AP National News

By PETER SMITH Associated Press The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops announced Monday that it is ending a half-century of partnerships with the federal government to serve refugees and migrant children, saying the “heartbreaking” decision follows the Trump administration’s abrupt halt to funding. The break will inevitably result in fewer services than what Catholic agencies

By MATTHEW PERRONE AP Health Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — Shortly before he was forced to resign, the nation’s top vaccine regulator says he refused to grant Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s team unrestricted access to a tightly held vaccine safety database, fearing that the information might be manipulated or even deleted. In an interview

By SCOTT McFETRIDGE Associated Press DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Mega Millions players will get slightly better odds and should start seeing more billion-dollar jackpots, but at a cost — literally — with tickets for the multistate lottery jumping in price to $5. The price for playing Mega Millions more than doubled for drawings starting

By HILLEL ITALIE AP National Writer NEW YORK (AP) — Removing books from library shelves is no longer just a story of objections from a local community or an individual parent, the American Library Association says. In its new State of American Libraries Report released Monday, the ALA found more than 70% of attempted bans

By JENNIFER McDERMOTT Associated Press Nations are trying to reach an agreement to charge commercial vessels a fee for their emissions in what would effectively be the world’s first global carbon tax. The International Maritime Organization, which regulates international shipping, set a target for the sector to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by about 2050,

By BRUCE SCHREINER and KRISTIN M. HALL Associated Press FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — Days of unrelenting downpours swelled rivers to near record levels across Kentucky on Monday, submerging neighborhoods and threatening a famed bourbon distillery in the state capital. Inundated rivers posed the latest threat from persistent storms that have killed at least 23 people

By GISELA SALOMON Associated Press DORAL, Fla. (AP) — Wilmer Escaray left Venezuela in 2007 and enrolled at Miami Dade College, opening his first restaurant six years later. Today he has a dozen businesses that hire Venezuelan migrants like he once was, workers who are now terrified by what could be the end of their

By ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON Associated Press FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Top administration officials said Sunday that more than 50 countries targeted by President Donald Trump’s new tariffs have reached out to begin negotiations over the sweeping import taxes that have sent financial markets reeling, raised fears of a recession and upended the global trading

GREENBELT, Md. (AP) — The U.S. government’s decision to arrest a Maryland man and send him to a notorious prison in El Salvador appears to be “wholly lawless,” a federal judge wrote Sunday in a legal opinion explaining why she had ordered the Trump administration to bring him back to the United States. There is

By LINDSEY BAHR AP Film Writer Hollywood needed “A Minecraft Movie” to be a hit, and it delivered in its opening weekend, significantly narrowing this year’s box office deficit. No one guessed just how big it would be. In its first few days in theaters, the movie earned a staggering $157 million in ticket sales

By SUSAN HAIGH and MARC LEVY Associated Press States increasingly struggling to cover the rising cost of popular GLP-1 drugs like Wegovy, Ozempic and Zepbound are searching for ways to get out from under the budgetary squeeze that took them by surprise. One solution some policymakers may try is restricting the number of people on

By DEVI SHASTRI and AMANDA SEITZ Associated Press U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. visited the epicenter of Texas’ still-growing measles outbreak on Sunday, the same day a funeral was held for a second young child who was not vaccinated and died from a measles-related illness. Kennedy said in a social

By ANDREW DeMILLO Associated Press LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Parts of the South and Midwest, still reeling from violent storms, tornadoes and flooding that have killed more than a dozen people, face new flooding and tornado warnings that forecasters said could last for days. Severe thunderstorms have swept through a swath of the country

By CHRISTINE FERNANDO and JOHN HANNA Associated Press TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The race for control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court drew $100 million in campaign spending, attack ads and the attention of President Donald Trump and close ally Elon Musk. While its spending set a record for a U.S. judicial contest, the race that

By BRUCE SCHREINER and OBED LAMY Associated Press DYERSBURG, Tenn. (AP) — A storm system sweeping over large areas of the U.S. South and Midwest resulted in at least 16 weather-related deaths by early Sunday, with overnight tornado and flash flood warnings setting up more severe weather that forecasters say could cause rising waterways for

