AP Top News

By DAVE SKRETTA AP Basketball Writer Houston and Gonzaga met in a second-round NCAA Tournament matchup last weekend in Wichita, Kansas, that could as easily have been played in the Final Four, the way Kelvin Sampson’s and Mark Few’s teams had played throughout the season. The Cougars were No. 1 in scoring defense, more than

By AMANDA SEITZ WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has nominated a Republican attorney who was once accused of mishandling taxpayer funds and has a history of launching investigations against abortion clinics to lead the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General. If confirmed by the Senate, Thomas March Bell will oversee

By MATT OTT Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. consumer confidence continued its sharp 2025 decline as Americans’ views about their financial futures slumped to a 12-year low, driven by rising anxiety over tariffs and inflation. The Conference Board reported Tuesday that its consumer confidence index fell 7.2 points in March to 92.9, the fourth

By MEAD GRUVER Associated Press A portrait of Donald Trump that he said was “purposefully distorted” was removed from a wall at the Colorado state Capitol where it had been since 2019. After Trump posted complaints about the painting on his Truth Social platform, Colorado Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen, a Republican, asked that it

By ELÉONORE HUGHES Associated Press RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — A panel of Brazil’s Supreme Court justices began proceedings Tuesday to determine whether former President Jair Bolsonaro and close allies will stand trial on five counts, including attempting to stage a coup. Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet charged Bolsonaro last month with plotting a coup after he

By KELVIN CHAN AP Business Writer LONDON (AP) — A magazine journalist’s account of being added to a group chat of U.S. national security officials coordinating plans for airstrikes has raised questions about how highly sensitive information is supposed to be handled. Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg detailed a discussion that happened over the Signal messaging

By ERIC TUCKER and DAVID KLEPPER Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration’s top intelligence officials are facing Congress this week to offer their first testimony in office about the threats confronting the United States and tackle urgent questions about the security breach that unfolded when war plans were mistakenly leaked to a journalist.

Christine Benz of Morningstar From contributions to conversions to distributions, don’t fall into these traps when managing your IRA. Waiting until the 11th hour to contribute Investors have until their tax-filing deadline—usually April 15—to make an IRA contribution if they want it to count for the year prior. Many investors squeak in their contributions right

By FATIMA HUSSEIN Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Frank Bisignano, a self-professed “DOGE person,” faces questions about whether the Trump administration plans to privatize Social Security as he appears before the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday for his hearing to serve as commissioner of the Social Security Administration. Bisignano, a Wall Street veteran and one-time

By The Associated Press The Trump administration’s top intelligence officials face Congress for back-to-back hearings this week to testify about the threats facing the United States and what the government is doing to counter them. The briefing will take place at 10 a.m. ET. The hearing comes a day after The Atlantic magazine reported that

By JULIA FRANKEL Associated Press HEBRON, West Bank (AP) — Israeli authorities released an Oscar-winning Palestinian director who was detained by the army after being attacked by Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank. He said they beat him in front of his home while filming the assault. Hamdan Ballal and the other directors of

By BRIAN MELLEY Associated Press LONDON (AP) — They didn’t look after this bear. In fact, two men who had been drinking kicked and yanked on a statue of Paddington, the fictional orphaned bear who came to England from Peru, until it broke in half. Then they took it. A judge on Tuesday chastised the

By MICHAEL CASEY and RODRIQUE NGOWI Associated Press BOSTON (AP) — When Ash Lazarus Orr went to renew his passport in early January, the transgender organizer figured it would be relatively routine. But more than two months on, Orr is waiting to get a new passport with a name change and a sex designation reflecting

By DANICA KIRKA Associated Press NUUK, Greenland (AP) — Lisa Sólrun Christiansen gets up at 4 a.m. most days and gets to work knitting thick wool sweaters coveted by buyers around the world for their warmth and colorful patterns celebrating Greenland’s traditional Inuit culture. Her morning routine includes a quick check of the news, but

By GRAHAM DUNBAR AP Sports Writer MUTTENZ, Switzerland (AP) — Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini won again in court Tuesday and now lead 2-0 in trial verdicts against Swiss federal prosecutors. Once soccer’s most powerful men, former FIFA president Blatter and former UEFA president Platini were acquitted for a second time in a case now

