Sorted by date Results 101 - 125 of 153
WASHINGTON (AP) — America's top diplomat stepped back Friday from his offer of unconditional talks with North Korea, telling world powers the nuclear-armed nation must earn the right to negotiate with the United States. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's declaration before the U.N. Security Council marked a stunning reversal after he proposed discussions with Pyongyang without preconditions earlier this week. That overture was almost immediately rebutted by White House officials. Still, Tillerson had planned to reiterate his call at a s...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senior Trump administration officials outlined their view Friday that Jerusalem's Western Wall ultimately will be declared a part of Israel, in another declaration sure to enflame passions among Palestinians and others in the Middle East. Although they said the ultimate borders of the holy city must be resolved through Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, the officials — speaking ahead of Vice President Mike Pence's trip to the region — essentially ruled out any scenario that didn't maintain Israeli control over the holie...
OSHKOSH, Wis. (AP) — A plane that led the invasion of Normandy during World War II has been saved from a junkyard and is being carefully restored in Wisconsin. The C-47, called "That's All, Brother," carried the first paratroopers who were dropped behind German lines at Normandy. The aircraft led the more than 800 other C-47s also carrying paratroopers. The plane was lost for 70 years and was accidentally discovered by an Air Force historian at the Basler Turbo Conversions junkyard in Oshkosh in 2015, WLUK-TV reported . The historian was r...
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump frequently casts his first year in office as a string of successes and campaign promises fulfilled. But less than a quarter of Americans think Trump has made good on the pledges he made to voters while running for president, according to a new poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Among Republicans, just half say Trump has kept his promises, which included vows to overhaul his predecessor's health care law, withdraw the United States from a nuclear accord with Iran and i...
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is embarking on a major campaign to turn public opinion against the nation's largely family-based immigration system ahead of an all-out push next year to move toward a more merit-based structure. The administration was laying the groundwork for such a drive even before an Islamic State-inspired extremist who was born in Bangladesh tried to blow himself up in Midtown Manhattan on Monday. It is assembling data to bolster the argument that the current legal immigration system is not only ill-conceived, but d...
ROME (AP) — A playwright who says Dustin Hoffman exposed himself to her and had her massage his feet in a hotel room when she was 16 said Friday that she spent years in guilty silence and took pains to not dress suggestively in professional contexts because she assumed the incident was her fault. Playwright Cori Thomas was a classmate of Hoffman's daughter in 1980 when she says she met the actor, who invited her to his New York hotel room to wait for her mother after dinner with the teenagers. After his daughter left, Hoffman went to take a s...
LONDON (AP) — Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will marry in St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle on May 19 — the same day as one of the biggest English sports events of the year, the FA Cup final. The date was confirmed Friday by the prince's Kensington Palace office. While most British royal weddings are on weekdays, this one is a Saturday, and the same day as the soccer showdown at London's Wembley Stadium. Harry's grandmother Queen Elizabeth II and other royals are expected to attend the wedding, along with Markle's parents, Thomas Mar...
LONDON (AP) — Oxford Dictionaries recognized the power of the millennial generation Friday with its 2017 word of the year : youthquake. Oxford lexicographers say there was a fivefold increase in use of the term between 2016 and 2017. It is defined as "a significant cultural, political, or social change arising from the actions or influence of young people." The word, coined almost 50 years ago by then-Vogue editor Diana Vreeland, has been used to describe phenomena including surging youth support for Britain's Labour Party and the election o...
NEW YORK (AP) — After years of tremors, the earthquake that had long been predicted finally shook Hollywood. Disney's deal to purchase most of 21st Century Fox ends the era of the "Big Six" major movie studios, toppling one of the industry's most famed studios and dramatically redrawing the Hollywood map. Disney's move — to pay $52.4 billion in stock for Fox assets — has countless reverberations. But by effectively absorbing Fox's film studio, 20th Century Fox, Disney has rapidly accelerated the industry contraction that many considered inevi...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Most Americans think Donald Trump did something illegal or at least unethical regarding ties between his presidential campaign and Russia — and they think he's trying to obstruct the investigation looking into those possible connections. The deeply divided country is more concerned about health care and the economy than any collusion with the Kremlin, according to a new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. But the survey also shows that Americans are unhappy with the way Trump is dealing wit...
CHICAGO (AP) — Dueling experts deployed statistics to make their case Thursday in U.S. District Court in Chicago in a first-of-its-kind hearing to determine if phony drug stash-house stings run by federal agents dating back to the 1990s are racially biased. More than 40 people convicted in such stings could go free if a special nine-judge panel eventually rules that discrimination underpins the stings. The operations run by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives typically involve agents posing as cartel couriers who t...
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is embarking on a major campaign to turn public opinion against the nation's largely family-based immigration system ahead of an all-out push next year to move toward a more merit-based structure. The administration was laying the groundwork for such a drive even before an Islamic State-inspired extremist who was born in Bangladesh tried to blow himself up in Midtown Manhattan on Monday. It is assembling data to bolster the argument that the current legal immigration system is not only ill-conceived, but danger...
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — A South Dakota state park known for annual buffalo roundups drawing thousands of spectators will perform an unscheduled one in the coming days to determine how a historic wildfire affected the animals. Officials at Custer State Park located its bison herd by Thursday afternoon, and every animal found so far was alive, said Kobee Stalder, the park's visitor services program manager. However, he cautioned it's unlikely all wildlife escaped unscathed from the fire that has consumed more than 84 square miles (218 square k...
