AP

By Associated Press WELLINGTON, New Zealand — New Zealand’s independent inquiry into decades of abuse of children and vulnerable adults released a blistering final report Wednesday finding the country’s state agencies and churches failed to prevent, stop or admit to the mistreatment of those in their care. The scale of abuse was “unimaginable” with an

By Associated Press WASHINGTON — Comedian Jon Stewart is pressing the Biden administration to fix a loophole in a massive veterans aid bill that left out some of the first U.S. troops who responded after the Sept. 11 attacks and got sick after deploying to a base contaminated with dangerous levels of uranium. Special operations

By Associated Press ST. LOUIS, Mo. — The Missouri Supreme Court halted the immediate release Wednesday of a man whose murder conviction was overturned — just as the man was about to walk free. A St. Louis Circuit Court judge had ordered Christopher Dunn, now 52, to be released by 6 p.m. CDT Wednesday and

By Associated Press WASHINGTON — Democratic National Convention delegates can make Vice President Kamala Harris their presidential nominee — and even start approving her yet-to be-named running mate — in online voting beginning next week, as the party races to coalesce around a new top of its ticket heading into November. The convention’s rules committee

By Associated Press The Justice Department submitted an agreement with Boeing on Wednesday in which the aerospace giant will plead guilty to a fraud charge for misleading U.S. regulators who approved the 737 Max jetliner before two of the planes crashed, killing 346 people. The detailed plea agreement was filed in federal district court in

By Associated Press WASHINGTON — Even though President Joe Biden won’t be on the ballot i n November, voters still will be weighing his legacy. As Vice President Kamala Harris moves to take his place as the Democratic standard-bearer, Biden’s accomplishments remain very much at risk should Republican Donald Trump prevail. How Biden’s single term

By Associated Press WASHINGTON — Thousands of protesters against the war in Gaza converged on Washington on Wednesday to condemn Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit, chanting “Free, free Palestine” as they marched toward the Capitol before police deployed pepper spray on some in the crowd. Demonstrators calling for an end to the war that

By Associated Press WASHINGTON — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged in a scathing speech to Congress on Wednesday to achieve “total victory” against Hamas and denounced American opponents of the war in Gaza as “idiots,” taking a combative stance in a visit the Biden administration hopes can yield progress in negotiations to end the fighting.

By Associated Press More than 100 WNBA regular-season games will be broadcast each season through an 11-year media rights deal with Disney, Amazon Prime and NBC that the league announced Wednesday. While the league didn’t reveal the value, a person familiar with the deal confirmed to The Associated Press that the WNBA would receive about

By Associated Press The full settlement agreement of antitrust lawsuits involving the NCAA and college sports’ wealthiest conferences is expected to be filed with a federal court by the end of the week, an attorney for the defendants told The Associated Press on Tuesday. “I expect that we will file Friday,” said Steve Berman, the

By Associated Press The NBA signed its 11-year media rights deal with Disney, NBC and Amazon Prime Video on Wednesday after saying it was not accepting Warner Bros. Discovery’s $1.8 billion per year offer to continue its longtime relationship with the league. The media rights deals were approved by the league’s Board of Governors last

By Associated Press NEW YORK — A wipeout on Wednesday sent U.S. stock indexes to their worst losses since 2022 after profit reports from Tesla and Alphabet helped suck momentum from Wall Street’s frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology. The S&P 500 tumbled 2.3% for its fifth drop in the last six days. The Dow Jones Industrial

By Associated Press BANGKOK — Chinese officials warned a delegation of top U.S. executives visiting Beijing this week that higher tariffs on imports from China will harm their businesses inside the country. The delegation of influential business people belonging to the U.S. China Business Council, including the CEOs of FedEx and Micron, followed a top-level

By Associated Press NEW YORK — CrowdStrike is blaming a bug in an update that allowed its cybersecurity systems to push bad data out to millions of customer computers, setting off last week’s global tech outage that grounded flights, took TV broadcasts off air and disrupted banks, hospitals and retailers. CrowdStrike also outlined measures it

By Associated Press NEW ORLEANS — Calling it a “misbegotten tax,” a federal appeals court in New Orleans ruled Wednesday that a method the Federal Communications Commission uses to fund telephone service for rural and low-income people and broadband services for schools and libraries is unconstitutional. The immediate implications of the 9-7 ruling by the

By Associated Press KYIV, Ukraine | On his way to the Kyiv train station to greet his wife and daughter returning from Poland to Ukraine, Oleksander Tryfonov made a stop. He bought two red roses from one of a half-dozen flower shops lining a dimly lit underpass — something beautiful for the two most precious

By Associated Press NEW YORK — Cher has long known only one person could take on the job of telling her story. And she’s telling it in two parts. Dey Street Books announced Wednesday that “Cher: The Memoir, Part One” will come out Nov. 19, with the second volume to follow in 2025. Dey Street,

By Associated Press NEW YORK — Get ready to say willkommen to the next stars to enter the Kit Kat Club on Broadway — Adam Lambert and Auli’i Cravalho, Producers of the Tony Award-nominated revival revealed Wednesday that Lambert, the singer-songwriter who has fronted Queen, and Cravalho, the voice of the title character in Disney’s

By Associated Press NEW YORK — The shades are on, the skinny tie is knotted and the fedora is perched just so — Dan Aykroyd is ready to look back. The actor-comedian is revving up the Bluesmobile to reminisce about the years he teamed up with John Belushi as the Blues Brothers, taking Hollywood and

By Associated Press The long-awaited debut album from Ice Spice and the movie “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire” with new and old franchise stars are some of the new television, films, music and games headed to a device near you. Also among the streaming offerings worth your time as selected by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists: Wayne

By Associated Press CHOCTAW, Miss. — As the drummers walk onto the field, the players behind them smack their hickory sticks to the beat. The rhythm envelops the stands and a palpable sense of anticipation flows through the crowd. Indigenous peoples have been playing stickball for hundreds of years, and every summer since 1975, teams

By Philip Klinkner Hamilton College The Conversation via AP History usually happens at a leisurely pace, with major events months or even years apart. But this year, it seems like someone has pushed fast-forward, with significant events coming on a weekly or even daily basis. One company is now selling a T-shirt declaring “THIS IS

By My Courier-Tribune Have you ever taken time to watch dragonflies as they dart, float, and dance through the air? By observing them, you can tell they are a beautiful part of nature by their grace and poise through the air. Dragonflies can travel close to 45 miles per hour. They can also fly backward,

By Dr. Keith Roach via My Courier-Tribune DEAR DR. ROACH, I’m a woman who has had terrible experiences with menstruation. I’ve probably seen two dozen different gynecologists, and I complained to every one of them about my painful periods. Not even a painkiller was prescribed. Most of them seem to think that debilitating pain is

By Metro Creative Tofu is a versatile ingredient that takes on the flavors of a dish rather than overpowering it. Made of soybeans, tofu is an excellent protein source and can replace meat or dairy in many meals because of the variety of consistencies tofu comes in. “Fried Tofu in Dashi” is a classic sake