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With abortion rights on the line, an August special election has Ohio election offices scrambling

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:34:30 GMT

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A high-stakes August special election with national political implications is upending local election offices across Ohio, as already stressed election workers are suddenly faced with a mountain of logistical challenges after Republican lawmakers backtracked on their own law.Officials have to lure poll workers away from vacations, relocate polling places booked for summer weddings, maintenance or other events, and repeatedly retest ballot language after the state’s high court found errors.“It’s disheartening. It’s exhausting,” said Michelle Wilcox, a Democrat who is the director of elections in tiny Auglaize County in northwest Ohio. “When you’re overworked, haven’t had breaks, are stressed, things can happen. These are the things that lead up to catastrophes on Election Day, and to have to do it on such a short timeline is troubling.”The tight timeframe was imposed by Republican lawmakers, who reversed a new law that had taken effect in Janua...

No early indication of leaders in early vote count from Guatemala’s presidential election

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:34:30 GMT

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Electoral workers slowly tallied ballots across Guatemala late Sunday, and early counts gave no indication of which two candidates from a huge field of presidential contenders would advance to a runoff.While some isolated incidents interrupted the vote in some localities, voting appeared to have been orderly and peaceful in much of the country. Voters also cast ballots in hundreds of congressional and local races,Many Guatemalans had expressed disappointment with their presidential choices after three opposition candidates were excluded by authorities. A large number of null ballots were expected, and experts said it could depress turnout.Early in the count, with about 7% tallied, null votes led all candidates in the presidential race.With none of the 22 presidential candidates polling near the required 50% threshold for winning outright, a second round of voting on Aug. 20 between the top two finishers was almost certain. At a polling place in central Guatemal...

The Supreme Court’s biggest decisions are coming. Here’s what they could say.

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:34:30 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is getting ready to decide some of its biggest cases of the term. The high court has 10 opinions left to release over the next week before the justices begin their summer break. As is typical, the last opinions to be released cover some of the most contentious issues the court has wrestled with this term including affirmative action, student loans and gay rights. Here’s a look at some of the cases the court has left to decide from the term that began back in October:AFFIRMATIVE ACTIONThe survival of affirmative action in higher education is the subject of two related cases, one involving Harvard and the other the University of North Carolina. The Supreme Court has previously approved of the use of affirmative action in higher education in decisions reaching back to 1978. But the justices’ decision to take the cases suggested a willingness to revisit those rulings. And when the high court heard arguments in the cases in late October, al...

Suspect set to plead guilty in attack that killed 5 at Colorado Springs sanctuary for LGBTQ+

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:34:30 GMT

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — The suspect in a mass shooting at a Colorado Springs gay nightclub is expected to plead guilt y Monday in an attack last year that killed five people and wounded 17 at a longtime sanctuary for the LGBTQ+ community in the mostly conservative city. The plea could bring a life sentence for suspect Anderson Lee Aldrich and end the court case just seven months after the shooting — sparing victim’s families and survivors a potentially painful trial that would force them to revisit the attack. Victims’ family members and survivors are expected to speak at Monday’s hearing about how their lives were forever altered by the terror that erupted just before midnight on Nov. 19 when the suspect walked into Club Q and indiscriminately fired an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle.Aldrich, who is nonbinary and uses they and them pronouns, had been arrested over a year before the attack for threatening their grandparents and vowing to become “the next mass killer.” B...

Stock market today: Asian shares mixed, oil prices flat after armed rebellion quelled in Russia

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:34:30 GMT

TOKYO (AP) — Asian shares are mixed after a short-lived armed rebellion in Russia added to uncertainties over the war in Ukraine. Benchmarks rose in Hong Kong, Tokyo and Seoul and fell in Shanghai and Sydney. U.S. futures rose and oil prices were little changed. The rebellion by mercenary soldiers who briefly took over a Russian military headquarters on an ominous march toward Moscow was over. But the brief weakened President Vladimir Putin just as his forces were facing a fierce counteroffensive in Ukraine. Yevgeny Prigozhin and his Wagner troops were some of Russia’s most effective fighters in Ukraine. Their aborted takeover of the capital also left their fate uncertain.Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 recouped early losses, gaining 0.2% to 32,846.24. South Korea’s Kospi rose 0.5% to 2,581.83. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was up 0.1% to 18,898.51, while the Shanghai Composite, reopening after a holiday, dropped 0.7% to 3,173.37. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.4% to 7,07...

