McCarthy's ouster leaves the House adrift as divided Republicans seek to unite behind a new leader

WASHINGTON (AP) — The stunning removal of Kevin McCarthy as speaker has left the House adrift as Republicans struggle to bring order to their fractured majority and begin the difficult and potentially prolonged process of uniting around a new leader.

The House convened briefly Wednesday and then went into recess, with North Carolina Rep. Patrick McHenry, the caretaker speaker pro tempore, serving in the job with very little power for the foreseeable future. Other Republicans left Washington, awaiting the next steps.

The House will try to elect a speaker as soon as next week. The timing is nowhere near certain as Republicans line up for their chance at the gavel amid the bitter divisions that sparked the chaos.

The House majority leader, Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., is in line for the post, but he faced an immediate challenge from Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, the Judiciary Committee chairman and a favorite of conservatives, who quickly announced his own candidacy. Others are expected to emerge.

McCarthy, who has yet to weigh in on who should be his successor, said Wednesday that he's good friends with both men.

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Trump back in court as fraud trial probes who was responsible for his financial statements

NEW YORK (AP) — The fraud trial that could block former President Donald Trump from doing business in New York drilled down Wednesday into the question of who — his company or hired accountants — bore responsibility for financial statements that the state calls fraudulent.

With accountants on the witness stand and Trump at the defense table for a third day, his attorneys tried to pin blame on accounting firms for any problems with the statements. But lawyers for New York Attorney General Letitia James sought to show that the accountants relied entirely on information supplied by Trump and his company.

Outside the courtroom, meanwhile, Trump's lawyers appealed a key pretrial ruling: that he engaged in fraud by puffing up the values of prized assets. The trial concerns six claims that remain in the lawsuit after that ruling.

Trump denies any wrongdoing. The trial comes as he leads the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, and the stakes are high for him and the real estate empire that launched him into public life.

The pretrial ruling that's now under appeal could cost him control of Trump Tower and some other properties. At the trial, James is seeking a $250 million penalty and a prohibition on Trump doing business in New York.

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September sizzled to records and was so much warmer than average scientists call it 'mind-blowing'

After a summer of record-smashing heat, warming somehow got even worse in September as Earth set a new mark for how far above normal temperatures were, the European climate agency reported Thursday.

Last month’s average temperature was 0.93 degrees Celsius (1.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above the 1991-2020 average for September. That's the warmest margin above average for a month in 83 years of records kept by the European Space Agency’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.

“It’s just mind-blowing really,” said Copernicus Director Carlo Buontempo. “Never seen anything like that in any month in our records.”

While July and August had hotter raw temperatures because they are warmer months on the calendar, September had what scientists call the biggest anomaly, or departure from normal. Temperature anomalies are crucial pieces of data in a warming world.

“This is not a fancy weather statistic,” Imperial College of London climate scientist Friederike Otto said in an email. “It’s a death sentence for people and ecosystems. It destroys assets, infrastructure, harvest.”

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Massachusetts shooting claims life of baby delivered after mother was one of several hit by gunfire

HOLYOKE, Mass. (AP) — A shooting claimed the life of a baby that was delivered after its mother was one of several people hit by gunfire during a fight Wednesday on a downtown street in the western Massachusetts city of Holyoke, authorities said.

The pregnant woman was shot in the afternoon while seated on a public bus and taken to a hospital in critical condition, the Hampden District Attorney’s Office said.

“The infant, who was delivered, and needed life-saving medical services, tragically passed away,” it added.

Police responded to the shooting at 12:38 p.m. and said it appeared three male suspects were involved in an altercation before gunshots were fired.

All involved suspects were believed to have been identified, taken to hospitals and are in custody, according to the District Attorney’s Office. No further information was immediately given on their conditions. The names of the woman shot and of the people involved in the shooting haven't been released.

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Biden administration waives 26 federal laws to allow border wall construction in South Texas

McALLEN, Texas (AP) — The Biden administration announced they waived 26 federal laws in South Texas to allow border wall construction on Wednesday, marking the administration’s first use of a sweeping executive power employed often during the Trump presidency.

The Department of Homeland Security posted the announcement on the U.S. Federal Registry with few details outlining the construction in Starr County, Texas, which is part of a busy Border Patrol sector seeing “high illegal entry.” According to government data, about 245,000 illegal entries have been recorded in this region during the current fiscal year.

“There is presently an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the United States in order to prevent unlawful entries into the United States in the project areas,” Alejandro Mayorkas, the DHS secretary, stated in the notice.

The Clean Air Act, Safe Drinking Water Act and Endangered Species Act were some of the federal laws waived by DHS to make way for construction that will use funds from a congressional appropriation in 2019 for border wall construction. The waivers avoid time-consuming reviews and lawsuits challenging violation of environmental laws.

Starr County's hilly ranchlands, sitting between Zapata and McAllen, Texas, is home to about 65,000 residents sparsely populating about 1,200 square miles (3,108 square kilometers) that form part of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge.

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Tearful mourners line up at San Francisco City Hall to thank, pay last respects to Dianne Feinstein

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Mourners streamed into San Francisco City Hall on Wednesday to pay their respects to the late U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, honoring her as fearless, smart and the glue who kept the city together after two political assassinations that catapulted her into the mayor’s office and the national spotlight.

