Associated Press stories, Page 1344
Jamal Shead scores 21 points, Houston knocks out 1-seed Arizona
SAN ANTONIO — Houston coach Kelvin Sampson gritted his teeth and raised his arms before emphatically pounding his right fist into his left hand 11 times while celebrating with ecstatic Cougars fans who were not too far from home. Another No. 1 seed is out, and Houston is one win...
Duke beats Texas Tech to send Coach K to Elite 8
SAN FRANCISCO — Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski moved within one win of his record-setting 13th trip to the Final Four in his farewell season thanks to two late baskets by Jeremy Roach that helped seal the Blue Devils’ 78-73 win over Texas Tech on Thursday night. Roach’s two shots were...
Jermaine Samuels powers Villanova over Michigan in Sweet 16
SAN ANTONIO — Jermaine Samuels scored 22 points, and Villanova controlled Michigan and center Hunter Dickinson to earn a 63-55 Sweet 16 victory over the Wolverines on Thursday night in the NCAA Tournament. Samuels’ 8-of-13 shooting performance, much of it coming on tough drives through Michigan defenders and around Dickinson,...
Nebraska U.S. Rep. Jeff Fortenberry found guilty in campaign probe
LOS ANGELES — U.S. Rep. Jeff Fortenberry of Nebraska was convicted Thursday of charges that he lied to federal authorities about an illegal $30,000 contribution to his campaign from a foreign billionaire at a 2016 Los Angeles fundraiser. A federal jury in California found the nine-term Republican guilty of one...
Arkansas muscles top overall seed Gonzaga out of NCAA TournamentVideo
SAN FRANCISCO — JD Notae scored 21 points despite missing 20 shots, and fourth-seeded Arkansas made Gonzaga miserable on both ends of the floor, bouncing the top overall seed from the NCAA Tournament with a 74-68 win on Thursday night. Notae finished with six rebounds, six assists, three steals and...
Pennsylvania to raise tip threshold for tipped minimum wage
HARRISBURG — Tipped employees in Pennsylvania will soon have to make more than four times as much money in tips to be paid below the state’s minimum wage, under a new regulation that adjusts for 45 years of inflation. The unanimous vote this week by the five-member Independent Regulatory Review...
Report: Justice Thomas’ wife ‘Ginni’ urged overturning 2020 electionVideo
WASHINGTON — Virginia Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, sent weeks of text messages imploring White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to act to overturn the 2020 presidential election — furthering then-President Donald Trump’s lies that the free and fair vote was marred by nonexistent fraud, according...
Stocks close higher as choppy trading persists, oil slips
Technology companies led a broad rally for stocks Thursday on Wall Street, reversing most of the major indexes’ losses from a day earlier and extending the market’s recent run of uneven trading. The S&P 500 rose 1.4%, more than making up for its pullback a day earlier. More than 85%...
Watson visits Browns as 2nd grand jury declines to indictVideo
CLEVELAND — A second grand jury in Texas declined Thursday to indict new Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson, who has been accused of sexual misconduct by 22 women and still faces civil lawsuits. As Watson arrived in Cleveland to undergo a physical and meet with coaches, the grand jury in...
USPS doubles number of EV delivery trucks in initial order
One in five of the first batch of next-generation U.S. Postal Service delivery vehicles will be electric-powered, officials said Thursday. The Postal Service formally placed its initial $2.98 billion order for 50,000 vehicles with at least 10,019 of them being battery-electric vehicles. That represents a doubling of electric vehicles from...
Saint Peter’s rides stunning Sweet 16 run behind Doug EdertVideo
PHILADELPHIA — Doug Edert could use a few wet wipes to keep all his free chicken wing sauce out of a wispy mustache so mythical it has its own Twitter account. Around tiny Saint Peter’s, students wear fake mustaches in honor of the guard who has plucked the Peacocks —...
Arizona GOP votes to restrict transgender sports, surgeries
PHOENIX — The Arizona Legislature passed bills Thursday to prohibit gender reassignment surgery for minors and ban transgender athletes from playing on girls sports teams, joining a growing list of Republican-controlled states attempting to restrict transgender rights as they gain more visibility in culture and society. Republican Gov. Doug Ducey...
