WASHINGTON (AP) — A sharply divided House has approved the Democrats’ sweeping social and environment bill, a big victory for President Joe Biden. Republicans solidly opposed the measure, but Democrats prevailed after the party’s progressives and moderates ended months of disputes over its size and scope. The legislation now moves to the Senate, where moderates…
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican leader Kevin McCarthy seized control of the House floor for more than eight hours overnight, preempting passage of President Joe Biden’s big domestic policy bill with a rambling speech full of vitriol. The California congressman acknowledged he was “angry.” McCarthy staged the speech Thursday into Friday to try to stall or…
BRUNSWICK, Ga. (AP) — The man who fatally shot Ahmaud Arbery has testified that the 25-year-old Black man did not speak, show a weapon or threaten him in any way before he raised his shotgun and pointed it at him. On his second day of testimony Thursday, Travis McMichael said he was “under the impression”…
NEW YORK (AP) — Two men who for decades steadfastly maintained their innocence in the 1965 assassination of civil rights icon Malcolm X will be exonerated. Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.’s office is expected to join attorneys for the two men on Thursday in asking a judge to toss out the convictions. Malcolm X…
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. health officials say an estimated 100,000 Americans died of drug overdoses in one year. That’s a total the nation has never seen. Experts say it’s tied to the COVID-19 pandemic and a more dangerous drug supply. Overdose deaths have been rising for more than two decades. But they accelerated dramatically…
PACIFIC GROVE, Calif. (AP) — There is a ray of hope for the vanishing orange-and-black Western monarch butterflies. The number of creatures wintering along California’s central coast is bouncing back after the population reached an all-time low last year. An annual winter count last year by the Xerces Society recorded fewer than 2,000 butterflies, a…
AURORA, Colo. (AP) — Police say six teenagers were wounded in a drive-by shooting in a park near a suburban Denver high school, but all are expected to survive. The victims in Monday’s shooting range in age from 14 to 18. Aurora police chief Vanessa Wilson says are all students at Aurora Central High School.…
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has signed his $1 trillion infrastructure deal into law on the White House lawn, with a smattering of Republican lawmakers on hand for what could be one of the last shows of bipartisanship ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. The president hopes to use the law to build back…
MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont says he will not seek reelection to the seat he has held for eight terms. The 81-year-old Leahy said Monday that he and his wife have determined that “it is time to pass the torch to the next Vermonter who will carry on this work…
BANGKOK (AP) — Former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Bill Richardson says American journalist Danny Fenster has been released from prison in Myanmar. Richardson said in a statement Monday that Fenster had been handed over to him in Myanmar and would be soon on his way home via Qatar. Fenster, the managing editor of the…