NEW YORK (AP) - The judge in Donald Trump's hush money trial sanctioned him Monday morning for violating his gag order for a second time. Judge Juan M. Merchan fined the former president $1,000 and warned that going forward, additional violations could result in jail time. Prosecutors had accused Trump of four violatio...

NEW YORK (AP) - The judge presiding over Donald Trump's hush money trial has fined him $1,000 for violating his gag order and sternly warned the former president that additional violation could result in jail time. The fine marks the second sanction for Trump for inflammatory comments about witnesses since the start of...

NEW YORK (AP) - Columbia University is canceling its large university-wide commencement ceremony amid ongoing pro-Palestinian protests but will hold smaller school-based ceremonies this week and next, the university announced Monday. "Based on feedback from our students, we have decided to focus attention on our C...

JERUSALEM (AP) - The Israeli army on Monday ordered tens of thousands of people in the southern Gaza city of Rafah to begin evacuating, signaling that a long-promised ground invasion could be imminent. The announcement complicated last-ditch efforts by international mediators, including the director of the CIA, to brok...

MEXICO CITY (AP) - Mexican authorities said Sunday that relatives have positively identified three bodies found in a well as those of two Australian surfers and one American who went missing last weekend. Baja California state prosecutors said relatives from the two countries had viewed the corpses recovered from a rem...

PANAMA CITY (AP) - José Raúl Mulino, the stand-in for disqualified ex-President Ricardo Martinelli in Panama's presidential election, took the lead in early returns Sunday night, holding 34% of the votes and a nearly 10-point lead over his four competitors. Though only 60% of the votes had been counted, s...

MEXICO CITY (AP) - Three bodies recovered in an area of Mexico's Baja California state are likely to be those of the two Australians and an American who went missing last weekend during a camping and surfing trip, the state prosecutor's office said Saturday. While there has not yet been confirmation based on forensic e...

MIAMI (AP) - Airport security officers in Miami found a slithering surprise last week - a bag of snakes hidden in a passenger's pants. According to an X post by the Transportation Security Administration, officers at the Miami International Airport found the small bag of snakes hidden in a passenger's trousers on April...

MEXICO CITY (AP) - Mexican authorities said Friday that three bodies were recovered in an area of Baja California near where two Australians and an American went missing last weekend. The state prosecutors office did not say whether the bodies were those of the three foreigners, but said the bodies were discovered duri...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - The Los Angeles Lakers fired coach Darvin Ham on Friday after just two seasons in charge. The Lakers announced on social media that they were dismissing Ham four days after their season ended with a first-round playoff loss to Denver in five games. Ham led Los Angeles to the Western Conference finals...

BRENTWOOD, N.H. (AP) - A New Hampshire jury awarded $38 million to the man who blew the lid off abuse allegations at the state's youth detention center Friday, in a landmark case finding the state's negligence allowed him to be beaten, raped and held in solitary confinement as a teen. David Meehan went to police in 201...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Democratic U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas denied any wrongdoing amid reports of pending indictments related to the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan. The longtime congressman released a statement Friday saying he and his wife "are innocent of these allegations." "Everything I have ...

HOUSTON (AP) - Officials in Houston are urging residents to prepare for worsening flooding after days of heavy rains that have led to high-water rescues and mandatory evacuation orders. "This threat is ongoing and it's going to get worse. It is not your typical river flood," Hidalgo County Judge Lina Hidalgo,...

NEW YORK (AP) - Hope Hicks, a former longtime adviser to Donald Trump, took the witness stand Friday in his criminal trial, where prosecutors are expected to question her about her knowledge of hush money payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign. Hicks, who served as White House communications director, is t...

NEW YORK (AP) - Hope Hicks, who served as Donald Trump's 2016 campaign press secretary and went on to hold various roles in his White House, took the witness stand in his New York hush money case on Friday. Her testimony on the trial's 11th day was the latest in a frenzied second week of witness testimony and followed ...

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) - China on Friday launched a lunar probe to land on the far side of the moon and return with samples that could provide insights into differences between the less-explored region and the better-known near side. It is the latest advance in China's increasingly sophisticated space exploration program,...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A federal judge on Thursday sentenced a scuba dive boat captain to four years in custody and three years supervised release for criminal negligence after 34 people died in a fire aboard the vessel. The Sept. 2, 2019, blaze was the deadliest maritime disaster in recent U.S. history, and prompted chang...

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - The major traffic artery linking New England with New York will be closed in Connecticut for days after a tanker fire damaged a bridge over Interstate 95, Gov. Ned Lamont said Thursday. The tanker truck filled with gasoline burst into flames in a three-vehicle crash Thursday on I-95 in southwest ...

PHOENIX (AP) - Democratic Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs has relegated a Civil War-era ban on most abortions to the past by signing a repeal bill Thursday. Hobbs says the repeal, signed Thursday, is just the beginning of a fight to protect reproductive health care in Arizona. But the repeal may not take effect until 90 days ...

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Joe Biden on Thursday defended the right to protest but insisted that "order must prevail" as college campuses across the country face unrest over the war in Gaza. "Dissent is essential for democracy," he said at the White House. "But dissent must never lead to disor...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Police have begun removing barricades at a pro-Palestinian demonstrators' encampment on the UCLA campus. Thursday morning's law enforcement effort comes after officers spent hours threatening arrests over loud speakers if people did not disperse. Hundreds of people had gathered on campus, both inside...

BEIJING (AP) - The death toll climbed to 48 as search efforts continued in southern China on Thursday after a highway section collapsed in a mountainous area, sending more than 20 cars down a steep slope. Officials in the city of Meizhou said three other people were unidentified, pending DNA testing. It wasn't immediat...

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) - Solomon Islands lawmakers on Thursday chose former Foreign Minister Jeremiah Manele as the new prime minister of the South Pacific island nation that has grown closer to China in recent years. The withdrawal of pro-Beijing former Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare from the contest to make way ...

BEIJING (AP) - A section of a highway collapsed after heavy rains in southern China, sending cars tumbling down a slope and leaving at least 36 people dead, authorities said Thursday. The Meizhou city government said that 23 vehicles have been found in a pit after a 17.9-meter (58.7-foot) long section of the highway ga...

PHOENIX (AP) - Democrats in the Arizona Legislature are expected to make a final push Wednesday to repeal the state's long-dormant ban on nearly all abortions, which a court said can be enforced. Voting wasn't complete but the Senate had the 16 votes it needed to advance the bill. Fourteen Democrats in the Senate were ...

MOUNT HOREB, Wis. (AP) - A Wisconsin school district said an active shooter was "neutralized" outside a middle school in Mount Horeb on Wednesday, and no one inside the building was injured. Authorities said without giving details that the "alleged assailant" was harmed, and a witness said she had h...

LONDON (AP) - German tennis legend Boris Becker was discharged from bankruptcy court in London after a judge found Wednesday he had done "all that he reasonably could do" to repay creditors tens of millions of pounds. Becker fell far short of repaying his creditors in full, but Chief Insolvency and Companies ...

WESTMORELAND, Kan. (AP) - One person died Tuesday when a tornado ripped through the small city of Westmoreland in northeastern Kansas, destroying houses, RVs and outbuildings, authorities said. Pottawatomie County officials said on Facebook that a tornado struck the city of about 700 people Tuesday evening, destroying ...