Where is the Parkland school shooter? Florida won’t say
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The gunman who murdered 17 people at a Parkland high school nearly five years ago has spent the last nine weeks in the custody of the Florida of Corrections. Where? That’s anyone’s guess. In an unusually secretive move, the state has refused to disclose the location...
Desperation is driving latest surge of Cuban rafters arriving in the Florida Keys
In an end-of-year video message for social media, Cuba’s leader, Miguel Díaz-Canel, recently acknowledged that 2022 was “one of the most challenging of Cuba’s revolutionary history.” He then admitted that 2023 “could be even more difficult,” but that, he added, would be “an attractive challenge for all who feel revolutionary.”...
Iran releases Oscar-winning film actress held over protests
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran released a prominent actress from an Oscar-winning film on Wednesday, nearly three weeks after she was jailed for criticizing a crackdown on anti-government protests, local reports said. Iran’s semi-official ISNA news agency said Taraneh Alidoosti, the 38-year-old star of Asghar Farhadi’s Oscar-winning 2016 film,...
Philippine leader emphasizes economic ties on visit to China
BEIJING — Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is pushing for closer economic ties on a visit to China that seeks to sidestep territorial disputes in the South China Sea. The countries have both been rocked by economic crises linked to the COVID-19 pandemic, but are looking to recharge investments in...
Southwest Airlines’ meltdown loss could run $500 million to $700 million
When Southwest Airlines’ had an operational meltdown in October 2021, it cost the airline $75 million in lost revenue. The Columbus Day weekend debacle involved the cancellation of some 2,000 flights. So what kind of hit is the Dallas-based company looking at from its Christmas fiasco that led to more...
U.K.’s Sunak vows to halve inflation, tackle illegal migration
LONDON — British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, in his first major speech of 2023 on Wednesday, pledged to halve inflation, grow the U.K. economy and stop illegal immigration. In a speech setting out the Conservative government’s priorities for the year ahead, Sunak focused on tackling the U.K.’s slowing economy and...
Analysis: Whoever wins, serving as House speaker will be more like ‘being mayor of hell’
WASHINGTON — Republican leader Kevin McCarthy surely could have seen defeat coming: The wave that swamped him has been building for years. In 2015, attacks from the right wing drove House Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio to quit in frustration. Boehner’s successor, Rep. Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, stuck...
College scam mastermind Rick Singer gets 3.5 years in prison
BOSTON — The mastermind of the nationwide college admissions bribery scheme that ensnared celebrities, prominent businesspeople and other parents who used their wealth and privilege to buy their kids’ way into top-tier schools was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison Wednesday. The punishment for Rick Singer, 62, is the...
White House gun violence program with philanthropies ends
NEW YORK — It was small, as Washington celebrations go — two senior Biden administration advisers gathered with program participants near the White House on a Thursday afternoon in December to mark the end of a little-known initiative with a budget of less than $8 million. The impact of The...
U.S. bishops’ rifts unlikely to ease after Pope Benedict’s death
NEW YORK — Many of the conservative prelates who dominate the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops were appointed by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. His recent death deprives them of a symbolic figurehead but is unlikely to weaken their collective power or end the culture wars that have divided the USCCB,...
Mega Millions jackpot climbs to $940M after no winner
DES MOINES, Iowa — The Mega Millions jackpot increased to an estimated $940 million after another drawing resulted in plenty of losers but not a single grand prize winner. The numbers drawn late Tuesday were: 25, 29, 33, 41, 44 and gold Mega Ball 18. The next drawing is scheduled...
NTSB: Airline worker pulled into engine in fatal accident
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — An airline ground crew worker was pulled into the engine of a plane during a fatal accident at an Alabama airport, authorities said. The National Transportation Safety Board released the additional information about the Saturday accident at the Montgomery Regional Airport that claimed the life of an...
Rep.-elect George Santos quiet as speaker vote delays swearing-inVideo
NEW YORK — Republican Rep.-elect George Santos of New York, who is accused of lying about large swaths of his background and accomplishments, will have to wait to add one thing with certainty to his resume: U.S. congressman. Santos arrived in Washington to be sworn in Tuesday, but his swearing-in...
