National News

Today is Sunday, Sept. 22, the 265th day of 2019. There are 100 days left in the year. Today's Highlight in History: On Sept. 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, declaring all slaves in rebel states should be free as of January 1, 1863...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Pentagon on Friday announced it will deploy additional U.S. troops and missile defense equipment to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, as President Donald Trump has at least for now put off any immediate military strike on Iran in response to the attack on the Saudi oil industry...

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump urged the new leader of Ukraine this summer to investigate the son of former Vice President Joe Biden, a person familiar with the matter said Friday. Democrats condemned what they saw as a clear effort to damage a political rival, now at the heart of an explosive whistleblower complaint against Trump...

HOUSTON -- Emergency workers used boats Friday to rescue about 60 residents of a Houston-area community still trapped in their homes by floodwaters following one of the wettest tropical cyclones in U.S. history. At least four deaths have been linked to the remnants of Tropical Storm Imelda, which deluged parts of Texas and Louisiana and drew comparisons to Hurricane Harvey two years ago. Officials took advantage of receding floodwaters to begin assessing how many homes and cars were flooded...

NEW YORK -- The United States on Friday signed an agreement paving the way for the U.S. to send many asylum-seekers to one of the world's most violent countries, El Salvador. But both countries must first take necessary legal actions and implement major border security and asylum procedures before it would go into effect, according to a draft copy of the agreement obtained by The Associated Press...

NEW YORK -- Walmart is getting out of the vaping business. The nation's largest retailer said Friday it will stop selling electronic cigarettes at its namesake stores and Sam's Clubs in the U.S. when it sells out its current inventory. The nation's largest retailer said the move is due to "growing federal, state and local regulatory complexity" regarding vaping products. It also comes after several hundred people have mysteriously fallen ill after vaping, and eight have died...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- California and 22 other states sued Friday to stop the Trump administration from revoking the authority of the nation's most populous state to set emission standards for cars and trucks. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra sued the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration a day after it issued a regulation designed to pre-empt the state's authority to set its own rules for how much pollution can come from cars and trucks...

BERLIN -- A wave of climate change protests swept across the globe Friday, with hundreds of thousands of young people sending a message to leaders headed for a U.N. summit: The warming world can't wait for action. Marches, rallies and demonstrations were held from Canberra to Kabul and Cape Town to Copenhagen, and more were set to follow as the day went on...

BERLIN -- Researchers from more than a dozen nations launched Friday the biggest and most complex expedition ever attempted in the central Arctic -- a yearlong journey through the ice they hope will improve the scientific models that underpin our understanding of climate change...

BUQAYQ, Saudi Arabia -- The heart of Saudi Arabia's oil industry remained wrapped in scaffolding Friday as workers sought to repair the charred innards and shrapnel-blasted arteries caused by drone-and-cruise-missile attacks that raised tensions between the U.S. and Iran...

BAGHDAD -- As the United States and Israel escalate their push to contain Iranian influence in the Middle East, countries in Tehran's orbit are feeling the heat. Pro-Iranian militias across Lebanon, Syria and Iraq are being targeted, both with economic sanctions and precision airstrikes hitting their bases and infrastructure. This is putting the governments that host them in the crosshairs of an escalating confrontation and raising the prospect of open conflict...

Today is Saturday, Sept. 21, the 264th day of 2019. There are 101 days left in the year. Today's Highlight in History: On Sept. 21, 1985, In North Korea and South Korea, family members who had been separated for decades were allowed to visit each other as both countries opened their borders in an unprecedented family-reunion program...

CHICAGO -- A pigeon apparently didn't think much of a lawmaker's ideas to address a messy situation at a Chicago Transit Authority stop known by some as "pigeon poop station." One of the birds did its business on the head of Democratic state Rep. Jaime Andrade as he was discussing the problem with a reporter outside of the Irving Park Blue Line station. During the interview, Andrade rubbed the top of his head and said, "I think they just got me." They did. --Associated Press...

WASHINGTON -- The Trump administration plunged into an extraordinary showdown with Congress on Thursday over access to a whistleblower's reported complaint about incidents including a private conversation between President Donald Trump and a foreign leader. The blocked complaint is both "serious" and "urgent," the government's intelligence watchdog said...

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump on Thursday poured cold water on prospects for a bipartisan compromise on gun legislation, even as Attorney General William Barr circulated a draft plan on Capitol Hill to expand background checks. In a Fox News interview Thursday, Trump said no deal is imminent, more than six weeks after mass shootings in Texas and Ohio that killed more than 30 people...

BEAUMONT, Texas -- The remnants of Tropical Storm Imelda unleashed torrential rain Thursday in parts of Texas and Louisiana, prompting hundreds of water rescues, a hospital evacuation and road closures as the powerful storm system drew comparisons to Hurricane Harvey two years ago...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- Any attack on Iran by the U.S. or Saudi Arabia will spark an "all-out war," Tehran's top diplomat warned Thursday, raising the stakes as Washington and Riyadh weigh a response to a drone-and-missile strike on the kingdom's oil industry that shook global energy markets...

