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After imposing tariffs opposed by much of the U.S. solar industry, the Trump administration is offering a $3 million prize to revive domestic solar manufacturing. The Energy Department said Wednesday that the American Made Solar Prize would help "reassert American leadership in the solar marketplace." Earlier this week, President Donald Trump decided to impose tariffs of up to 30 percent on most imported solar cells used in solar panels. A federal trade panel recommended the tariffs, which had been sought by two U.S. manufacturers. Most of the...
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California's attorney general sued the Trump administration yet again Wednesday, this time for rolling back a fracking rule that the state says is designed to protect public health and the environment. The suit challenges the federal Bureau of Land Management's move against the rule that requires drilling companies to disclose what chemicals they've used for fracking. It's the latest in a series of legal actions by Democratic Attorney General Xavier Becerra against the federal government during his first year as C...
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Members of the Arkansas congressional delegation have asked U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry to block plans for a power line across the state, arguing that recent setbacks make it unlikely for the project to continue. Delegation members sent a letter to Perry on Tuesday urging the Energy Department to either "pause or terminate" the $2.5 billion Plains & Eastern Clean Line Energy project. The project is expected to bring several hundred miles of wind power lines from Oklahoma to Tennessee, cutting through Arkansas. S...
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration slapped sanctions Wednesday on North Korean financial and business networks in China and Russia as it pushed to cut off revenues for the increasingly isolated nation's nuclear and missile programs. The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control also targeted five North Korean shipping companies and six of its vessels. That's part of an intensified effort by Washington to interdict ships that help the North evade sanctions. The sanctions have been tightened significantly in the past year a...
HONG KONG (AP) — A U.S. Treasury official said Wednesday she has urged officials in Hong Kong and Beijing to step up measures to counter North Korean smuggling and financing, as part of Washington's fine tuning of efforts to shut down Pyongyang's nuclear program. Treasury Undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence Sigal Mandelker said she told Hong Kong officials it should be harder for North Korea to use shell companies registered in the Asian business hub. Mandelker said she also repeatedly pressed officials in Beijing to e...
BRYAN, Texas (AP) — While Doug Weedon spent the past three decades helping the homeless in the Brazos Valley, he routinely would take the opportunity to educate the public on the issue. "It's not a choice. It could happen to any of us," he was known to say, then give details about the hearts and minds of the people Twin City Mission took under its roof. The Eagle reports those were the exact words he spoke in 2007 when launching a capital campaign to raise $5.5 million to build a new shelter for the homeless and refuge for domestic violence vic...
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Two bears that were badly burned in last month's Southern California wildfires are back in the wild after doctors used alternative treatments including acupuncture to save them. University of California, Davis researchers brought the two bears and a 5-month-old mountain lion to vets in December. Vet Jamie Peyton says she and colleagues stitched tilapia fish skins on the animals' feet to soothe the burns and promote healing. Doctors commonly use pig and human grafts on burned people. Peyton says the bears soon were up and w...
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Arkansas' attorney general said Wednesday that her office has retained five law firms to help investigate drug companies and prepare for potential legal action over their role in the state's opioid abuse problem. Attorney General Leslie Rutledge said she retained Dover Dixon Horne PLLC in Little Rock and four out-of-state firms for the work, which could result in lawsuits against the drug manufacturers. Rutledge said she did not have a timeframe for taking legal action against the companies. "Some of these companies m...
PHOENIX (AP) — Three months after she was shot in the head in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history and put on life support, an Arizona woman is smiling and talking, demonstrating a recovery that doctors at a Phoenix hospital are calling miraculous. Jovanna Calzadillas will leave Barrow Neurological Institute Thursday and go home with her husband and two children. Arriving at a news conference Wednesday in a wheelchair with her right side immobile, she smiled and said hello to reporters as she was lifted onto a seat in front of n...
BOSTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is asking for the nation's prayers as a young Texas girl prepares to undergo brain surgery at a Boston hospital. White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders conveyed the message to 9-year-old Sophia Marie Campa-Peters during her daily media briefing Tuesday in Washington. Sanders said the Republican president wants the girl from of Brownfield, Texas, to "keep fighting, to never give up, keep inspiring us all, and never, ever lose faith in God." A family website says Sophia is undergoing brain surgery a...
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's second health secretary won Senate approval Wednesday. Alex Azar will take over a sprawling department shaken by his predecessor's early exit. The GOP-majority Senate voted 55-43, largely along party lines, to confirm the former drug company and government executive to join the Trump Cabinet. A 50-year-old Ivy League-educated lawyer, Azar says he has four main priorities for the Health and Human Services Department: help curb the cost of prescription drugs; make health insurance more affordable and a...
NEW YORK (AP) — As if the flu wasn't bad enough already: Researchers have confirmed that flu sharply increases the risk of heart attack for older people. Doctors have long known that flu can trigger heart problems. It's one of the reasons flu shots are recommended for nearly everyone. A new Canadian study found that risk was six times higher in the first week after flu is diagnosed, compared to the year before and after the bug hits. Unlike previous studies, the researchers used lab tests to make sure people suspected of having the flu r...
