All-Female City Council

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — St. Paul, Minnesota, has an all-woman city council for the first time in its history — and experts say it may be the largest U.S. city to ever have an all-woman council. All seven of St. Paul’s city council members are now under 40 years old, and six out of…

Winter Storm

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A sprawling storm has hit the South with high winds and tornado warnings that blew roofs off homes, flipped over campers and tossed about furniture in Florida. Another storm brought cities across the Midwest to a standstill with more than half of foot of snow. as it heads to the…

Blinken heads to the Mideast

WASHINGTON (AP) — As the Biden administration grapples with an increasingly tense and unstable situation in the Middle East, Secretary of State Antony Blinken is heading to the region this weekend for the fourth time in three months on a tour expected to focus largely on easing resurgent fears that the Israel-Hamas war could erupt…

Wall Street

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street is starting 2024 with a slump and giving back some of its powerful gains from the year before. The S&P 500 was 1% lower Tuesday. The Dow was down 95 points, and the Nasdaq composite was 2.2% lower. Some of last year’s biggest winners were weighing on the market,…

Giving to Non-Profits

Christmas is over, but giving season for nonprofits is just starting to peak. The end of the calendar year is when nonprofits make appeals far and wide to attract donors. And because of holiday traditions or, for some, tax advantages, donors themselves think about giving now. Only 11% of Americans itemize their taxes, which allows…

Holiday Travel

Holiday travel is expected to hit its peak right around now. Airlines are confident they can handle the crowds, but it could come down to the weather. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says the government will be holding the airlines accountable to operate smoothly and treat passengers well if there are disruptions. Auto club AAA forecasts…

Northeastern U.S. Storm

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Utility crews are working to restore power to hundreds of thousands of customers in Maine and some rivers continued to rise following a powerful storm that hit the northeastern U.S. At least five people were killed. Many communities were saturated by rainfall and a New Hampshire town rescued 17 people from…

Trump Trial

WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s looking increasingly unlikely that Donald Trump’s 2020 election interference trial in Washington will start in March. Legal appeals up to the Supreme Court are threatening to delay the case. On Wednesday, the federal judge overseeing the trial put the case on hold while the former president pursues his claim that he’s…

Texas Abortions

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A Texas judge has given a pregnant woman whose fetus had a fatal diagnosis permission to get an abortion in an unprecedented challenge to the state’s ban that took effect after Roe v. Wade was overturned last year. It was unclear Thursday how quickly or whether Kate Cox, a 31-year-old mother…