AP National News

By JESSE BEDAYN Associated Press/Report for America A rock climber who survived a long fall that killed his three companions hiked back to his car despite serious injuries and told a 911 dispatcher that he could “hardly breathe,” according to a recording obtained Thursday by The Associated Press. Anton Tselykh and his climbing partners were

By BRUCE SHIPKOWSKI Associated Press New Jersey Transit train engineers went on strike Friday, leaving an estimated 350,000 commuters in New Jersey and New York City to seek other means to reach their destinations or consider staying home. The walkout comes after the latest round of negotiations on Thursday didn’t produce an agreement. It is

By MICHAEL R. SISAK and LARRY NEUMEISTER Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — R&B singer Cassie was pressed to read aloud her own explicit messages to ex-boyfriend Sean “Diddy” Combs in federal court Thursday, including texts that showed her expressing desire for the drug-fueled group sex she previously testified left her traumatized. Lawyers for Combs

By CURT ANDERSON Associated Press STARKE, Fla. (AP) — A suspected serial killer once scrutinized for a possible link to the O.J. Simpson case that riveted the nation in the 1990s was executed Thursday in Florida for the murder of a woman found dead in a Tampa motel room. Glen Rogers, 62, received a lethal

By MARK SHERMAN and LINDSAY WHITEHURST Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court seemed intent Thursday on maintaining a block on President Donald Trump’s restrictions on birthright citizenship while looking for a way to scale back nationwide court orders. It was unclear what such a decision might look like, but a majority of the

By JOCELYN GECKER and LINLEY SANDERS Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — As President Donald Trump seeks to end diversity, equity and inclusion practices on college campuses, a new poll suggests that while the concept of DEI is divisive, some of the initiatives being affected by his administration’s guidance are less controversial. The poll, conducted earlier

By ADRIAN SAINZ Associated Press Fifteen men have died by court-ordered execution so far this year in the U.S., and 12 other people are scheduled to be put to death in eight states during the remainder of 2025. Glen Rogers is set to die by lethal injection in Florida on Thursday, followed by scheduled executions

By LEAH WILLINGHAM Associated Press VINEYARD HAVEN, Mass. (AP) — Lewis Pugh has followed an unspoken rule during his career as one of the world’s most daring endurance swimmers: Don’t talk about sharks. But he plans to break that this week on a swim around Martha’s Vineyard, where “ Jaws” was filmed 50 years ago.

By SARA CLINE Associated Press BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — A legal challenge against a first-of-its-kind measure that recategorized two widely used abortion -inducing drugs as “controlled dangerous substances” in Louisiana can move forward, a judge ruled Thursday. Baton Rouge-based Judge Jewel Welch denied the Louisiana Attorney General’s request to dismiss a lawsuit filed last

By MICHAEL CASEY Associated Press BOSTON (AP) — Harvard University for decades assumed it had a cheap copy of the Magna Carta in its collection, a stained and faded document it had purchased for less than $30. But two researchers have concluded it has something much more valuable — a rare version from 1300 issued

By MIKE CATALINI Associated Press Newark Mayor Ras Baraka is set to appear in federal court Thursday for a status conference on the Trump administration’s charge he trespassed at an immigration detention center in the city last week. Baraka, a Democrat running for governor in the June 10 primary, will be at the procedural hearing,

By TODD RICHMOND Associated Press MILWAUKEE (AP) — A Wisconsin judge pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges accusing her of helping a man in the country illegally evade U.S. immigration authorities who were looking to arrest him in her courthouse. Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan entered the plea during a brief arraignment in federal

By DAVID A. LIEB Associated Press JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Six months after Missouri voters approved an abortion-rights amendment, Republican state lawmakers on Wednesday approved a new referendum that would seek the amendment’s repeal and instead ban most abortions with exceptions for rape an incest. The newly proposed constitutional amendment would go back to

By JENNIFER PELTZ Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — A former model reproached one of Harvey Weinstein ’s lawyers for suggesting that her sexual abuse allegations against the ex-studio boss are lies. “You should be ashamed of yourself,” Kaja Sokola retorted. In her fifth and final day of testimony at Weinstein’s sex crimes retrial, she

By ANDREW DALTON AP Entertainment Writer LOS ANGELES (AP) — The trials of Lyle and Erik Menendez came at a time of cultural obsession with courts, crime and murder, when live televised trials captivated a national audience. Their resentencing — and the now very real possibility of their freedom — came at another, when true