“She wasn’t afraid to do a man’s job. She wasn’t afraid to be a senator. She wasn’t afraid to go after what she wanted,” said Lawanda Carter, 48, of San Francisco. “And that’s encouragement for us women now to have courage.”

Carter was among the scores of everyday San Franciscans and political leaders alike who brought flowers, bowed their heads or clasped their hands in prayer as they stood before Feinstein's casket, which was draped in an American flag and on display behind velvet ropes. Many said they had never met Feinstein, but wanted to honor an indefatigable public servant who fought to level the playing field for women, members of the LGBTQ community and racial minorities.

Feinstein died early Friday in her Washington, D.C., home of natural causes, said Adam Russell, a spokesperson for her office. She was 90.

She was San Francisco's first female mayor and one of California's first two women U.S. senators, a job she first won alongside Barbara Boxer in 1992, dubbed the “ Year of the Woman.” Former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, also of San Francisco, and Mayor London Breed were among the officials who paid their respects.

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Suspect charged in rapper Tupac Shakur's fatal shooting makes first court appearance in Las Vegas

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A self-described gangster who police and prosecutors say masterminded the 1996 shooting death of Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas made his first court appearance Wednesday on a murder charge.

Duane “Keffe D” Davis, 60, stood shackled, wearing a dark-blue jail uniform and plastic orange slippers. He was scheduled to be arraigned on the charge Wednesday, but the hearing was cut short after he asked Clark County District Judge Tierra Jones to postpone the hearing while he retains counsel in Las Vegas.

Mopreme Shakur, the rapper's stepbrother, wasn't in court Wednesday but told The Associated Press that he's been following developments in the case from his home in Los Angeles, even as he and his family are “trying to manage our expectations.”

“Young Black men often deal with delayed justice because we're often viewed as the criminals,” he said. “So justice has been delayed for quite some time — in spite of all the eyes, all the attention, despite the celebrity of my brother.”

Davis was arrested last Friday near his home in suburban Henderson. A few hours later, a grand jury indictment was unsealed in Clark County District Court charging him with murder. Davis denied a request from the AP for an interview from jail where he’s being held without bond.

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Say goodbye to the COVID-19 vaccination card. The CDC has stopped printing them

It's the end of an era for a once-critical pandemic document: The ubiquitous white COVID-19 vaccination cards are being phased out.

Now that COVID-19 vaccines are not being distributed by the federal government, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has stopped printing new cards.

The federal government shipped more than 980 million cards between late 2020, when the first vaccines came out, through May 10, according to the latest available data from the CDC.

Federal and local health officials don't expect the discontinuation of the cards to be a particularly big change, since the days of keeping them tucked in purses and wallets to ensure entry into festivals, bars and restaurants are largely over. If you’ve held on to your card, it’s still valid as proof of vaccination. Otherwise, people who need their COVID-19 immunization records will need to request them just like any other vaccine.

In many cases, the clinic, pharmacy or health department that provided the shot can provide those records. Every state and some cities have an immunization registry, though rules vary on when records are included and options for obtaining copies of your records. Records from the mass vaccination sites held early in the pandemic also should be available in those registries, depending on state laws. There is no national registry for immunization records.

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Jury sees FTX ads with Tom Brady, Larry David, as fraud case is rolled out against Sam Bankman-Fried

NEW YORK (AP) — Splashy advertisements featuring football star Tom Brady and comedian Larry David were among the first evidence seen by jurors Wednesday as prosecutors launched a historic fraud case against cryptocurrency maven Sam Bankman-Fried, depicting him as a villain who portrayed himself as the Robin Hood of the crypto world.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Nathan Rehn said in his opening statement in Manhattan federal court that it was only a year ago that Bankman-Fried seemed to be “on top of the world,” operating the multibillion dollar company he founded, FTX, a seemingly pioneering cryptocurrency trading platform.

Rehn said the 31-year-old lived in a $30 million apartment in the Bahamas, jetted around the world on private planes, socialized with celebrities and spent billions of dollars as he flaunted power and made big political donations to gain influence in Washington over cryptocurrency regulation.

The prosecutor, though, said that the son of two Stanford law professors was not as he seemed.

“Sam Bankman-Fried was committing a massive fraud by taking billions of dollars from thousands of victims,” Rehn said. When his businesses were collapsing, he backdated documents and tried to cover up his crimes by deleting messages and ordering employees to automatically delete all messages every month, the prosecutor said.

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Adolis García homers as Texas Rangers sweep Tampa Bay Rays with 7-1 victory

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — Adolis García and Evan Carter homered, and the Texas Rangers beat the punchless Tampa Bay Rays 7-1 Wednesday to finish a two-game AL Wild Card Series sweep.

García and Carter connected against 16-game winner Zach Eflin, who was unable to save Tampa Bay’s season. Nathan Eovaldi also delivered for the Rangers, pitching 6 2/3 innings of one-run ball.

Texas advanced to a Division Series at AL East champion Baltimore starting Saturday. The Rays’ scoreless streak reached 33 innings, one shy of the postseason record held by the 1966-74 Los Angeles Dodgers, before Curtis Mead’s RBI single in the seventh.

Texas won a postseason series for the first time since 2011, when the Rangers reached the World Series before losing to St. Louis.

After securing the AL’s second wild card, Tampa Bay lost its seventh straight postseason game. In getting swept in consecutive Wild Card Series, the Rays scored two runs over four games while hitting .161.

News from © The Associated Press, 2023