By MATTHEW LEE and FARNOUSH AMIRI Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s nominee to be ambassador to Israel will face a confirmation hearing Tuesday on Capitol Hill as U.S. and Arab mediators struggle to get a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas back on track after Israeli forces resumed the war in Gaza

By DOUG FEINBERG AP Basketball Writer There is plenty of star power left in women’s March Madness with Paige Bueckers, Hannah Hidalgo and Lauren Betts still playing even if JuJu Watkins won’t be. Watkins hurt her right knee in the first quarter of Southern California’s win over Mississippi State on Monday night. She was carried

By The Associated Press Further contacts between U.S. and Russian officials on achieving a proposed ceasefire in Ukraine are likely to follow a round of talks Monday, a Kremlin official said Tuesday, but no concrete plans have yet been made. The American and Russian negotiators held talks throughout the day on Monday in the capital

By SYLVIE CORBET and JOHN LEICESTER Associated Press PARIS (AP) — Actor Gérard Depardieu acknowledged Tuesday that he used crude and heated language around a woman who accuses him of sexual assault and grabbed her hips but denied assaulting her, as he testified for the first time at his landmark trial in Paris. “I understand

By JENNIFER PELTZ Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — Luigi Mangione is asking for a laptop in jail, but just for legal purposes — not for communicating with anyone — as he awaits trial in the killing of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO. In a court filing made public late Monday, Mangione’s lawyers proposed that he get a

By KIRSTY WIGGLESWORTH Associated Press SMARDEN, England (AP) — One malnourished lioness had spent her life confined to an apartment. Another was so shell-shocked she could barely walk. They are among five traumatized lions rescued from the war zone in Ukraine who are settling into a new home in England after an international effort to

By STAN CHOE AP Business Writer NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street is holding steadier Tuesday after roaring the day before on hopes that President Donald Trump’s tariffs may not be as sweeping as earlier feared. The S&P 500 was 0.2% higher in morning trading after jumping 1.8% on Monday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average

By The Associated Press In the occupied West Bank, Israeli authorities released a Palestinian director of the Oscar-winning documentary “ No Other Land,” a day after he was beaten by Jewish settlers and detained by soldiers. Hamdan Ballal and two other Palestinians were accused of throwing stones at a settler, allegations they deny. Palestinians and

By MARI YAMAGUCHI Associated Press TOKYO (AP) — The Unification Church in Japan was ordered dissolved by a court Tuesday after a government request spurred by the investigation into the 2022 assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The church said it was considering an immediate appeal of the Tokyo District Court’s revocation of its

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Han Jong-Hee, a senior Samsung Electronics executive credited with elevating the company’s television business, died Tuesday, the company said. He was 63. Han, a co-chief executive who oversaw the company’s consumer electronics and mobile devices businesses, died at a hospital after being treated for a heart attack, Samsung said. Han

By MARIAM FAM Associated Press DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Sahar Diab had visited Damascus’ famed Umayyad Mosque previously. But as the Syrian lawyer went there to pray during her country’s first Ramadan after the end of the Assad family’s iron-fisted rule, she felt something new, something priceless: A sense of ease. “The rituals have become

By LAURIE KELLMAN Associated Press LONDON (AP) — The urgent care doctor cocked an eyebrow at Mari Santos and her American accent. It was four days after President Donald Trump’s inauguration, and Santos was a student with a stomach bug in the first weeks of an overseas semester in Glasgow, Scotland. A doctor arrived to

By CAROLYN THOMPSON Associated Press Since plunging during the COVID-19 pandemic, international student enrollment in the U.S. has been rebounding — a relief to American universities that count on their tuition payments. Two months into the new Trump administration, educators fear that could soon change. Unnerved by efforts to deport students over political views, students

By BETH HARRIS AP Sports Writer LOS ANGELES (AP) — JuJu Watkins was carried off the floor with a right knee injury in the first quarter of top-seeded Southern California’s game against Mississippi State in the women’s NCAA Tournament on Monday night. Watkins, one of the biggest stars in the women’s game, was streaking to

By JOHN PYE AP Sports Writer BRISBANE, Australia (AP) — Sailing the Whitsunday islands. Surfing an iconic break in the Sunshine state. Rowing in the crocodile-inhabited Fitzroy River on the central coast of Queensland. Extra tourism-focused venues and a new 60,000-seat Olympic stadium to be built in inner-city parkland have been unveiled as part of