West Virginia’s New River Gorge National Park adds 45 acres
GLEN JEAN, W.Va. — America’s newest national park just got bigger. The New River Gorge National Park and Preserve in West Virginia has added 45 acres to the area designated as a preserve, the National Park Service said in a news release. The tract, on Beury Mountain east of the...
Alabama secretary of state announces withdrawal from voter registration group
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Alabama’s new secretary of state announced the state’s withdrawal from a 32-state voter registration partnership, a data-sharing effort that was designed to maintain accurate voter rolls but has sometimes become the target of conservative ire and conspiracy theories. A day after being sworn in, Secretary of State...
Kathy Hochul’s pick for New York top judge rejected by legislative panel
ALBANY — New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s nominee to lead the state’s highest court was rejected by a state Senate panel Wednesday, dealing the governor a high-profile setback after weeks of criticism from progressive activists and union officials about the judge’s record. Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee voted not...
Indiana man charged after son in diaper points gun at people
INDIANAPOLIS — The father of diaper-clad 4-year-old boy seen last weekend pointing a loaded handgun at people outside their Indiana apartment now faces felony charges. The Marion County Prosecutor’s Office said Wednesday that the 45-year-old man was charged Tuesday with two counts of neglect of a dependent and one count...
Report: Idaho murder suspect Bryan Kohberger messaged victim on Instagram weeks before slaying
In the weeks before four students were found dead inside a residence near the University of Idaho, suspect Bryan Kohberger messaged one of the victims on Instagram — and then kept reaching out after she did not respond, according to a new report. Kohberger, a criminology graduate student at Washington...
Explainer: Biden inaction, mixed signals on death penalty
In Boston, the Justice Department is pressing judges to uphold Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s death sentence. In New York, it’s asking jurors to impose the death penalty on a man who killed eight people in an attack on a bicycle path. President Joe Biden campaigned on a pledge to work...
Prosecutor: Brian Walshe looked up how to dispose of body
The husband of a Massachusetts woman who has been missing since New Year’s Day went online to look up ways to dismember and dispose of a body, and items belonging to the woman with her DNA were found at a trash processing facility, a prosecutor said at his arraignment Wednesday...
Pa. Senate advances bill to drop school religious garb ban
HARRISBURG — Two decades after a teacher’s aide was suspended for wearing a cross necklace at school, Pennsylvania lawmakers are looking to remove a provision in state law that bars educators from wearing religious garb while in the classroom. The Senate approved the legislation by a 49-0 vote on Wednesday....
Mother, 1-year-old son killed in Alaska polar bear attack
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A polar bear chased several residents around a tiny, isolated Alaska Native whaling village, killing a mother and her 1-year-old son in an extremely rare attack before another community member shot and killed the bear, authorities said. The fatal mauling, the first in more than 30 years...
W.Va. announces $83 million opioid settlement with Walgreens
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — West Virginia has settled for $83 million with Walgreens for the pharmacy store chain’s role in perpetuating the opioid crisis in the U.S. state with the most per capita overdose deaths, Attorney General Patrick Morrisey announced Wednesday. That brings the total West Virginia dollars brought in from...
Feds to investigate nursing home abuse of antipsychotics
WASHINGTON — The federal government says it will begin a targeted crackdown on nursing homes’ abuse of antipsychotic drugs and misdiagnoses of schizophrenia in patients. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is launching investigations this month into select nursing homes, aimed at verifying whether patients have been properly diagnosed...
Court to hear appeal of ex-officer in murder of George Floyd
ST. PAUL, Minn. — An attorney for Derek Chauvin is planning to ask an appeals court Wednesday to throw out the former Minneapolis police officer’s convictions in the murder of George Floyd, arguing that numerous legal and procedural errors deprived him of a fair trial. Floyd died May 25, 2020,...
Ukraine helicopter crash kills interior minister, others
BROVARY, Ukraine — A helicopter carrying Ukraine’s interior minister and other government officials crashed Wednesday in a residential area near the capital of Kyiv, killing him and about a dozen other people, including a child on the ground, authorities said. Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskyi, who oversaw the country’s police and...