Your state has a law on bathrooms and trans kids? Officials may not know how it will be enforced

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:34:30 GMT

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — When North Dakota restricted what bathrooms transgender students can use in public schools and universities this year, the school district in the state’s largest city promised to ignore the new rules. A Republican legislator then called for confiscating its state funding, but the law doesn’t include that possibility.The defiance in Fargo shows that it’s not exactly clear how bathroom laws will play out in local communities after being enacted in at least 10 states with Republican-controlled legislatures.Kansas’ GOP attorney general planned to discuss his state’s law Monday, five days before it was to take effect. His view is likely be challenged. Even Florida’s law, allowing the state to threaten the licenses of educators who don’t comply, says a transgender student or staffer must first be asked to leave a restroom and refuse. Some schools already have gender-neutral bathrooms and changing spaces or allow trans student...

Theater review: Nontraditional ‘bull-jean/we wake’ at Pillsbury House Theatre proves a difficult grasp

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:34:30 GMT

When you visit a large, fairly comprehensive art museum, it’s always good to throw a little abstract art in with the realism. And you can approach going to the theater the same way, periodically setting aside conventional narratives and loosening the parameters around what you expect to see on a stage.Playwright Sharon Bridgforth is good at shaking up your expectations. She has a captivating gift for storytelling, often transporting audiences to a set of southern towns where the residents speak in very distinctive voices while poetically exorcising their demons and seeking healing.If you’ve never experienced a Bridgforth play, her latest, “bull-jean/we wake,” may not be the best introduction. Currently receiving its premiere at Minneapolis’ Pillsbury House Theatre, it completes a trilogy of plays inspired by Bridgforth’s award-winning 1998 fiction collection, “The Bull-Jean Stories.” But unlike the piece of theater by that name Pillsbury House presented in January, “we wake” is some...

1 dead, several injured after 10-car crash on 10 Freeway in Upland

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:34:30 GMT

At least one person is dead, and several others were injured after a crash involving 10 cars on the I-10 Freeway in Upland, authorities announced Sunday night.  According to officials with the San Bernardino County Fire Department, the crash involves both directions of the 10 Freeway, just west of Euclid Avenue.  Fire officials also said that some of the victims involved in the mass-casualty incident required extrication.  It is unclear what led up to the crash, but as many as six other people, including children, may have been injured during the fatal incident.  Damage seen to one vehicle in a 10-car crash on the I-10 Freeway in Upland on June 25, 2023. (Key News TV)Damage seen to one vehicle in a 10-car crash on the I-10 Freeway in Upland on June 25, 2023. (Key News TV)Damage seen to one vehicle in a 10-car crash on the I-10 Freeway in Upland on June 25, 2023. (Key News TV)Victims and first responders seen after a 10-car crash on the I-10 in Upland on June 25, ...

What to stream this week: ‘The Bachelorette,’ Idris Elba, The Weeknd, Sarah Snook and ‘Jack Ryan’

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:34:30 GMT

John Krasinski makes his final bow in season four of “Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan,” a new album from Lucinda Williams and the debut of the mystery video game Crime O’Clock are among the new television, movies, music and games headed to a device near you.Among the offerings worth your time as selected by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists are Idris Elba on the worst flight ever in the new series “Hijack” for Apple TV+ and a horror movie starring “Succession’s” Sarah Snook as the single mother of a young girl who says she has memories of another life. NEW MOVIES TO STREAM— The film adaptation of Judy Blume’s classic coming-of-age novel “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret” will be available on video on demand starting Tuesday — perfect for summer sleepovers or mother-daughter movie nights at home. Directed by Kelly Fremon Craig (“The Edge of Seventeen”), Abby Ryder Fortson plays the 11-year-old narrator who is navigating a move to the suburbs, new friends, puberty, periods, f...

Today in History: June 26, first Harry Potter book published

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:34:30 GMT

Today in History Today is Monday, June 26, the 177th day of 2023. There are 188 days left in the year. Today’s Highlight in History: On June 26, 1945, the charter of the United Nations was signed by 50 countries in San Francisco. On this date: In 1917, the first troops of the American Expeditionary Force deployed to France during World War I landed in St. Nazaire. In 1925, Charles Chaplin’s classic comedy “The Gold Rush” premiered at Grauman’s Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood.In 1948, the Berlin Airlift began in earnest after the Soviet Union cut off land and water routes to the isolated western sector of Berlin. In 1963, President John F. Kennedy visited West Berlin, where he delivered his famous speech expressing solidarity with the city’s residents, declaring: “Ich bin ein Berliner” (I am a Berliner).In 1977, 42 people were killed when a fire sent toxic smoke pouring through the Maury County Jail in Columbia, Tennessee. Elvis Presley performed his last concert at Market Square Arena...