By JACK DURA Associated Press BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — A federal appeals court that already has said private individuals and groups cannot sue under a key part of the federal Voting Rights Act went even further Wednesday toward blocking lawsuits over alleged racial bias in voting in seven Midwest states. But its decisions may not

By COLLIN BINKLEY AP Education Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — Harvard University is putting up $250 million of its own money to continue research efforts amid a federal funding freeze imposed by the Trump administration, but the school’s president warns of “difficult decisions and sacrifices” to come. The university joins a growing number of colleges moving

By MORIAH BALINGIT AP Education Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Wednesday told Congress the Trump administration would not cut funding for Head Start, after layoffs at the agency and funding freezes raised fears the six-decade-old program would be radically downsized. In an appearance before a Senate

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A Canadian man who drove the getaway truck in the biggest gold theft in Canadian history has pleaded guilty to a federal firearms charge after he sneaked into the United States, where he was caught trying to smuggle out 65 guns, authorities said Wednesday. Durante King-Mclean faces up to 15 years

By MICHAEL PHILLIS Associated Press On Wednesday, the Environmental Protection Agency announced plans to weaken limits on some harmful “forever chemicals” in drinking water roughly a year after the Biden administration finalized the first-ever national standards. The Biden administration said last year the rules could reduce PFAS exposure for millions of people. It was part

By OLIVIA DIAZ, KENDRIA LaFLEUR and BEN FINLEY Associated Press ALVARADO, Texas (AP) — A Georgetown University scholar from India who was arrested in the Trump administration’s crackdown on foreign college students was released from immigration detention Wednesday after a federal judge’s ruling. Badar Khan Suri will go home to his family in Virginia while

By DEE-ANN DURBIN AP Business Writer More than 1,000 Starbucks baristas at 75 U.S. stores have gone on strike since Sunday to protest a new company dress code, a union representing the coffee giant’s workers said Wednesday. Starbucks put new limits starting Monday on what its baristas can wear under their green aprons. The dress

By TODD RICHMOND Associated Press MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin judge charged with helping a man who is in the country illegally evade U.S. immigration agents who were trying to detain him at her courthouse filed a motion to dismiss the case Wednesday, arguing that there’s no legal basis for it. Attorneys for Milwaukee

By JOSH FUNK Associated Press A hotline between military and civilian air traffic controllers in Washington, D.C., that hasn’t worked for more than three years may have contributed to another near miss shortly after the U.S. Army resumed flying helicopters in the area for the first time since January’s deadly midair collision between a passenger

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge agreed Wednesday to temporarily block the Trump administration from stripping Foreign Service employees of their collective bargaining rights. U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman granted a federal labor union’s request for a preliminary injunction that, while its lawsuit against the government is pending, stops the

By MICHAEL PHILLIS Associated Press The Environmental Protection Agency said Wednesday that it plans to weaken limits on some “forever chemicals” in drinking water that were finalized last year, while maintaining standards for two common ones. The Biden administration set the first federal drinking water limits for PFAS, or perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, finding they

By MICHAEL R. SISAK and LARRY NEUMEISTER Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — The R&B singer Cassie testified Wednesday that Sean “Diddy” Combs raped her when she ended their decade-long relationship, after he locked her in a life of physical abuse by threatening to release degrading sexual videos of her. Addressing the Manhattan courtroom for

By MIKE STOBBE and GEOFF MULVIHILL Associated Press There were 30,000 fewer U.S. drug overdose deaths in 2024 than the year before — the largest one-year decline ever recorded. An estimated 80,000 people died from overdoses last year, according to provisional Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data released Wednesday. That’s down 27% from the

By BRUCE SHIPKOWSKI Associated Press Some 100,000 commuters who work in New Jersey and New York City could soon be scrambling for other ways to reach their destinations if New Jersey Transit engineers walk off the job early Friday. NJ Transit — the nation’s third largest transit system — operates buses and rail in the

By TONI DUNCAN of Rochester Institute of Technology and NADIA LATHAN of The Associated Press ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) — In 2020, following ferocious wildfires across Southern California, Jasmin Singer and her wife, Moore Rhys, decided they had had enough of Los Angeles. They packed their bags and moved to New York state. They debated between