By MATT SEDENSKY AP National Writer NEW YORK (AP) — Economy Candy’s shelves brim with sweets from around the world – gummies from Germany, lollipops from Spain, chocolates from Japan and a panoply of candies from across the U.S. Standing amid it all, columns of bright jellybeans to his left and exotic Kit Kats to

By VALERIE GONZALEZ Associated Press LOS FRESNOS, Texas (AP) — Leonardo Baez and Nora Avila-Guel’s bakery in the Texas community of Los Fresnos is a daily stop for many residents to share gossip over coffee and pick up cakes and pastries for birthdays, office parties or themselves. When Homeland Security Investigations agents showed up at

By ANNE D’INNOCENZIO AP Retail Writer NEW YORK (AP) — Sending children back to school in new sneakers, jeans and T-shirts is likely to cost U.S. families significantly more this fall if the bespoke tariffs President Donald Trump put on leading exporters take effect as planned, American industry groups warn. About 97% of the clothes

By DAVID A. LIEB Associated Press About 45 years have passed since a U.S. state last eliminated its income tax on wages and salaries. But with recent actions in Mississippi and Kentucky, two states now are on a path to do so, if their economies keep growing. The push to zero out the income tax

By JULIE WATSON Associated Press CAMPO, Calif. (AP) — Hiking the Pacific Crest Trail is a challenge, especially for adventurers making the entire run from Southern California to Canada, and Eric Kipperman’s job is to greet them at the start and lay bare the difficulties ahead. He has lately begun warning that the journey may

By BRIAN WITTE Associated Press ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Maryland lawmakers passed a measure Saturday to try to limit future liabilities from claims of sexual abuse at state and private institutions after thousands of people unexpectedly came forward with allegations of abuse, many of them in youth detention centers, putting potentially billions of dollars at

By NADIA LATHAN Associated Press/Report for America A district court judge on Friday awarded more than $6 million combined to four whistleblowers in their lawsuit against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton who were fired shortly after they reported him to the FBI. “By a preponderance of the evidence,” Travis County Judge Catherine Mauzy says in

By DAVE COLLINS Associated Press New York state officials have told the Trump administration that they will not comply with its demands to end diversity, equity and inclusion practices in public schools, despite the administration’s threats to terminate federal education funding. Daniel Morton-Bentley, counsel and deputy commissioner of the state Department of Education, said in

PHILADELPHIA, Pa. (AP) — A pair of critically endangered, nearly 100-year-old Galapagos tortoises at the Philadelphia Zoo have become first-time parents. In an announcement Friday, the zoo said it is “overjoyed” at the arrivals of the four hatchlings, a first in its more than 150-year history. The babies are the offspring of female Mommy and

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Justice Department told an appeals court Saturday that a judge did not have the authority to order the Trump administration to broker the return of a Maryland man who was mistakenly sent to a notorious El Salvador prison, and it suspended a government lawyer who

By TIM SULLIVAN Associated Press On Friday, March 14, President Donald Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 law giving him immense powers to deport noncitizens in a time of war. His use of that law was aimed at Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang that he has repeatedly and falsely claimed as part

By ZEKE MILLER and STEVE PEOPLES Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Not even 24 hours after his party lost a key Wisconsin race and underperformed in Florida, President Donald Trump followed the playbook that has defined his political career: He doubled down. Trump’s move Wednesday to place stiff new tariffs on imports from nearly all

By GRAHAM LEE BREWER Associated Press When Lakota artist Marty Two Bulls Jr. looks at the Black Hills of South Dakota, he doesn’t just see its natural beauty. He also sees a scar cut deep into the heart of the universe. The mountain range is central to the origin story of several tribal nations, including

By BRUCE SCHREINER and OBED LAMY Associated Press DYERSBURG, Tennessee. (AP) — Another round of torrential rain and flash flooding came Saturday for parts of the South and Midwest already heavily waterlogged by days of severe storms that also spawned deadly tornadoes. Forecasters warned that rivers in some places would continue to rise for days.

By DAVE COLLINS Associated Press Crowds of people angry about the way President Donald Trump is running the country marched and rallied in scores of American cities Saturday in the biggest day of demonstrations yet by an opposition movement trying to regain its momentum after the shock of the Republican’s first weeks in office. So-called