AP National News

By JIM VERTUNO Associated Press AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A federal judge on Wednesday found the extreme heat in Texas prisons is “plainly unconstitutional,” but declined to order the state to immediately start installing air conditioning, which could cost billions. The judge affirmed claims brought by advocates of people incarcerated in the state, where summer

By MARK THIESSEN Associated Press ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A pilot rescued with two young family members after they survived a night on the wing of an airplane partially submerged in an Alaska lake is a student pilot who was not authorized to fly with passengers, according to a U.S. official and federal aviation records.

By DAVID BAUDER AP Media Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — The Associated Press is returning to a federal courtroom on Thursday to ask a judge to restore its full access to presidential events, after the White House retaliated against the news outlet last month for not following President Trump’s executive order to rename the Gulf of

By JACK DURA Associated Press A once-powerful former North Dakota lawmaker was sentenced Wednesday to 10 years in prison for traveling to Europe with the intent to pay for sex with a minor. Former state senator Ray Holmberg’s attorney, Mark Friese, confirmed the sentence to The Associated Press but declined to comment after the hearing,

By JENNIFER PELTZ and MICHAEL R. SISAK Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — Someone tucked a heart-shaped note of encouragement into socks packed for Luigi Mangione to wear to court last month in the UnitedHealthcare CEO murder case, according to court documents made public Wednesday. A court officer intercepted the handwritten note, which urged the

By FATIMA HUSSEIN Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The Social Security Administration is partially backtracking on a plan that would require all new and existing beneficiaries to travel to a Social Security field office to verify their identity. The Social Security Administration on Wednesday said that people applying for Social Security Disability Insurance, Medicare, or

By DAVID BAUDER AP Media Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — A House Republican pushing the Trump administration’s government efficiency efforts called for dismantling and defunding the nation’s public broadcasting system following a contentious hearing Wednesday featuring the heads of PBS and NPR. “We believe that you all can hate us on your own dime,” said Georgia

By BEN FINLEY and ALLEN G. BREED Associated Press NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — When Alyssa Myatt’s husband served on an aircraft carrier last year, she and other U.S. Navy spouses had to follow strict security protocols that meant driving to the ship’s home port just to learn that its deployment was being extended. Texting, phone

By ALI SWENSON and GARY FIELDS Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — With the stroke of his pen, President Donald Trump restructured the way Americans can register to vote and when they can cast their ballots. Or did he? After the president signed his executive order Tuesday calling for broad election changes, such as proof of

By DEVI SHASTRI AP Health Writer A measles outbreak in Kansas doubled in less than a week to 23 cases and has “a possible link” to outbreaks in Texas and New Mexico that have sickened more than 370, the state health department said Wednesday. And health officials in Ohio say a single case identified in

By JOSH FUNK Associated Press Someone should have spotted the alarming number of near misses in the skies over the nation’s capital before the fatal midair collision that killed 67 people in January, and reviewing the data now could prevent future crashes, according to the head of the agency investigating the crash. National Transportation Safety

By The Associated Press Firefighters announced progress Wednesday night on containing two of the largest wildfires burning in the North Carolina mountains, but they warned that fire danger remained from dry and windy conditions. The news was worse in South Carolina, where two fires nearly doubled in size Wednesday, but crews kept the blazes away

By MARK SHERMAN Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is invoking a powerful tool in seeking to cut off a judge’s inquiry into whether it defied his order to turn around planes carrying Venezuelan migrants who were being deported from the United States. The Justice Department said in court papers Monday that it

By MARK SCOLFORO and MARC LEVY Associated Press MANHEIM, Pa. (AP) — Democrat James Andrew Malone narrowly won a special election for a Pennsylvania state Senate seat in Republican-leaning suburbs and farming communities, scoring an upset in a district that a Democrat hasn’t represented in the chamber for 136 years. Malone’s victory over Republican Josh

By BRIAN WITTE Associated Press BALTIMORE (AP) — A federal judge in Maryland said Wednesday he will at least briefly extend a temporary order requiring the Trump administration to bring back federal workers who were fired as part of a dramatic downsizing of the federal workforce, but the judge said he was struggling with the

