U.S. News

NEWPORT, Vt. (AP) — Plunging into a frozen lake and swimming laps may not be everyone’s good time but for winter swimmers who return year after year to a northern Vermont lake near the Canadian border, there’s nothing better. The 10th annual Memphremagog Winter Swimming Festival kicked off Friday with the 200-meter (218-yard) freestyle race in a narrow pool cut …

NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump’s lawyers asked a New York judge Friday to suspend an $83.3 million defamation verdict against the former president, saying there was a “strong probability” that it would be reduced on appeal, if not eliminated. The lawyers made the request in Manhattan federal court, where a civil jury in late January awarded the sum to …

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia lawmakers are revisiting a nearly decade-old fight over whether the state needs to protect religious rights from being trampled by state and local governments in a measure opponents say would provide a legal shield for people and groups to discriminate against LGBTQ+ people in the name of religion. That religious protection bill resurfaced Thursday eight years …

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Two Navy SEALs drowned last month while trying to board a vessel that was intercepted by U.S. naval forces in the Arabian Sea. On Thursday, federal prosecutors unsealed a criminal complaint against four foreign nationals they say were transporting suspected Iranian-made missile components on the vessel. The four sailors were later taken to Virginia where they …

BALDWYN, Miss. (AP) — Two National Guard members died after a helicopter crashed Friday afternoon during a training flight in northeast Mississippi, officials said. The aircraft went down in a wooded area near Baldwyn, Prentiss County Sheriff Randy Tolar told WTVA-TV. The site is about 115 miles (185 kilometers) southeast of Memphis, Tennessee. The helicopter was AH-64 Apache “flying a …

WASHINGTON (AP) — La Casa Blanca prometió dar a conocer nuevas sanciones contra Irán en los próximos días en represalia por sus ventas de armas que han reforzado la invasión de Rusia a Ucrania, y amenazó con una respuesta “veloz” y “severa” si Teherán sigue adelante con su venta de misiles balísticos a Moscú. El vocero del Consejo de Seguridad …

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — The New Hampshire House on Thursday narrowly rejected creating a process by which people could voluntarily prohibit themselves from buying guns. Three other states — Utah, Virginia and Washington — already allow people to voluntarily waive their rights to own firearms and add themselves to the federal database of prohibited purchasers, said Rep. David Meuse, a …

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — Kentucky lawmakers on Thursday started advancing an ambitious measure aimed at stimulating cutting-edge research while promoting teamwork among the state’s public universities. The Senate Education Committee quickly advanced the bill that would create a framework for cross-campus projects pairing up researchers at various schools. The measure is sponsored by Republican Senate President Robert Stivers and is …

ANAHUAC, Texas (AP) — A Black high school student’s monthslong punishment by his Texas school district for refusing to change his hairstyle does not violate a new state law that prohibits race-based hair discrimination, a judge ruled on Thursday. Darryl George, 18, has not been in his regular Houston-area high school classes since Aug. 31 because the district, Barbers Hill, …

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Almost a year after state lawmakers passed a law giving Florida’s governor control over Walt Disney World’s governing district, Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday called the takeover a success, despite an exodus of workers, ongoing litigation and scandal surrounding one of his appointees. DeSantis made a victory lap of sorts during a news conference at Disney …