TORONTO -- Confessing a "massive blind spot" in his thinking, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau moved to contain a growing furor Thursday after a photo surfaced of him in brownface at a 2001 "Arabian Nights" costume party and two other similar incidents came to light...

KABUL, Afghanistan -- A powerful suicide truck bomb devastated a hospital in southern Afghanistan early Thursday morning, killing 20 people and wounding 97 others, according to the province's governor, while a deadly drone strike in the country's east was blamed on U.S. forces...

LONDON -- British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was accused by one of the country's former leaders of obstructing Parliament by shutting down the legislature for five weeks, as a landmark legal challenge to the suspension wrapped up Thursday at the U.K. Supreme Court...

WASHINGTON -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, trying to seize the agenda on a top consumer issue, announced an ambitious prescription drug plan Thursday to allow Medicare to negotiate prices for seniors and younger people. The proposal would direct Medicare to bargain over as many as 250, but no fewer than 25, of the costliest drugs. Insulin is on the list. Drugmakers refusing to negotiate could face steep penalties. Companies raising prices beyond inflation would have to pay rebates to Medicare...

NEW YORK -- President Donald Trump asked a federal court Thursday to block an effort by New York prosecutors to obtain his tax returns as part of a criminal investigation, opening another front in the president's efforts to keep his financial information private...

Today is Friday, Sept. 20, the 263rd day of 2019. There are 102 days left in the year. Today's Highlight in History: On Sept. 20, 2001, during an address to a joint session of Congress, President George W. Bush announced a new Cabinet-level office to fortify homeland security and named Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge its director...

OREM, Utah -- Orem police used their vehicle sirens to drive a 2-year-old bear up a tree after its presence in the central Utah caused traffic delays Wednesday morning. State Division of Wildlife Resources spokeswoman Faith Heaton Jolley said division personnel then were able to tranquilize the bear and remove it from the tree. Jolley said the bear was placed in a trap and relocated to the Wasatch Mountains...

NEW YORK -- The number and rate of abortions across the United States have plunged to their lowest levels since the procedure became legal nationwide in 1973, according to new figures released Wednesday. The report from the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights, counted 862,000 abortions in the U.S. in 2017. That's down from 926,000 tallied in the group's previous report for 2014, and from just more than 1 million counted for 2011...

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump announced Wednesday his administration is revoking California's authority to set auto mileage standards stricter than those issued by federal regulators, a move critics said would result in less fuel-efficient cars that create more planet-warming pollution...

WASHINGTON -- A sharply divided Federal Reserve cut its benchmark interest rate Wednesday for a second time this year but declined to signal further rate cuts are likely this year. The Fed's move reduced its key short-term rate -- which influences many consumer and business loans -- by an additional quarter-point to a range of 1.75% to 2%...

SAN DIEGO -- President Donald Trump remains on a war footing. With California. Trump's primary mission during his two-day visit to the state was to raise millions from wealthy Republicans. But he also made a point of deriding the state's handling of its homeless crisis, and Wednesday, he issued a long-expected challenge to California's authority to reduce car emissions...

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump on Wednesday named Robert O'Brien, his chief hostage negotiator and an established figure in Republican policy circles, as his new national security adviser. O'Brien, the fourth person in two years to hold the job, becomes the administration's point person on national security amid rising tensions with Iran following the weekend attack on Saudi oil installations and fresh uncertainty in Afghanistan after the halt in peace talks with the Taliban...

WASHINGTON -- Executives of Facebook, Google and Twitter told Congress on Wednesday they've gotten better and faster at detecting and removing violent extremist content on their social media platforms in the face of mass shootings fueled by hatred. Questioned at a hearing by the Senate Commerce Committee, the executives said they are spending money on technology to improve their ability to flag extremist content and taking the initiative to reach out to law enforcement authorities to try to head off potential violent incidents.. ...

BOSTON -- Massachusetts U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy III, a scion of one of America's most storied political families, is set to announce he will challenge U.S. Sen. Edward Markey in the state's Democratic primary in 2020. A person with knowledge of Kennedy's plans told The Associated Press that Kennedy will formally make the announcement Saturday. The person wasn't authorized to pre-empt Kennedy's announcement and spoke Wednesday on condition of anonymity...

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia -- U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday called the attack on Saudi Arabia's oil installations an "act of war" against the kingdom by Iran, as the Saudis displayed missile and drone wreckage and cited other evidence they said shows the raid was "unquestionably sponsored by Iran."...

