Tag Archives: associated press

North Carolina Republican activists have chosen the person running the state’s party day-today operations to become its next chairman, succeeding Michael Whatley after he was elevated to lead the Republican National Committee earlier this month. Members of the state GOP’s Executive Committee voting Tuesday night in Johnston County elected party Executive Director Jason Simmons as state chairman over Lee County …

The federal government is asking a court to halt California’s enforcement of a rule requiring prison guards to be clean-shaven, saying it amounts to religious discrimination for Sikhs, Muslims and others who wear beards as an expression of their faith. The civil rights complaint filed Monday by the U.S. Justice Department says the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s prohibition …

New York lawmakers are expected to miss the state’s budget deadline as negotiations over housing and education funding remain ongoing, a top official said Wednesday. The due date for adopting a new state budget is April 1, but legislators are set to give themselves a extension early next week that will keep government functioning while talks continue, Senate Leader Andrea …

Alabama has set a May 30 execution date for a man convicted in the 2004 slaying of a couple during a robbery. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey set the date for the execution by lethal injection of Jamie Mills, 50. The Alabama Supreme Court last week authorized the governor to set an execution date. MISSOURI SETS EXECUTION DATE FOR SECOND DEATH …

Passersby in Beijing during winter or early spring might happen upon groups of residents playing fetch with birds. The players blow plastic beads into the air through carbon tubes for the birds — often from the migratory wutong species — to catch and return, in exchange for a treat. It’s a Beijing tradition dating back to the Qing Dynasty, which …

Taiwan has commissioned two new navy ships as a safeguard against the rising threat from China, which has been ratcheting up its naval and air force missions around the island that it claims as its own territory to be annexed by force if necessary. The pair of Tuo Chiang class corvettes completes the first order of six of the domestically …

NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Sutherland has a memoir coming out in November reflecting on his life of nearly 90 years and his 60-year career as one of Hollywood’s top actors in films like “M.A.S.H.,” “Klute,” “Ordinary People” and “The Hunger Games” saga. Crown announced Wednesday that Sutherland’s “Made Up, But Still True” will be published Nov. 12, when the …

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Gov. Tony Evers on Wednesday signed into law bipartisan bills that are designed to better protect the safety of judges following the killing of a retired judge and combat the rise in human trafficking. In total, Evers signed 29 crime-related bills, most of which passed with broad bipartisan support. WISCONSIN GOV. EVERS VETOES GOP VOTING, ELECTION …

Poland has dismissed the Polish commander of the European rapid reaction military unit, the Eurocorps, amid a recently launched military counterintelligence investigation involving him, authorities said Wednesday. POLAND EYES COURT TRIAL FOR CENTRAL BANK CHIEF ACCUSED OF BETRAYING COUNTRY’S FINANCIAL INTERESTS A Polish Defense Ministry statement said that new information regarding Lt. Gen. Jarosław R. Gromadziński had been revealed and …

An Iraqi man who carried out several Quran burnings in Sweden told a newspaper on Wednesday that he would seek asylum in neighboring Norway in the wake of a deportation order by authorities in Stockholm. Salwan Momika, 37, has staged several burnings and desecrations of the sacred book of Islam in Sweden over the past few years. “I am on …