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The University of Minnesota adopted a policy on Friday that will require all employees to report incidents of sexual harassment or sexual assault against students. The mandate approved by the Board of Regents will go into effect next month, the Star Tribune reported. Incidents of stalking or "relationship violence" must also be reported to the campus Title IX office, which handles these types of investigations. Past university policy required only supervisors and employees in advisory roles to report incidents of sexual m...
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal appeals court has sided with reporters in a court fight over documents that began after an FBI agent pretended to be an Associated Press journalist while investigating bomb threats at a Washington state high school. When the ruse became public in 2014, the AP and a press freedom organization attempted to get government records about the case and any other times FBI agents have impersonated journalists. After initially getting no records from the FBI, the AP and Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press sued. T...
MANCHACA, Texas (AP) — When California rings in the new year with the sale of recreational pot for the first time, Texas will be tiptoeing into its own marijuana milestone: a medical cannabis program so restrictive that doubts swirl over who will even use it. Texas is the last big state to allow some form of medical marijuana, albeit an oil extract so low in the psychoactive component, THC, that it couldn't get a person high. Though it might seem that Texas policymakers have softened their attitude toward the drug, bringing them more in line wi...
They made music that inspired legions of fans. Rock 'n' roll founding fathers Chuck Berry and Fats Domino, rockers Tom Petty and Greg Allman, grunge icon Chris Cornell, country superstar Glen Campbell and jazz great Al Jarreau were among the notable figures who died in 2017, leaving a void in virtually every genre of music. Comedians Jerry Lewis, Don Rickles and Dick Gregory left their own indelible mark with their iconic routines. And the story of the 1960s could not be told without Hugh Hefner and Charles Manson, who were synonymous with the...
HOUSTON (AP) — The number of rigs exploring for oil and natural gas in the U.S. slipped by one this week to 930. That's well above the 637 rigs that were active this time a year ago. According to Houston oilfield services company Baker Hughes, 747 rigs were drilling for oil and 183 for natural gas this week. Baker Hughes released its tabulation Friday. Among major oil- and gas-producing states, Pennsylvania gained three rigs and North Dakota and Wyoming each added one. New Mexico and Texas each lost two rigs while Louisiana declined by one. A...
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. industrial production rose 0.2 percent in November due to a rebound in extracting oil and natural gas after a stoppage due to Hurricane Nate. The Federal Reserve said Friday that mining activity climbed 2 percent last month, while manufacturing activity rose 0.2 percent. Production of machinery and primary metals contributed to gains in the factory sector, while the overall growth for industrial output largely came from restarting oil and natural gas drilling. Production at utilities fell 1.9 percent. During the past 1...
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump and his administration are ignoring one side of the ledger when they claim big savings from the federal regulations they've been able to roll back over most of this year. Here's a look at some of Trump's statements about regulations and the economy Thursday and how they compare with the facts: TRUMP: "Instead of adding costs, as so many others have done, and other countries, frankly, are doing in many cases, and it's hurting them, for the first time in decades, we achieved regulatory savings." THE F...
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — On a Sunday in December 1937, the U.S.S. Panay was patrolling the Yangtze River in China after rescuing American diplomats and journalists from the country torn by fighting between Chinese troops and invading Japanese forces. Aboard the Panay was U.S. Army Capt. Frank N. Roberts, a 40-year-old Oskaloosa native, who had been an assistant military attaché at the American embassy in Nanking. Japanese fighters and bombers earlier had bombed Chinese forces. Since 1931 when Japanese forces had invaded China, forces from Japan an...
ELLSTON, Iowa (AP) — Bargain hunters beware! A four-bedroom farmhouse in southern Iowa listed online for free comes with a catch: The new owner must move the building from the current owners' land. Roger and Linda Dolecheck wrote in a Craigslist ad that the Ringgold County home will be torn down this winter if no one takes up their offer. The Dolechecks have been trying for years to sell the house where they raised their four children, the Des Moines Register reported . "It needs a family to enjoy it the way ours did," Roger Dolecheck wrote i...
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — An emergency state program helped nearly 500 drought-stricken North Dakota ranchers with the expense of hauling in hay to maintain their herds through winter. The state Emergency Commission in late August approved $1.5 million for the Agriculture Department's Emergency Hay Transportation Assistance Program. Figures released this week show 491 successful applicants will be reimbursed on average about one-third of their hay-hauling costs. Ranchers who applied moved more than 289,000 bales a combined distance of 1.3 m...
ENOLA, Pa. (AP) — A recent Monday was a perfect hunting day. It was sunny, unseasonably warm and Jason McCombs had already shot a six-pointer that morning with his son Connor at his side. That, in itself, was something a feat. They were two hunters among dozens staked out on state game land in Perry County for the start of the season. Deer, in McCombs' experience, are smart enough to avoid the fray. McCombs was in the parking lot when Connor called at 3:15 p.m. from his post. He was in the middle of conversation and his heart skipped. He i...
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Arkansas lawmakers have put on hold a plan to ban an herbicide that farmers in several states say has drifted on to their crops and caused damage, agreeing with a panel's recommendation to call on regulators to revise restrictions proposed on the weed killer. The Arkansas Legislative Council approved a recommendation Friday to delay considering the state Plant Board's proposal to ban dicamba's use from April 16 through October 31 next year. The council is the Legislature's main governing body when lawmakers aren't in s...
