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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran threatened to target recreational and tourist sites worldwide and insisted it was still building missiles. Its supreme leader issued another defiant statement on Friday, nearly three weeks into U.S.-Israeli strikes that have killed a slew of Tehran’s top leaders and hammered its weapons and energy industries.The United States was meanwhile deploying three more warships and roughly 2,500 additional Marines to the Middle East, a U.S. official told The Associated Press.Iran fired on Israel and energy sites in neighboring Gulf Arab states as many in the region marked one of the holiest days on...

ABC has scrubbed the upcoming season of “The Bachelorette,” starring Taylor Frankie Paul, three days before its planned premiere, citing a newly released video from 2023 in which she appears to punch, kick and throw chairs at her former partner as her young daughter watched and cried. Thursday’s cancellation of the already filmed 22nd season of the reality show is unprecedented. While ABC parent company Disney cited the older video, the move comes amid a current domestic violence investigation involving Paul and Dakota Mortensen, father to a son who is the youngest of her three children.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Joe Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, announced his resignation on Tuesday, citing his concerns about the justification for military strikes in Iran and saying he “cannot in good conscience” back the Trump administration’s war. “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby,” Kent said in a statement posted on social media, making claims President Donald Trump has denied. Kent, a former political candidate with connections to right-wing extremists, was confirmed to his post last July...

It's hard to miss how elitist media like the Associated Press thrive on the notion that the Iran war is already a fiasco. On Sunday, the AP author was Will Weissert (best remembered for scribbling a loving paean for Fidel Castro), but it could have been written by any of a number of flacks at the DNC gloating over what they think will help the Democrats in the midterm elections. The result was an opinion piece very poorly disguised as a legitimate story -- "Two weeks into war with Iran, Trump has been knocked back on his political heels."It was...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistan said Sunday it targeted militant hideouts in Afghanistan’s Kandahar region overnight, as the fighting that erupted between the two neighbors late last month showed no signs of abating.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — In the two weeks since the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran, President Donald Trump increasingly has been knocked on his political heels. He’s grown more agitated with news coverage and has failed to find a way to explain why he started the war — or how he will end it — that resonates with a public concerned by American deaths in the conflict, surging oil prices and dropping financial markets. Even some of his supporters are questioning his plan and his overall poll numbers are declining. Meanwhile, Moscow is getting a boost...

The scenario long-dreaded by Republican strategists looks increasingly plausible following Tuesday’s primary election in Texas: Democrat James Talarico may face Republican Ken Paxton for the state’s U.S. Senate seat in November. Paxton is heading for a runoff against Sen. John Cornyn where he is likely to be at least a slight favorite, though the final results from the first round of voting could shift expectations. Talarico defeated Rep. Jasmine Crockett in the Democratic primary, according to Associated Press projections. Republicans fear the matchup could, at the very least, cost the party tens of millions of dollars to protect Paxton, the...

VENTURA, Calif. (AP) — Britney Spears was arrested Wednesday night in Southern California and booked early the following morning, according to the Ventura County Sheriff’s office, which didn’t say what charge she faces. Messages seeking comment were left with the sheriff’s office; the California Highway Patrol, which was identified as the arresting agency; and Spears’ representative. Spears was arrested around 9:30 p.m. in Ventura County and released on Thursday, sheriff’s office records show. She has a May 4 court date scheduled. Spears, 44, born in Mississippi and raised in Louisiana, was a teen pop phenomenon who became a defining superstar...

CAIRO (AP) — A Russian-flagged tanker carrying liquefied natural gas exploded and erupted in flames before sinking in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Libya, authorities in the North African country said Wednesday. No casualties were reported.The tanker was under Western sanctions, suspected to be part of Russia’s shadow fleet of energy tankers trying to bypass sanctions imposed on Moscow over its war in Ukraine. The cause of the explosion was not immediately clear. According to the Libyan Maritime Authority, there was a “sudden explosions, followed by a massive fire” on the Arctic Metagaz on Tuesday while the LNG...

NEW YORK (AP) — The wealthy Alexander brothers used the same tactics of luring, drugging and humiliation to sexually assault numerous women and girls, bragging about their exploits in blog posts with titles that included “It’s not rape if,” a federal prosecutor told jurors Tuesday. snip... The allegations are corroborated by the “sheer number of victims who testified,” the prosecutor said — women who never have met each other and live different lives, but “have one horrific thing in common: they were raped by these men.” Far from hiding their activity, the brothers bragged about it in text messages, emailed...

