Pittsburgh Penguins' Sidney Crosby smiles from the bench in Pittsburgh in this March 25, 2012 photo. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP, Gene J. Puskar

Biden and Trump are dominating Super Tuesday races and moving closer to a November rematch

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden and his predecessor, Donald Trump, were romping to coast-to-coast victories on Super Tuesday, all but cementing a November rematch and increasing pressure on the former president’s last major rival, Nikki Haley, to leave the Republican race.

Biden and Trump had each won Texas, Alabama, Colorado, Maine, Oklahoma, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, Minnesota and Massachusetts. Biden also won the Democratic primaries in Utah, Vermont and Iowa.

Haley won Vermont, but the former president carried other states that might have been favorable to her such as Virginia and Maine — which have large swaths of moderate voters like those who have backed her in previous primaries.

Not enough states will have voted until later this month for Trump or Biden to formally become their parties’ presumptive nominees. But the primary's biggest day made their rematch a near certainty. Both the 81-year-old Biden and the 77-year-old Trump continue to dominate their parties despite facing questions about age and neither having broad popularity across the general electorate.

The only contest either of them lost Tuesday was the Democratic caucus in American Samoa, a tiny U.S. territory in the South Pacific Ocean. Biden was defeated by previously unknown candidate Jason Palmer, 51 votes to 40.

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The Latest | Trump offers little celebration in victory speech at Mar-a-Lago

The Super Tuesday primaries are the largest voting day of the year in the United States aside from the November general election.

Voters in 16 states and one territory are choosing presidential nominees. Some states are also deciding who should run for governor, senator or district attorneys.

Party primaries, caucuses or presidential preference votes are being held in Alabama, Alaska, American Samoa, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont and Virginia.

Find AP’s full coverage of Super Tuesday 2024 at https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024.

Here's the latest:

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Economic plans, Taiwan and other things to know from the opening of China's legislature

BEIJING (AP) — China's Premier Li Qiang promoted an image of confidence as he announced modest economic growth goals for the world's second largest economy, at one of the country's most important political gatherings.

Li addressed a few thousand delegates of the country's rubber-stamp legislature, the National People's Congress, which met in Beijing.

It's a time when the government reviews the work of the past year, and crucially reveals targets and goals for the coming year, especially in its approach to its economy, military budget and Chinese society.

Here are some key takeaways from Li's address Tuesday.

The government's overall approach to the economy will not change, as the goals by the government for 2024 signal that they want to stabilize growth. Li announced that the GDP growth target was 5% this year — a modest target that is still going to be difficult. China is grappling with an economic slowdown and a real estate market in crisis after a crackdown on excess borrowing led to a liquidity crisis among developers.

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Trump lawyers want him back on witness stand in E. Jean Carroll case

NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump’s lawyers said Tuesday that the ex-president deserves a new trial and a fresh chance to tell a jury why he berated writer E. Jean Carroll for her sex abuse claims against him after she revealed them five years ago.

The lawyers made the assertion as they renewed challenges to the $83.3 million awarded to Carroll in January by a Manhattan jury.

The award raised to $88.3 million what Trump owes Carroll after another jury last May awarded $5 million to the longtime advice columnist after concluding that Trump sexually abused her in spring 1996 in the dressing room of a luxury department store in midtown Manhattan and then defamed her with comments in October 2022.

Judge Lewis A. Kaplan had ordered the January jury to accept the findings of the earlier jury and only decide how much Trump owed Carroll for two statements he issued in 2019 after excerpts from Carroll's memoir were published by a magazine. Carroll testified that the comments ruined her career and left her fearing for her life after she received threats from strangers online.

Trump did not attend the May trial but was a regular fixture at this year's trial, shaking his head repeatedly and grumbling loudly enough from his seat at the defense table that a prosecutor complained that jurors could hear him.

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US destroyer shoots down missile and drones launched by Yemen's Houthi rebels

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A U.S. destroyer shot down drones and a missile launched by Yemen's Houthi rebels toward it in the Red Sea, officials said early Wednesday, as the Indian navy released images of it fighting a fire aboard a container ship earlier targeted by the Houthis.

The assault Tuesday apparently targeted the USS Carney, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer that has been involved in the American campaign against the rebels who have launched attacks over Israel's war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The Houthi attack involved bomb-carrying drones and one anti-ship ballistic missile, the U.S. military's Central Command said.

The U.S. later launched an airstrike destroying three anti-ship missiles and three bomb-carrying drone boats, Central Command said.

Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree, a Houthi military spokesman, acknowledged the attack, but claimed its forces targeted two American warships, without elaborating.

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Haitian leader who was mysteriously absent arrives in Puerto Rico on his way home to quell violence

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Haiti’s prime minister landed in Puerto Rico on Tuesday, answering a key question on the minds of all Haitians ever since armed gangs plunged the long-suffering Caribbean nation into near anarchy: Where in the world is he?

The embattled Ariel Henry, who assumed power following the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, has been notably absent since the country's latest and most serious outbreak of violence started last week. Henry has stayed silent as he crisscrosses the world, from South America to Africa, with no announced date of return.