U.S. divided over Roe’s repeal as abortion foes gird for march
Anti-abortion activists will have multiple reasons to celebrate — and some reasons for unease — when they gather Friday in Washington for the annual March for Life. The march, which includes a rally drawing abortion opponents from across the nation, has been held annually since January 1974 — a year...
U.K. nurses stage new walkout as strike wave intensifies
LONDON — Thousands of nurses in Britain walked out Wednesday in a new protest over pay, with no end in sight to a wave of strikes that has piled pressure on the U.K.’s overburdened public health system. Two 12-hour strikes on Wednesday and Thursday affect about a quarter of hospitals...
U.S., Chinese officials discuss climate, economy, relationship
ZURICH — U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen met Wednesday with her Chinese counterpart and pledged an effort to manage differences and “prevent competition from becoming anything ever near conflict” as the two nations try to thaw relations. Yellen’s first face-to-face meeting with Vice Premier Liu He in Zurich is the...
Wholesale inflation in U.S. slowed further in December to 6.2%
WASHINGTON — Wholesale prices in the U.S. rose 6.2% in December from a year earlier, a sixth straight monthly slowdown and a hopeful sign that inflation pressures will continue to cool. The latest year-over-year figure was down from 7.3% in November and from a recent peak of 11.7% in March....
NATO warns of Russia’s long war in Ukraine, vows to be ready
BRUSSELS — Russia is preparing for an extended war so NATO must get ready “for the long haul” and support Ukraine for as long as it takes, the alliance’s deputy secretary general told top military chiefs from across Europe Wednesday. Speaking at the opening of the military chiefs’ meeting here,...
Freshwater fish significantly more contaminated with toxic forever chemicals than saltwater fish and shellfish, analysis shows
Eating just one freshwater fish a year can dramatically increase the amount of toxic forever chemicals coursing through a person’s blood, according to a new study that reflects more than a half-century of pollution contaminating the Great Lakes and rivers nationwide. The alarming finding is based on an analysis of...
Former Herschel Walker aide’s lawsuit says GOP activist Matt Schlapp groped him
A staffer who worked for Herschel Walker’s Republican Senate campaign filed a lawsuit against prominent conservative activist Matt Schlapp on Tuesday, accusing Schlapp of groping him during a car ride in Georgia before last year’s midterm election. Schlapp denies the allegation, and his lawyer says they are considering a countersuit....
Austin Davis inaugurated as Pa.’s first Black lieutenant governorVideo
Former state Rep. Austin Davis, D-McKeesport, was sworn in as Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor Tuesday, becoming the state’s first Black person to hold that position. Davis was inaugurated alongside Gov. Josh Shapiro, D-Montgomery, in Harrisburg. Davis is succeeding John Fetterman, who was recently sworn in as Pennsylvania’s newest U.S. Senator. “Today...
Feds won’t seek death penalty for El Paso Walmart shooter
Federal prosecutors will not seek the death penalty for a man accused of fatally shooting nearly two dozen people in a racist attack at a West Texas Walmart in 2019. The U.S. Department of Justice disclosed the decision not to pursue capital punishment against Patrick Crusius in a one-sentence notice...
Pa. Resource Council asks amateur photographers to turn their ‘Lens On Litter’
Pennsylvania was home to a half-billion pieces of litter in 2020, and that was just along the roads, according to a survey commissioned by the state’s Department of Environmental Protection and PennDOT. That’s disheartening news to Pennsylvania Resource Council Executive Director Darren Spielman, especially since the council’s annual Gene Capaldi...
Husband of missing Massachusetts woman faces murder charge
COHASSET, Mass. — A Massachusetts man already facing a charge of misleading investigators in the search for his missing wife has now been charged with murder in her disappearance, a top prosecutor said Tuesday. Norfolk District Attorney Michael Morrissey said in a video statement that Brian Walshe, 47, who is...
Ex-GOP candidate charged in shootings at New Mexico lawmakers’ homesVideo
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A failed Republican candidate paid $500 to four men to shoot at the homes of Democratic lawmakers, but was so unsatisfied with the shooters’ work that he went along for the final drive-by, his gun jamming as bullets ripped into the bedroom of a sleeping 10-year-old girl,...
