AP National News

By DÁNICA COTO Associated Press SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — A power blackout hit all of Puerto Rico on Wednesday as the heavily Catholic U.S. territory prepared to celebrate the Easter weekend. All 1.4 million customers were affected, Hugo Sorrentini, spokesman for Luma Energy, which oversees the transmission and distribution of power, told The

By TAMMY WEBBER Associated Press The Trump administration plans to eliminate habitat protections for endangered and threatened species in a move environmentalists say would lead to the extinction of critically endangered species because of logging, mining, development and other activities. At issue is a long-standing definition of “harm” in the Endangered Species Act, which has

By MARTHA BELLISLE Associated Press A California law firm notified the city of Pocatello, Idaho, on Wednesday of its intention to file a federal wrongful death lawsuit on the behalf of the family of Victor Perez, a 17-year-old boy with intellectual disabilities who was shot multiple times by four police officers. Perez, who was described

By ADAM GELLER AP National Writer NEW YORK (AP) — The showdown between the Trump administration and Harvard University is spotlighting bare-knuckled politics and big dollar figures. But in the battle of the moment, it’s easy to lose sight of a decades-long alliance between the U.S. government and the nation’s most prominent universities, forged to

By JENNIFER PELTZ Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — A former New York police sergeant was sentenced Wednesday to 18 months in prison in a U.S. case about China’s pursuit of critics abroad, a sentence that came after two members of Congress urged the judge to spare him from time behind bars. Michael McMahon was

By AMANDA SEITZ Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. warned that children in the U.S. are being diagnosed with autism at an “alarming rate,” promising on Wednesday to conduct exhaustive studies to identify any environmental factors that may cause the developmental disorder. His call comes the day after the Centers

By MICHAEL R. SISAK Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — Nine jurors were picked Wednesday on the second day of jury selection in Harvey Weinstein’s #MeToo rape retrial. At the same time, the disgraced movie mogul’s lawyers asked a judge to allow him to spend his nights at a New York City hospital instead of

By HANNAH FINGERHUT Associated Press DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Young volunteers who respond to natural disasters and help with community projects across the U.S. have been discharged as a result of the Trump administration ‘s campaign to shrink government workforce and services. AmeriCorps’ National Civilian Community Corps informed volunteers Tuesday that they would exit

By FATIMA HUSSEIN Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration plans to eliminate the IRS’ Direct File program, an electronic system for filing tax returns directly to the agency for free, according to two people familiar with the decision. The program developed during Joe Biden’s presidency was credited by users with making tax filing

By YOLANDA MAGAÑA and MARY CLARE JALONICK Associated Press SAN SALVADOR (AP) — Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen says he was denied entry into an El Savador prison on Thursday while he was trying to check on the well-being of of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a man who was sent there by the Trump administration in

UTICA, N.Y. (AP) — Ten New York prison guards were charged Wednesday in connection with the fatal beating of a 22-year-old prison inmate, including two charged with murder. It’s the second time this year a group of correctional officers in the state was indicted for a death behind bars. Other prisoners say several guards severely

By OLIVIA DIAZ Associated Press/Report for America The American Civil Liberties Union has sued the Department of Defense’s school system for children of military families, asserting that the removal of race- and gender-related books and curricula violated students’ First Amendment protections against government censorship. The suit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in northeast Virginia

By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER and MICHAEL KUNZELMAN Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Wednesday said he has found probable cause to hold the Trump administration in criminal contempt of court for violating his orders to turn around planes carrying deportees to El Salvador. U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg warned he could

By RUSS BYNUM Associated Press SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — Georgia’s highest court waded Wednesday into a fight between Black landowners and local officials who have weakened long-standing protections for one of the South’s last Gullah-Geechee communities founded by freed slaves. Residents of largely unspoiled Sapelo Island have been trying to roll back zoning changes imposed

By MARK SCOLFORO and JOHN SEEWER Associated Press HERSHEY, Pa. (AP) — Authorities investigating why a man set fire to Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s official residence are probing whether the suspect was motivated by the Democrat’s Jewish faith or positions on Israel’s war in Gaza. Police have said that Cody Balmer of Harrisburg harbored hatred