The United Nations chief condemned the U.S.-Israeli airstrikes on Iran on Saturday and called for an immediate return to negotiations “to pull the region, and our world, back from the brink.” Secretary-General António Guterres told an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council that everything must be done to prevent further escalation. “The alternative,” he warned, “is a potential wider conflict with grave consequences for civilians and regional stability.” Guterres said the U.S. and Israeli airstrikes violated international law, including the U.N. Charter. He also condemned Iran’s retaliatory attacks for violating the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan,...

President Donald Trump went off on Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) on Wednesday, branding him a “RINO” — Republican In Name Only — who got it all “WRONG” when he claimed the president was only inviting Republican governors to an upcoming annual meeting. Trump’s searing response came after the Associated Press reported the bipartisan meeting was “unraveling” on Monday. Stitt — who chairs the National Governors Association — said the group was ditching the annual meeting because Trump had not invited his Democratic colleagues, who are equal members of the group. Trump posted on Truth Social that he was only...

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer found broad support among lawmakers Monday, easing speculation that he will be toppled by revelations about his former ambassador’s ties to late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. In an attempt to rebuild some of his badly weakened authority, Starmer addressed Labour lawmakers in a 75-minute closed-door session, the same day his office said he does not plan to step down. All of Starmer’s Cabinet members extended public support to him in the hours before the session, and legislators gave him a round of applause when it concluded. The prime minister is facing heavy criticism for...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic leaders say a proposal from the White House is “incomplete and insufficient” as they are demanding new restrictions on President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and threatening a shutdown of the Homeland Security Department. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a statement late Monday that a White House counterproposal to the list of demands they transmitted over the weekend “included neither details nor legislative text” and does not address “the concerns Americans have about ICE’s lawless conduct.” The White House proposal was not released publicly. Schumer and Jeffries have said...

ATLANTA (AP) — A third Georgia lawmaker has been accused of lying to collect federal unemployment benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic. Federal prosecutors announced Friday they were charging state Rep. Dexter Sharper, a Valdosta Democrat, with making false statements to collect $13,825 in unemployment benefits. It’s the latest example of a growing wave of charges against Georgia lawmakers that U.S. Attorney Theodore Hertzberg warned of in December. Prosecutors allege Sharper, who represents a South Georgia district, indicated in his application for benefits that he was employed only by his party rental business but hadn’t worked there since March 13, 2020....

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A Minnesota activist who was charged for her role in an anti-immigration enforcement protest at a church released her own video of her arrest Friday after the White House posted a manipulated image online.The White House on Thursday posted a picture on its X page of civil rights attorney Nekima Levy Armstrong crying with her hands behind her back as she was escorted by a blurred person wearing a badge. The photo was captioned in all caps: “Arrested far-left agitator Nekima Levy Armstrong for orchestrating church riots in Minnesota.”A photo posted by Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem’s...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon released a priority-shifting National Defense Strategy late Friday that chastised U.S. allies to take control of their own security and reasserted the Trump administration’s focus on dominance in the Western Hemisphere above a longtime goal of countering China.The 34-page document, the first since 2022, was highly political for a military blueprint, criticizing partners from Europe to Asia for relying on previous U.S. administrations to subsidize their defense. It called for “a sharp shift — in approach, focus, and tone.” That translated to a blunt assessment that allies would take on more of the burden countering...

WASHINGTON – Ryan Wedding, a former Canadian Olympic snowboarder who was among the FBI’s top fugitives and faces charges related to multinational drug trafficking and the killing of a federal witness, has been arrested in Mexico, top Justice Department officials said Friday. Wedding, 44, is accused of running a drug trafficking operation, and officials say he orchestrated several killings to further the drug crimes. He was on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, and authorities had offered a $15 million reward for information leading to his arrest and conviction. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel...

CAIRO (AP) — Desperate Palestinians at a garbage dump in a Gaza neighborhood dug with their bare hands for plastic items to burn to keep warm in the cold and damp winter in the enclave, battered by two years of the Israel-Hamas war. The scene in the Muwasi area of the city of Khan Younis contrasted starkly with the vision of the territory projected by world leaders gathered in Davos, Switzerland, where they inaugurated U.S. President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace that will oversee Gaza. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Trump claimed that “record levels” of humanitarian aid...

President Donald Trump’s budget office this week ordered most government agencies to compile data on the federal money that is sent to 14 mostly Democratic-controlled states and the District of Columbia in what it describes as a tool to “reduce the improper and fraudulent use of those funds.” The order comes a week after Trump said he intended to cut off federal funding that goes to states that are home to so-called sanctuary cities that resist his immigration policies. The memo, obtained by The Associated Press, directs federal agencies to submit information by Jan. 28 to the president’s budget office....