AP

By Associated Press The Southern Baptist Convention’s top administrative body voted Tuesday to oust four congregations — one for having a woman as senior minister, two for what it said were failures related to the denomination’s sexual-abuse policy and one for lack of financial participation. The SBC’s Executive Committee announced the decision after a closed-door

By Associated Press MOSCOW | A court in the Russian capital ruled Tuesday to keep Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich in custody pending his trial on espionage charges that he denies. The Moscow City Court rejected an appeal against Gershkovich’s detention filed by his lawyers, upholding an earlier ruling to keep him behind bars

By Associated Press WASHINGTON | Hunter Biden ‘s lawyers suggested Tuesday that claims made by a former FBI informant charged with fabricating a bribery scheme involving the presidential family may have tainted the case against the president’s son. The gun and tax charges against Hunter Biden are separate from the claims made by the informant,

By Associated Press TOPEKA, Kan. — A Republican plan to cut taxes in Kansas died Tuesday in the GOP-controlled Legislature when enough members concluded that it would favor wealthy taxpayers too much and upheld the Democratic governor’s veto. The vote in the state House was 81-42, leaving GOP leaders three votes shy of the two-thirds

By Associated Press LONDON — Paul McCartney no longer gently weeps for his original bass guitar. A five-year search by the manufacturer of the instrument that was aided by a husband-and-wife team of journalists helped reunite The Beatles star with the distinctive violin-shaped 1961 electric Höfner that went missing a half century ago and is

By Associated Press DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — William Byron grew up in the hotbed of NASCAR, so close to the stars that he could trick-or-treat at Jimmie Johnson’s house every Halloween. He’d tell Johnson every year that someday he’d race alongside him at Hendrick Motorsports. But aside from decorating his Charlotte, North Carolina, bedroom with

By Associated Press LAS VEGAS — Trial for a former Los Angeles-area gang leader accused of killing of hip-hop music icon Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas in 1996 has been pushed back several months, a judge said Tuesday. Clark County District Court Judge Carli Kierny acknowledged that Duane “Keffe D” Davis’ lawyer, Carl Arnold, was

By Associated Press NEW YORK — In the mid-1970s, the Eagles were working on a spooky, cryptic new song. On a lined yellow pad, Don Henley, with input from band co-founder Glenn Frey, jotted thoughts about “a dark desert highway” and “a lovely place” with a luxurious surface and ominous undertones. And something on ice,

By Associated Press The conference races are coming down the homestretch and while No. 1 South Carolina basically has run away with the Southeastern Conference, many of the other Power Five leagues are still up for grabs. The Gamecocks have a three-game lead over LSU with four contests left for coach Dawn Staley’s squad. LSU

By Associated Press Washington State coach Kyle Smith had just finished watching his team almost entirely shut down Stanford last weekend, and win for the 10th time in its last 11 games, when he made a rare admission for college basketball coaches. “Right now,” Smith said, “this is the best team we’ve had in five

By Dawn Medle Drexel University The Conversation via AP When Congress passed the FAFSA Simplification Act in 2020, it was touted as making it easier for more families to access the government funding they need to send their children to college. But as recent events have shown, it actually made things more complicated, frustrating and

By Associated Press The field for the 12-team College Football Playoff beginning next season will comprise five conference champions and seven at-large selections after the university presidents who oversee the CFP voted unanimously Tuesday to tweak the format. The move to decrease the number of spots reserved for conference champions from six to five was

By Associated Press KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Two men have been charged with murder in last week’s shooting that killed one person and injured 22 others after the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl parade, Missouri prosecutors said Tuesday. Dominic Miller and Lyndell Mays are charged with second-degree murder and other counts. They have been hospitalized

By Associated Press NEW YORK — Walmart on Tuesday reported another quarter of strong results, as its low prices attracted shoppers looking for deals in an economically challenging environment marked by bouts of inflation. Yet inflation is fading, resulting in Walmart customers spending less per trip, leading the company to release a modest earnings forecast.

By Associated Press NEW YORK — Technology stocks led Wall Street broadly lower on Tuesday as chipmaker Nvidia pulled back ahead of its highly anticipated earnings report this week. The S&P 500 fell 30.06 points, or 0.6% to 4,975.51. It is coming off only its second losing week in the last 16. The losses pushed

By Associated Press DALLAS — American Airlines is raising the cost of checking bags and it is making other changes to push customers to buy tickets directly from the airline if they want to earn frequent-flyer points. The airline said Tuesday that checking a bag on a domestic flight will rise from $30 now to

By Associated Press NEW YORK — Capital One Financial is betting that Americans will keep shopping and use a credit card to pay for their purchases at stores and on the internet. Capital One announced Monday that it would buy Discover Financial Services for $35 billion. The combination could potentially shake up the payments industry,

By Associated Press LONDON — Julian Assange’s lawyers opened a final U.K. legal challenge Tuesday to stop the WikiLeaks founder from being sent to the United States to face spying charges, arguing that American authorities are seeking to punish him for exposing serious criminal acts by the U.S. government. Lawyer Edward Fitzgerald said Assange may

By Associated Press COLUMBIA, S.C. — The first federal trial over a hate crime based on gender identity began Tuesday in South Carolina, where a man faces charges that he killed a Black transgender woman and then fled to New York. The U.S. Department of Justice alleges that in August 2019, Daqua Lameek Ritter lured

By Associated Press BUDAPEST, Hungary — A vote in Hungary’s parliament on ratifying Sweden’s bid to join NATO could come as early as Monday, according to a senior member of the country’s governing Fidesz party. It would bring an end to more than 18 months of delays by the nationalist government that have frustrated Hungary’s

By Associated Press MONTGOMERY, Ala. — The Alabama Supreme Court has ruled that frozen embryos can be considered children under state law, a ruling critics said could have sweeping implications for fertility treatments. The decision was issued in a pair of wrongful death cases brought by three couples who had frozen embryos destroyed in an

By Associated Press UNITED NATIONS — The United States on Tuesday vetoed an Arab-backed and widely supported U.N. resolution demanding an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war in the embattled Gaza Strip, saying it would interfere with negotiations on a deal to free hostages abducted in Israel. The vote in the 15-member Security Council

By Associated Press WASHINGTON — The White House said Tuesday it is preparing additional “major sanctions” on Russia in response to opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s death last week in an Arctic penal colony. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said the sanctions, on the eve of the two-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, “will be