JERUSALEM -- Israel's Arab coalition appears poised to emerge as the main opposition bloc following Tuesday's election, a historic first granting a new platform to a long-marginalized minority. With more than 90% of votes counted Wednesday, the Joint List was expected to win about a dozen seats in the 120-member assembly, coming third after the Blue and White party of former military chief Benny Gantz and the right-wing Likud party of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- A cruise missile and drone fragments Saudi Arabia said it recovered from an attack on its oil industry bear similarities to Iranian-manufactured weapons, though more information is needed to make a definitive link, analysts told The Associated Press on Wednesday...

STRASBOURG, France -- British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was accused by European Union officials Wednesday of failing to negotiate seriously and branded the "father of lies" by a lawyer in the U.K. Supreme Court, as his plan to leave the EU at the end of October faced hurdles on both sides of the Channel...

Today in History Today is Thursday, Sept. 19, the 262nd day of 2019. There are 103 days left in the year. Today's Highlight in History: On Sept. 19, 2008, struggling to stave off financial catastrophe, the Bush administration laid out a radical bailout plan calling for a takeover of a half-trillion dollars or more in worthless mortgages and other bad debt held by tottering institutions. Relieved investors sent stocks soaring on Wall Street and around the globe...

AUSTIN, Texas -- Thousands of people packed under the marble arch of Manhattan's Washington Square Park to hear Elizabeth Warren on Monday. They didn't show up by accident. The crowd was the product of a carefully planned, data-driven strategy to identify supporters, attract them to a rally and ultimately convert them into voters, a plan that goes well beyond producing a compelling scene for television...

WASHINGTON -- A year after failing to meet its enlistment goal for the first time in 13 years, the U.S. Army is now on track to meet a lower 2019 target after revamping its recruitment effort. Army leaders said they expect to sign up more than 68,000 active duty soldiers for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, as the largest branch of the U.S. military increasingly turns to social media and other new online methods to find potential recruits...

DETROIT -- Contract talks between the United Auto Workers and General Motors showed some signs of progress Tuesday as a strike by more than 49,000 employees extended into a second day. The walkout brought to a standstill more than 50 factories and parts warehouses in the union's first strike against the No. 1 U.S. automaker in over a decade. Workers left factories and formed picket lines shortly after midnight Monday in the dispute over a new four-year contract...

WASHINGTON -- The Trump administration is poised to revoke California's authority to set auto mileage standards, asserting only the federal government has the power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fuel economy. Conservative and free-market groups have been asked to attend a formal announcement of the rollback set for this afternoon at Environmental Protection Agency headquarters in Washington...

WASHINGTON -- Democrats' first impeachment hearing quickly turned hostile Tuesday as their sole witness, former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, stonewalled many of their questions and said they were "focusing on petty and personal politics."...

RIO RANCHO, N.M. -- President Donald Trump is making a rare visit to California, a Democratic stronghold where he is expected to rake in millions of dollars during a series of fundraisers for his reelection effort that are almost certain to be met with jeering protests...

WASHINGTON -- Democrats controlling the House are steering clear of controversy in a short-term, government-wide spending measure that's needed to prevent a government shutdown at the end of September. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has agreed to a White House request to replenish funds for bailout payments to farmers absorbing heavy losses as a result of President Donald Trump's trade battles with China...

JERUSALEM -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fell short of securing a parliamentary majority with his religious and nationalist allies in national elections Tuesday, initial exit polls showed, setting the stage for a period of coalition negotiations that could threaten his political future and clear the way for him to be tried on corruption charges...

Today is Wednesday, Sept. 18, the 261st day of 2019. There are 104 days left in the year. Today's Highlight in History: On Sept. 18, 1793, President George Washington laid the cornerstone of the U.S. Capitol. On this date: In 1850, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act, which created a force of federal commissioners charged with returning escaped slaves to their owners...

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump declared Monday it "looks" like Iran was behind the explosive attack on Saudi Arabian oil facilities. But he stressed military retaliation was not yet on the table in response to the strike against a key U.S. Mideast ally...

FRESNO, Calif. — California authorities have captured an emu after the flightless fugitive led officers down a highway. The Fresno Bee reported Friday the bird was apprehended following a brief pursuit by California Highway Patrol officers. ...

SAN ANTONIO -- Tent courtrooms opened Monday in two Texas border cities to help process thousands of migrants who are being forced by the Trump administration to wait in Mexico while their requests for asylum wind through clogged immigration courts...

BOSTON -- OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma has embarked on a multibillion-dollar plan to settle thousands of lawsuits over the nation's deadly opioid crisis by transforming itself in bankruptcy court into a sort of hybrid between a business and a charity...

WASHINGTON -- For a second straight time, the Federal Reserve is set to cut interest rates this week to try to protect the economy from the consequences of a global slowdown and President Donald Trump's trade war with China. After that, no one -- not even the Fed itself -- seems sure what it will do. The economic landscape looks too hazy and vulnerable to unexpected events, such as oil price spikes resulting from the weekend attack on Saudi Arabia's oil production facilities...