NASCAR hits Keselowski with huge fine for modifying Next GenVideo
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — NASCAR issued steep penalties against Brad Keselowski and his new race team Thursday for illegally modifying a supplied part on the Next Gen car. Keselowski was docked 100 driver points and the No. 6 Ford team docked 100 owner points. Matt McCall, his crew chief, was fined...
March Madness viewer’s guide for the Sweet 16Video
A No. 1 seed and two No. 2s did not get past the first weekend. A band of Peacocks from Jersey City took down a blue blood to reach the Sweet 16. They will be joined by a team that won two games last season. March Madness lived up to...
Biden promises new Ukraine aid, warns Russia on chemical weapons
BRUSSELS — President Joe Biden and Western allies pledged new sanctions and humanitarian aid on Thursday in response to Vladimir Putin’s assault on Ukraine, but their offers fell short of the more robust military assistance that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pleaded for in a pair of live-video appearances. Biden also announced...
Herschel Walker, Dr. Oz removed from Biden’s sports councilVideo
HARRISBURG — The White House has removed Dr. Mehmet Oz — best known as daytime TV’s host of “The Dr. Oz Show” — and former football star Herschel Walker from the President’s Council on Sports, Nutrition and Fitness as both men run for U.S. Senate. Oz and Walker — both...
Uber opens up a space for NYC taxi cabs on its app
Uber, hit by driver shortages and a surge in food delivery requests during the pandemic, will list New York City taxi cabs on its app, a partnership that until recently would have been unthinkable with both camps fighting ferociously for the same customers. After a period in which waits for...
Motorists flock to Chicago area gas stations for free fuel
CHICAGO — Long lines of cars stretched for blocks near Chicago-area gas stations Thursday, signaling that a businessman who has made repeated runs for local and national office was footing the bill for motorists to top off their tanks for a second time. Willie Wilson was giving gas away to...
Ukraine says Moscow is forcibly taking civilians to Russia
KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine accused Moscow on Friday of forcibly taking thousands of civilians from the shattered port city of Mariupol to Russia so that they can be used as “hostages” to pressure Kyiv to give up. A month into the invasion, meanwhile, the two sides traded heavy blows in...
Texas loses high court case over prayer during executions
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday sided with a Texas death row inmate seeking to have his pastor be allowed to pray out loud and touch him during his execution. The high court’s decision won’t keep John Henry Ramirez from being executed. But the justices in an 8-1 decision...
New rules aim to decide U.S. asylum cases in months, not years
The Biden administration on Thursday unveiled new procedures to handle asylum claims at the U.S. southern border, hoping to decide cases in months instead of years. The rules empower asylum officers to grant or deny claims, an authority that has been limited to immigration judges for people arriving at the...
That’ll do: Ash Barty signs off on tennis at 25, ranked No. 1
BRISBANE, Australia — Ash Barty signaled the end of the photo opportunities at her retirement news conference in her typically low-fuss, matter-of-fact style: “Righto, that’ll do.” A day after revealing in a video posted on social media that she was quitting the women’s tennis tour after spending the last two...
NATO helps Ukraine prepare for chemical attack
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg says the military alliance is stepping up its defenses against chemical and nuclear weapons as concern mounts that Russia might use such weapons in Ukraine. Stoltenberg says that NATO leaders agreed at their summit Thursday to send equipment to Ukraine to help protect it against a...
Ketanji Brown Jackson on track for confirmation, but GOP votes in doubt
WASHINGTON — After more than 30 hours of hearings, the Senate is on track to confirm Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first Black woman on the Supreme Court. But Democrats seem unlikely to confirm her with a robust bipartisan vote, dashing President Joe Biden’s hopes for a grand reset after...
U.S. to welcome up to 100,000 from Ukraine
WASHINGTON — A U.S. official says the United States will welcome up to 100,000 refugees from Ukraine as 3.5 million flee Russia’s invasion. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity ahead of the announcement later Thursday. The White House has been saying for weeks that the U.S. would accept...