PARK CITY, Utah (AP) — The Mormon front man of the rock band Imagine Dragons hopes the Sundance Film Festival documentary that follows his journey to becoming an advocate for LGBT Mormon youth triggers real change by his church's leaders and puts an end to what he calls "shaming" of gay and lesbian kids in the faith. Singer Dan Reynolds said he and director Don Argott made the film "Believer" to put a "face to the faceless and a voice to the voiceless." His goal is to show leaders from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that o...
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Arkansas health officials say nearly two dozen people died from the flu in Arkansas last week, pushing the season's total to 70. Health Department data released Wednesday show that most victims were over age 65. One child is in the total. During the week ending last Saturday, Arkansas had "widespread" flu activity. The state rated its "influenza-like illness" as "high." All of Arkansas' 75 counties had flu cases last week. The Health Department data showed that, among emergency room visits last week, nearly 8 percent w...
NEW YORK (AP) — YouTube star Logan Paul has returned to YouTube with a 7-minute suicide prevention video he hopes will "make a difference in the world." Paul was suspended by YouTube after posting video of him in a forest in Japan near what seemed to be a body hanging from a tree. The location is known in Japan as a frequent site for suicides. He returned to the video sharing platform Wednesday with a new video in which he speaks to suicide prevention experts and offers steps to help others, seeking to "further understand the complexity s...
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — It will be up to a federal judge to determine whether New Mexico is doing enough to meet requirements spelled out in a decadeslong legal battle over the services available to people with developmental disabilities. The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday ordered the costly case back to a lower court to determine whether the state is complying with federal law. It also will be up to the district court to determine whether reforms implemented over the years are enough to protect against future violations and w...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists have created a hair-thin implant that can drip medications deep into the brain by remote control and with pinpoint precision. Tested only in animals so far, if the device pans out it could mark a new approach to treating brain diseases — potentially reducing side effects by targeting only the hard-to-reach circuits that need care. "You could deliver things right to where you want, no matter the disease," said Robert Langer, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology whose biomedical engineering tea...
(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.) (THE CONVERSATION) We’d all like to be a little happier. The problem is that much of what determines happiness is outside of our control. Some of us are genetically predisposed to see the world through rose-colored glasses, while others have a generally negative outlook. Bad things happen, to us and in the world. People can be unkind, and jobs can be tedious. But we do have some control over how we spend our leisure time. T...
CLEVELAND (AP) — A medical examiner has identified the remains found in a bag in the backyard of a vacant Cleveland home last year as those of a 4-year-old boy. Cleveland.com reports authorities said Wednesday that no one had reported Eliazar Ruiz missing. No criminal charges have been filed in his death. Cuyahoga (ky-uh-HOH'-guh) County Medical Examiner Thomas Gilson hasn't released a cause of death, but previously said the death appears "extremely suspicious." Police say a tip this month helped authorities identify the remains. DNA tests c...
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri Chief Justice Zel Fischer called Wednesday for expanded drug treatment courts to help fight opioid misuse in the state. Fischer told lawmakers gathered in the Missouri House for the annual State of the Judiciary speech that he expects treatment courts "will be on the front lines of the opioid battle." But he said admission into programs has dropped an average of 23 percent since a 27 percent funding cut this fiscal year. He added that there are now 15 counties without access to any type of treatment court. "...
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Apple's next major update of its mobile software will include an option that will enable owners of older iPhones to turn off a feature that slows the device to prevent aging batteries from shutting down. The free upgrade announced Wednesday will be released this spring. The additional controls are meant to appease iPhone owners outraged since Apple acknowledged last month that its recent software updates had been secretly slowing down older iPhones when their batteries weakened. Many people believed Apple was p...
BOSTON (AP) — A Harvard University theater group with an all-male cast is under fire from those who say it should allow women onstage — and they're asking Mila Kunis to take up their cause. Detractors are calling on the Hasty Pudding troupe to start casting women and to update sexist portrayals of women. Amid the debate, some are calling on Kunis to reconsider her acceptance of the group's Woman of the Year award on Thursday to protest the exclusion. "It would be a wonderful thing for her to not accept this award, to say this is gender ine...
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Look into the night sky at the right time and you might see what amounts to a giant disco ball shimmering and glinting back. The founder of the company that this week launched the first rocket into orbit from New Zealand said on Wednesday he deployed a secret satellite he believes will be the brightest object in the night sky and which he hopes will remind people of their precarious place in a vast universe. Peter Beck, the New Zealander who founded California-based Rocket Lab, says he used most of the space a...
ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Excavations next to the uninhabited Greek islet of Keros, already identified as the enigmatic hub of a forgotten religion, have now revealed traces of intense industrial activity more than 4,500 years ago, Greece's Culture Ministry said Wednesday. Digs last summer showed that Dhaskalio, a rocky islet once joined to Keros, was once almost completely covered in unique monumental structures of gleaming white marble. It also had metal-working facilities and houses, with a sophisticated drainage system underneath. According to...
HOUSTON (AP) — Authorities say skeletal remains found inside the wall of a Houston house are the former homeowner who apparently fell through the attic floor and became trapped. A spokeswoman for the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences said Wednesday there wasn't enough physical evidence to determine cause or manner of death for Mary Cerruti. Tricia Bentley says it appears that Cerruti, who was 61 at the time she disappeared, "accidentally fell from her attic." Neighbors reported Cerruti missing in February 2015. Her home in the H...