By JAKE OFFENHARTZ, KATHY McCORMACK and MICHAEL CASEY Associated Press SOMERVILLE, Mass. (AP) — A Turkish national and doctoral student at Tufts University has been detained by U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents without explanation, her lawyer said Wednesday. Rumeysa Ozturk, 30, had just left her home in Somerville on Tuesday night when she was

By PHILIP MARCELO Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — When President Donald Trump canceled $400 million in funding to Columbia University over its handling of student protests against Israel’s war in Gaza, much of the financial pain fell on researchers a train ride away from the school’s campus, working on things like curing cancer and

By MARK SHERMAN Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Wednesday seemed likely to preserve the $8 billion a year the government spends to subsidize phone and internet services in schools, libraries and rural areas. The justices heard nearly three hours of arguments in a new test of federal regulatory power, reviewing an

By MARK SHERMAN and LINDSAY WHITEHURST Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration on Wednesday asked the Supreme Court to allow it to cut hundreds of millions of dollars for teacher training. A federal judge in Boston temporarily blocked the cuts, finding they were already affecting training programs aimed at addressing a nationwide teacher

By MARIA SHERMAN AP Music Writer Thirty years ago, music legend Selena Quintanilla-Pérez was killed by her fan club’s president, Yolanda Saldívar. For the last three decades, Saldívar has served her life sentence in Texas. Now 64, Saldívar has a petition for parole under review, according to Texas Department of Criminal Justice online records. On

By LINDSAY WHITEHURST Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a Biden administration regulation on the nearly impossible-to-trace weapons called ghost guns, clearing the way for continued serial numbers, background checks and age verification requirements to buy them in kits online. Seven justices joined the opinion, authored by Justice Neil Gorsuch,

By JOSHUA A. BICKEL Associated Press What goes down your toilet can end up on farm fields across the United States. Biosolids, or sewage sludge, are the solid byproducts of the wastewater treatment process. Rich in nutrients, they can be used as fertilizer on agricultural fields or compost on lawns. But the process for producing

By JONATHAN MATTISE Associated Press It has been nearly two decades since the workplace mockumentary “The Office” first set an episode inside a Chili’s, where Michael Scott handed out Dundie awards to his ever-tolerant employees, including trophies for the whitest sneakers and for stinking up the bathroom. Over nine seasons, “The Office” regularly name-dropped real

By JOSHUA A. BICKEL and SEAN MURPHY Associated Press WELLSTON, Okla. (AP) — When Leslie Stewart moved to her home in a rural expanse of Lincoln County outside of Oklahoma City more than 20 years ago, she thought she’d found a slice of heaven. In a town of fewer than 700 people, her son could

By ANNE D’INNOCENZIO AP Retail Writer NEW YORK (AP) — The co-founders of a company that makes lip products for darker skin tones no longer hope to get their line into Target. A brother and sister who make jigsaw puzzles celebrating Black subjects wonder if they need to offer “neutral” images like landscapes to keep

By GIOVANNA DELL’ORTO Associated Press HIALEAH, Fla. (AP) — Twice a week, Luisa Arguello and her husband spend from 2 a.m. to 3 a.m. praying in the perpetual adoration chapel at St. Benedict Catholic Church, tucked on a quiet palm-fringed residential street in the Miami suburb of Hialeah. “Your body clock gets used to it.

By LEA SKENE and BRIAN WITTE Associated Press BALTIMORE (AP) — A year after the catastrophic collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge, Maryland leaders are honoring the six construction workers who were killed when the road they were repairing buckled underneath them. Police were able to stop traffic moments before a cargo ship plowed

By The Associated Press President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking broad changes to how elections are run in the U.S. is vast in scope and holds the potential to reorder the voting landscape across the country, even as it faces almost certain litigation. He wants to require voters to show proof that they are U.S.

By LAURA UNGAR AP Science Writer Federal health officials said Tuesday they are pulling back $11.4 billion in COVID-19-related funds for state and local public health departments and other health organizations throughout the nation. “The COVID-19 pandemic is over, and HHS will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a non-existent pandemic that

PHOENIX (AP) — Phoenix flirted with its first 100-degree day of the year on Tuesday, though it fell just short of that milestone. The metro area was expected to reach 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.7 Celsius) on Tuesday, but the forecasted high temperature was later revised to 98 degrees (36.6 Celsius). Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport