic retreat, his office said. Initial tests at George Washington University Hospital did not show evidence of a new stroke, Fetterman’s communications director,...
More than 200 discarded shotguns found in Oklahoma dumpster
MIDWEST CITY, Okla. — An Oklahoma firearms dealer is under investigation after more than 200 shotguns were found in a dumpster outside a store he owns in suburban Oklahoma City, according to a search warrant by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. “A Midwest City sanitation worker found...
Penn State joins dozens of law schools withdrawing from participating in U.S. News rankings
Penn State University’s two law schools are withdrawing from participating in future U.S. News & World Report law school rankings, joining more than 40 peers who say the news organization’s methodology is seriously flawed. Yale and Harvard universities announced they were withdrawing from participating in the rankings in November and...
Biden warns of GOP plans for Medicare, Social Security cuts
WASHINGTON — When President Joe Biden suggested that Republicans want to slash Medicare and Social Security, the GOP howls of protest during his State of the Union address showcased a striking apparent turnaround for the party that built a brand for years trying to do just that. Biden is not...
Disney to cut 7,000 jobs in Iger’s company ‘transformation’
LOS ANGELES — The Walt Disney Co. said Wednesday it will cut about 7,000 jobs as part of a “significant transformation” announced by CEO Bob Iger. The job cuts amount to about 3% of the entertainment’s global workforce and were announced Wednesday after Disney reported quarterly results that topped Wall...
Residents can return after air deemed safe from Ohio derailment
EAST PALESTINE, Ohio — Evacuated residents can safely return to the Ohio village where crews burned toxic chemicals after a train derailed five days ago near the Pennsylvania state line, East Palestine Fire Chief Keith Drabick said Wednesday. Authorities in East Palestine had warned that burning vinyl chloride that was...
Walmart shooting suspect pleads guilty to federal charges
EL PASO, Texas — A Texas man pleaded guilty Wednesday to federal charges accusing him of killing nearly two dozen people in a racist attack at an El Paso Walmart, changing his plea weeks after the U.S. government said it wouldn’t seek the death penalty for the hate crimes and...
Tennessee House speaker mulls rejecting U.S. education money
NASHVILLE — One of Tennessee’s most influential Republican lawmakers says the state should stop accepting the nearly $1.8 billion of federal K-12 education dollars that help provide support for low-income students, English learners and students with disabilities. House Speaker Cameron Sexton told The Associated Press that he has introduced a...
Biden’s fentanyl position sparks criticism from 2 sides
President Joe Biden’s calls in his State of the Union speech for strong criminal penalties in response to soaring deaths linked to the potent opioid fentanyl are being rebuked by harm reduction advocates who say that approach could make the problem worse, even as some in Congress jeered the comments...
West Virginia’s $1 billion surplus sparks pitched tax battle
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — West Virginia’s Republican Senate leaders have answered the call to dramatically slash the state income tax by proposing to shave 15% off the rate at a cost of about $600 million, or more than half the state’s budget surplus. GOP senators described the plan as a safer,...
City of Philadelphia joins growing list of school districts delaying opening on Super Bowl Monday
Several school districts in the greater Philadelphia suburbs and southern New Jersey made headlines last week after announcing a two-hour delayed opening on Super Bowl Monday, so students and staff could stay up late to watch the Philadelphia Eagles play in Super Bowl LVII. And, Wednesday, officials from the School...
Florida high school sports officials reconsider menstrual questions
ORLANDO, Fla. — Facing blowback, the director of Florida’s high school sports governing body is backing away from using an eligibility form that requires female athletes to disclose their menstrual history in order to compete. Instead, the executive director of the Florida High School Athletic Association is recommending that most...
AI search engines can now chat with us, but glitches abound
REDMOND, Wash. — Nearly a quarter-century after Google’s search engine began to reshape how we use the internet, big tech companies are racing to revamp a familiar web tool into a gateway to a new form of artificial intelligence. If it seems like this week’s newly announced AI search chatbots...
Another $237M granted to Honda battery plant project in Ohio
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio’s privatized economic development office has finalized an agreement with Honda to infuse $237 million into development of a massive battery plant project that the Japanese automaker plans to use to transform the state into its North American electric vehicle hub. JobsOhio posted details of the package...
Trump ex-lawyer Cohen meets again with New York prosecutors
NEW YORK — Donald Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen said he was meeting yet again Wednesday with New York City prosecutors who have spent years examining the former president’s financial dealings. Cohen stopped briefly to talk with reporters as he entered the Manhattan district attorney’s office. He said it was...
Ex-Twitter execs deny pressure to block Hunter Biden story
WASHINGTON — Former Twitter executives conceded Wednesday they made a mistake by blocking a story about Hunter Biden, the president’s son, from the social media platform in the run-up to the 2020 election, but adamantly denied Republican assertions they were pressured by Democrats and law enforcement to suppress the story....
