U.S. News

Navajo Nation surpasses Cherokee to become largest US tribe

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — The Navajo Nation has by far the largest land mass of any Native American tribe in the country. Now, it's boasting the largest enrolled population, too.

U.S. News

Defense to remind jurors Durst says he didn’t kill friend

LOS ANGELES — Robert Durst's sloppy mix of truth and lies over the years will prove to be the multimillionaire's downfall, a prosecutor said during a new round of opening statements at his murder trial.

AP Investigations

Biden moves to improve legal services for poor, minorities

DETROIT — President Joe Biden took executive action Tuesday to ensure minorities, low-income Americans and others have better access to quality legal representation after services dwindled during the Trump administration.

U.S. News

More California counties see COVID-19 case improvements

LOS ANGELES — Five more California counties will move to less restrictive tiers because of improving COVID-19 conditions and no counties regressed, the state Department of Public Health said Tuesday.

U.S. News

Judge to Durst jurors after delay: ‘Where did we leave off?’

INGLEWOOD, Calif. — The murder trial of multimillionaire Robert Durst resumed Monday without the defendant present and with arguments about whether the case should continue after a rare 14-month recess.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

California will stay masked for another month

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California won’t lift its mask requirement until June 15 to give the public and businesses time to prepare and ensure cases stay low, the state health director said Monday, a decision that runs counter to many other states including Oregon and Washington that quickly aligned with last week's new federal guidelines.

U.S. News

Arizona mom denies killing 2 children with meat cleaver

PHOENIX — An Arizona woman accused in the grisly slayings of her two children with a meat cleaver made her first court appearance Monday, where she denied harming them.

U.S. News

EXPLAINER: How Ohio’s Vax-a-Million lottery will work

COLUMBUS, Ohio — With the first drawing for Ohio’s Vax-a-Million lottery system scheduled for May 26, state officials announced a change to the process Monday that will require participants to opt-in.

U.S. News

Arson arrest made in LA wildfire that forced evacuations

LOS ANGELES — An arson suspect was arrested in connection with a Los Angeles wildfire that forced evacuations in canyons where thick vegetation hasn't burned in more than 60 years, authorities said Monday.

U.S. News

Prosecutor says trial in Iowa student’s death won’t be easy

DAVENPORT, Iowa — A prosecutor warned prospective jurors Monday that the trial of a Mexican national charged in the 2018 fatal stabbing of a University of Iowa student will include graphic evidence that will be emotionally difficult to see and hear.

Fires

Police: 2 arson suspects detained in Los Angeles wildfire

LOS ANGELES — A smoky wildfire churning through a Los Angeles canyon community gained strength Sunday as about a thousand residents remained under evacuation orders while others were warned they should get ready to leave, authorities said.

General News

Arrest made after boy, 4, found slain on Dallas street

DALLAS — A man was arrested in the slaying of a 4-year-old boy whose body was found lying on a neighborhood street in Dallas, police said.

General News

Minneapolis suburb OKs roadmap for policing changes

BROOKLYN CENTER, Minn. — Elected officials in a Minneapolis suburb where a police officer fatally shot Daunte Wright during a traffic stop in April approved a resolution that puts the city on track to major changes to its policing practices.

U.S. News

Second Amendment sanctuaries facing 1st court test in Oregon

SALEM, Ore. — The first court test of whether local governments can ban police from enforcing certain gun laws is playing out in a rural Oregon county, one of a wave of U.S. counties declaring itself a Second Amendment sanctuary.

U.S. News

As GOP restricts voting, Democrats move to expand access

Last year, for the first time in more than a quarter-century, Democrats in Virginia took control of the statehouse and the governor's mansion. Since then, one priority has become clear: expanding voting rights.

Business

US rail industry defends safety record amid staffing cuts

OMAHA, Neb. — Even as railroads are operating longer and longer freight trains that sometimes stretch for miles, the companies have drastically reduced staffing levels, prompting unions to warn that moves meant to increase profits could endanger safety and even result in disasters.

Business

Cedar Rapids tries to turn city of stumps into tree oasis

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — Until one afternoon last August, Cedar Rapids had always been a lush, leafy island surrounded by a sea of corn and soybeans, with its giant oaks, sycamores and other trees towering over the community’s neighborhoods and providing a shady refuge from Iowa’s steamy summer heat.

Lifestyle

Some aren’t ready to give up masks despite new CDC guidance

Like more than 120 million other Americans, Jan Massie is fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and can pretty much give up wearing a mask under the latest guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

U.S. News

Police: Missing Texas tiger has been found safe, healthy

HOUSTON — A tiger that frightened residents after it was last seen briefly wandering around a Houston neighborhood has been found and appears to be unharmed, police announced Saturday evening.

General News

‘Sins of our past’: Apologies for 1970 Jackson St. shootings

JACKSON, Miss. — The mayor of Mississippi's capital city and a state senator both apologized Saturday for shootings 51 years ago by city and state police officers that killed two people and injured 12 others on the campus of a historically Black college.

Lifestyle

NYC Pride parade bans police; Gay officers ‘disheartened’

NEW YORK — Organizers of New York City’s Pride events said Saturday they are banning police and other law enforcement from marching in their huge annual parade until at least 2025 and will also seek to keep on-duty officers a block away from the celebration of LGBTQ people and history.

Middle East

Media demand Israel explain destruction of news offices

NEW YORK — News organizations demanded an explanation Saturday for an Israeli airstrike that targeted and destroyed a Gaza City building housing the offices of The Associated Press, broadcaster Al-Jazeera and other media outlets.