Meanwhile, armed groups have seized on the power void, exchanging gunfire with police at Haiti’s main international airport on Monday and instigating a mass escape from the country’s two biggest prisons.

Even a decree declaring a state of emergency and curfew to restore order lacked Henry's imprint. It was signed by his finance minister, who is serving as acting prime minister.

“It’s the million-dollar question,” said Jake Johnston, a research associate at the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research. “The fact that he hasn’t even opened his mouth since the violence began has stoked all sorts of speculation.”

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Who is Jason Palmer? A previously unknown Democrat beats Biden in American Samoa's Democratic caucus

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden was sweeping every Democratic contest on Super Tuesday — except for American Samoa.

He fell short there to a previously unknown candidate named Jason Palmer on Tuesday. Out of 91 ballots cast in the territory's caucus, Palmer won 51 and Biden won 40, according to the local party.

The outcome will hardly derail Biden’s march toward his party’s nomination. Only six delegates were at stake in the U.S. territory, a tiny collection of islands in the South Pacific with fewer than 50,000 residents.

Palmer, 52, appears to have campaigned in the territory. On the day before the caucus, he posted on X that “Washington D.C. is long overdue for a president who will be an advocate for American Samoa.” His account includes pictures of young people holding homemade campaign signs.

On his website, Palmer describes himself as a Baltimore resident who has worked for various businesses and nonprofits, often on issues involving technology and education. He did not immediately return a phone message.

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Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona says she won’t seek reelection, avoiding a 3-way race

PHOENIX (AP) — Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona announced on Tuesday that she won’t run for a second term after her estrangement from the Democratic Party left her politically homeless and without a clear path to reelection.

Sinema’s announcement comes after Senate Republicans blocked a bipartisan bill to help secure the U.S.-Mexico border and deliver military aid to Ukraine and Israel — a deal that Sinema spent months negotiating. She had hoped it would be a signature achievement addressing one of Washington’s most intractable challenges as well as a powerful endorsement for her increasingly lonely view that cross-party dealmaking remains possible.

But in the end, Sinema’s border-security ambitions, and her career in Congress, were swallowed by the partisanship that has paralyzed Congress.

“I love Arizona and I am so proud of what we’ve delivered,” she said in a video posted to social media. “Because I choose civility, understanding, listening, working together to get stuff done, I will leave the Senate at the end of this year.”

Sinema’s decision avoids a three-way contest in one of the most closely watched 2024 Senate races. That hard-to-forecast scenario had spawned fierce debate among political operatives about whether one major party would benefit in the quest for the Senate majority. Most analysts agreed Sinema had faced significant, likely insurmountable hurdles if she had decided to run.

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Gaza cease-fire talks fail to achieve a breakthrough with Ramadan just days away, Egypt says

CAIRO (AP) — Three days of negotiations with Hamas over a cease-fire in Gaza and the release of Israeli hostages failed to achieve a breakthrough on Tuesday, Egyptian officials said, less than a week before the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the informal deadline for a deal.

The nearly five months of fighting left much of Gaza in ruins and created a worsening humanitarian catastrophe, with many, especially in the devastated northern region, scrambling for food to survive.

“We must get more aid into Gaza,” U.S. President Joe Biden said Tuesday. “There’s no excuse. None.”

Aid groups have said it has become nearly impossible to deliver supplies within most of Gaza because of the difficulty of coordinating with the Israeli military, the ongoing hostilities and the breakdown of public order.

The United States, Qatar and Egypt have spent weeks trying to broker an agreement in which Hamas would release up to 40 hostages in return for a six-week cease-fire, the release of some Palestinian prisoners and an major influx of aid to the isolated territory.

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Meta attorneys ask judge to dismiss shareholder suit alleging failure to address human trafficking

WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — Attorneys for Meta Platforms and several of its current and former leaders, including founder Mark Zuckerberg, are asking a Delaware judge to dismiss a shareholder lawsuit alleging the company has deliberately failed to protect users of its social media platforms from human trafficking and child sexual exploitation.

The lawsuit, filed last year by several investment funds, claims that Meta’s directors and senior executives have long known about rampant human trafficking and child sexual exploitation on Facebook and Instagram, but have failed to address the predatory behavior.

“For years, Meta’s directors and senior executives have known that pedophiles and human and sex traffickers have been using Facebook and Instagram to facilitate their noxious activities,” plaintiffs’ attorney Christine Mackintosh told Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster during a hearing Tuesday. “But despite this, Meta’s directors utterly failed to implement board level oversight and controls to ferret out these heinous activities and to stop them from proliferating on Meta’s platforms.”

David Ross, an attorney for Meta, argued that the lawsuit should be dismissed because the alleged conduct of the company’s leaders has not resulted in Meta suffering “corporate trauma” as required by Delaware law. The company also argues that the lawsuit’s claims are based on speculation that it might face future harm or loss.

The plaintiffs contend, however, Meta has already suffered harm, including sharp drops in its share price and market capitalization amid media reports about trafficking and child sex abuse involving its platforms. They also point to “massive legal defense costs” in related litigation and allege that Meta also has suffered “reputational harm.”

News from © The Associated Press, 2024