By SOPHIE AUSTIN Associated Press/Report for America SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday that his state will file a lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s authority to impose sweeping tariffs that have set off a global trade war. The suit will argue that Trump’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act

By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER, ERIC TUCKER and PATRICK WHITTLE Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration on Wednesday sued Maine for not complying with the government’s push to ban transgender athletes in girls and women’s sports, escalating a dispute over whether the state is abiding by a federal law that bars discrimination in education

By MICHAEL PHILLIS Associated Press In 2022, federal officials rebuked a major coal plant next to the Ohio River for letting coal waste — in a pile so big it could fill the Dallas Cowboys’ football stadium twice over — threaten groundwater with heavy metal pollution. That coal ash, the waste from burning coal, was

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey Transit train engineers have rejected a labor agreement with management, raising the potential for a strike or a lockout next month. The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen on Tuesday rejected the March deal by a margin of 87%, the union said in a statement. The Railway Labor Act

By LUIS ANDRES HENAO Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — In the U.S. capital, hundreds of Ethiopians dressed in traditional white shawls chant in the ancient liturgical language of one of the oldest branches of Christianity. During hourslong worship services, the Ge’ez language reverberates throughout DSK Mariam Church. Congregants prostrate themselves in reverence to God and bow

By JAIMIE DING Associated Press LOS ANGELES (AP) — Erik and Lyle Menendez have lived more time behind bars than free. Since their arrest over 35 years ago for the double murder of their parents in their Beverly Hills, California, home, the brothers have gotten an education, participated in self-help classes and started various support

By SEAN MURPHY Associated Press OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — EDITORS NOTE: On April 19, 1995, a former U.S. Army soldier parked a rented Ryder truck loaded with a powerful bomb made of fertilizer and fuel oil outside a federal office building in Oklahoma City. The blast at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building killed 168

By SEAN MURPHY Associated Press OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Thirty years after a truck bomb detonated outside a federal building in America’s heartland, killing 168 people in the deadliest homegrown attack on U.S. soil, deep scars remain. From a mother who lost her first-born baby, a son who never got to know his father, and

By AMANDA SWINHART and PATRICK WHITTLE Associated Press MORGAN, Vt. (AP) — Making maple syrup in New England’s fickle spring weather can be an unpredictable business. Now President Donald Trump’s ever-changing tariff policies are adding anxiety about an industry that depends on multinational trade. “Any kind of disruption with our cross border enterprise, we feel

By CHARLOTTE KRAMON and RUSS BYNUM Associated Press The Army is restoring the name Fort Benning to its storied training post in Georgia, only this time to honor an 18-year-old corporal who fought in World War I rather than a Confederate general. A ceremony to make the name change official was scheduled Wednesday at the

By AMANDA SEITZ Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — As measles outbreaks popped up across the U.S. this winter, pediatricians waited for the nation’s public health agency to send a routine, but important, letter that outlines how they could help stop the spread of the illness. It wasn’t until last week — after the number of

By JOCELYN GECKER AP Education Writer MANSFIELD, Ohio (AP) — The topic of a new course at Mansfield Senior High School is one that teenagers across the country are having trouble with: How to Get to Sleep. One ninth grader in the class says his method is to scroll through TikTok until he nods off.

By DAVID BAUDER AP Media Writer Fresh from a courtroom loss over The Associated Press’ access to the presidency, the White House on Tuesday put forward a new media policy that sharply curtails access to Donald Trump by news agencies that serve media outlets around the world. It was the latest attempt by the new

The Associated Press Authorities in northern New Mexico released police body camera footage and other public records Tuesday in the investigation into the deaths of Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa. The two were found dead Feb. 26 in their Santa Fe home. Hackman, 95, died of heart disease with complications from Alzheimer’s disease

The Associated Press Authorities in northern New Mexico released police body camera footage and other public records Tuesday in the investigation into the deaths of Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa. The two were found dead Feb. 26 in their Santa Fe home. Hackman, 95, died of heart disease with complications from Alzheimer’s disease