U.S. News

Soldiers who perished on secret mission are memorialized

PORTLAND, Maine — Nearly 60 years ago, dozens of soldiers assembled for a top secret mission to Vietnam, three years before President Lyndon Johnson officially sent U.S. combat troops to the country.

U.S. News

‘There was no going back’: Migrants send kids into US alone

LA JOYA, Texas — Marely had traveled for 13 days, trekking with her mother from Central America to the busiest corridor for illegal U.S.-Mexico border crossings. Then, as the 12-year-old Salvadoran girl got on an inflatable raft to cross the Rio Grande in Texas in the middle of the night, she discovered her mom wasn’t coming with her.

U.S. News

Philadelphia now says MOVE victims’ remains weren’t cremated

PHILADELPHIA — A day after Philadelphia's health commissioner was forced to resign over the cremation of partial remains belonging to victims of a 1985 bombing of the headquarters of a Black organization, the city now says those remains were never actually destroyed.

Business

Water crisis ‘couldn’t be worse’ on Oregon-California border

PORTLAND, Ore. — The water crisis along the California-Oregon border went from dire to catastrophic this week as federal regulators shut off irrigation water to farmers from a critical reservoir and said they would not send extra water to dying salmon downstream or to a half-dozen wildlife refuges that harbor millions of migrating birds each year.

Business

Mississippi River traffic resumes under damaged bridge

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — River traffic has reopened on the Mississippi River near Memphis, Tennessee, three days after it was closed when a crack was discovered in the Interstate 40 bridge that connects Tennessee and Arkansas, the U.S.

Business

California budget has $35 million for basic income programs

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to use a sliver of the state's massive budget surplus to give poor people money each month with no rules on how they spend it.

U.S. News

Columbus reaches $10M settlement for family of Andre Hill

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio’s capital city will pay a $10 million settlement for the family of Andre Hill, a Black man who was fatally shot by a white Columbus police officer in December as he emerged from a garage holding a cellphone, the Columbus city attorney announced Friday.

U.S. News

A university honors its grads 51 years after police shooting

JACKSON, Miss. — Days after National Guard members killed four Kent State University students who were protesting the Vietnam War, white police officers marched onto the campus of a historically Black college in Mississippi’s capital city to violently suppress protests against racism.

Business

Free offices with a view: 4 lighthouses, courtesy of feds

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Dreading your eventual return to the office? The federal government is making available — for free — some waterfront workspaces with killer views that are sure to entice. But there's a catch.

Business

Colorado speedway program aims to curb illegal street racing

MORRISON, Colo. — Frustrated by an increase in dangerous street racing amid the pandemic, Denver police have deployed the department's helicopter to track races, closed lanes in areas often used by racers and sent officers to places where the groups meet.

Lifestyle

Street racing surges across US amid coronavirus pandemic

Jaye Sanford, a 52-year-old mother of two, was driving home in suburban Atlanta on Nov. 21 when a man in a Dodge Challenger muscle car who was allegedly street racing crashed into her head-on, killing her.

Business

Conservatives seize on gas crunch to blame Biden, stir base

A graphic calling the East Coast fuel supply crunch “Biden’s Gas Crisis.” A tweet speculating that gas stations running dry was an “INSIDE JOB.” A meme depicting the president and vice president cheering about the “Green New Deal” in front of a snaking line at a fuel station.

U.S. News

New Washington state law makes drug possession a misdemeanor

OLYMPIA, Wash. — The jeans were from American Eagle, via Goodwill, and they were too short for their new owner, 6-foot Shannon Bowman.

Trials

Trial for 3 ex-cops charged in Floyd’s death pushed to March

MINNEAPOLIS — The trial of three former Minneapolis police officers charged with aiding and abetting in the death of George Floyd will be pushed back to March 2022, in part to allow the publicity over Derek Chauvin's conviction to cool off, a judge ruled Thursday.

Business

‘Amazing’: Pilots, passenger uninjured after midair crash

DENVER — The pilot of an airplane that collided with another midair near Denver requested emergency landing for engine failure, not knowing that his plane was nearly ripped in half, according to air traffic control audio.

Oddities

EXPLAINER: Ohio offers $1M weekly prize as vaccine incentive

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has made many newsworthy statements in his long political career, but perhaps none has generated such an immediate and intense response as announcing a weekly $1 million prize and full-ride college scholarships to entice more Ohioans to get the COVID-19 vaccine.

Business

Inside one network cashing in on vaccine disinformation

The couple in the website videos could be hawking any number of products.

Business

Twin MDs battle entrenched racism in the medical world

The inseparable sisters always stood out — identical twins from Twinsburg Ohio, whip-smart students from the side of town with unpaved streets and no sidewalks, excluded from the gifted track because they were Black.

Lifestyle

Some proms are back, with masks, testing and distancing

BOSTON — A minor league baseball stadium. A negative coronavirus test and absolutely no slow dancing.

U.S. News

California tree trimmer charged in deadly throat-slashings

OROVILLE, Calif. — A tree trimmer in rural Northern California has been charged in throat-slashing serial killings that left three people dead, prosecutors announced Thursday.

Business

Pandemic-hit oyster farmers turn to conservation to survive

DURHAM, N.H. — When the pandemic struck last year, oyster farmer Chris Bertis soon realized the restaurants that bought his oysters had mostly closed. Without a new market, his Ferda Farms faced potential economic ruin...

Politics

Officials: Tiny uptick in 2020 military sex assault reports

WASHINGTON — Reports of sexual assaults across the U.S. military increased by a very small amount in 2020, a year when troops were largely locked down for months as bases around the world grappled with the COVID-19 pandemic, according to U...