Transgender Missouri inmate executed for fatal stabbing
BONNE TERRE, Mo. — A Missouri inmate was put to death Tuesday for a 2003 killing, becoming what is believed to be the first transgender woman executed in the U.S. Amber McLaughlin, 49, was convicted of stalking and killing a former girlfriend, then dumping the body near the Mississippi River...
New documents detail Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson asking about electors
MADISON, Wis. — The former chairman of the Wisconsin Republican Party said Republican Sen. Ron Johnson spoke to him weeks before Joe Biden assumed the presidency about having the state’s GOP-controlled Legislature, rather than voters, choose Wisconsin’s presidential electors, according to newly released documents from closed-door testimony to the House...
FDA finalizes rule allowing mail-order abortion pills
WASHINGTON — The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday finalized a rule change that allows women seeking abortion pills to get them through the mail, replacing a long-standing requirement that they pick up the medicine in person. The Biden administration implemented the change last year, announcing it would no longer...
Divided Pennsylvania House elects Democrat Mark Rozzi as speaker
HARRISBURG — A Democrat who promised to govern as an independent was elected speaker of the narrowly divided Pennsylvania House of Representatives in a surprising move Tuesday on the strength of every Democrat and more than a dozen GOP votes. Rep. Mark Rozzi was elected speaker by a vote of...
Idaho slayings suspect waives right to fight extraditionVideo
A criminology graduate student accused of the November slayings of four University of Idaho students agreed Tuesday to be extradited from Pennsylvania, where he was arrested last week, to face charges in Idaho. Bryan Kohberger, a 28-year-old doctoral student at Washington State University — a short drive from the scene...
Kevin McCarthy fails in marathon votes for speaker, House adjournsVideo
WASHINGTON — Unable to elect Republican leader Kevin McCarthy as the new House speaker Tuesday, the Republicans adjourned for the day in disarray as the party tries to regroup from his a historic defeat after a long, messy start for the new Congress. The surprise move end to Day One...
Welfare scandal sharpens contrasts in long-poor Mississippi
JACKSON, Miss. — In Mississippi, where elected officials have a long history of praising self-sufficiency and condemning federal antipoverty programs, a welfare scandal has exposed how millions of dollars were diverted to the rich and powerful — including pro athletes — instead of helping some of the neediest people in...
Drone advances in Ukraine could bring dawn of killer robots
KYIV, Ukraine — Drone advances in Ukraine have accelerated a long-anticipated technology trend that could soon bring the world’s first fully autonomous fighting robots to the battlefield, inaugurating a new age of warfare. The longer the war lasts, the more likely it becomes that drones will be used to identify,...
Russia, shaken by Ukrainian strike, could step up drone use
KYIV, Ukraine — Emergency crews on Tuesday sifted through the rubble of a building struck by Ukrainian rockets, killing at least 63 Russian soldiers barracked there, in the latest blow to the Kremlin’s war strategy as Ukraine says Moscow’s tactics could be shifting. An Associated Press video of the scene...
As legal pot grows, more kids sickened by edibles at home
The number of young kids, especially toddlers, who accidentally ate marijuana-laced treats rose sharply over five years as pot became legal in more places in the U.S., according to a study published Tuesday. More than 7,000 confirmed cases of kids younger than 6 eating marijuana edibles were reported to the...
Move on from covid? Child care disruptions continue
Forty-seven. That’s how many days of child care Kathryn Anne Edwards’ 3-year-old son has missed in the past year. RSV, covid-19 and two bouts of the dreaded preschool scourge of hand, foot and mouth disease struck one after another. The illnesses were so disruptive that the labor economist quit her...
$785M Mega Millions prize is 6th largest in U.S. history
DES MOINES, Iowa — An estimated $785 million Mega Millions jackpot set for Tuesday night will give lottery players a chance to start the new year with a lucrative bang. The big prize is the sixth-largest jackpot in U.S. history and has grown so large because no one has matched...
