National News

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The owner of a Philadelphia building that caught fire and collapsed this month, killing a city firefighter and injuring five other people, has been charged with setting the blaze, authorities announced Tuesday. Read more

NEW YORK (AP) — Reacting to a surprising and growing monkeypox outbreak, U.S. health officials on Tuesday expanded the group of people recommended to get vaccinated against the monkeypox virus. Read more

NEW YORK (AP) — Pride parades kicked off in New York City and around the country Sunday with glittering confetti, cheering crowds, fluttering rainbow flags and newfound fears about losing freedoms won through decades of activism. Read more

Praise and lament for the overturning of abortion rights filled sacred spaces this weekend as clergy across the U.S. rearranged worship plans or rewrote sermons to provide their religious context — and competing messages — about the historic moment. Read more

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate on Thursday easily approved a bipartisan gun violence bill that seemed unthinkable just a month ago, clearing the way for final congressional approval of what will be lawmakers’ most far-reaching response in decades to the nation’s run of brutal mass shootings. Read more

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal agents searched a former top Justice Department official’s home and seized records from key Republicans in at least five states linked to Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, in what were clear signs that authorities are ramping up their investigation of associates of the former president. Read more

WASHINGTON (AP) — Facing stubbornly high gas prices that average about $5 a gallon nationwide, President Joe Biden on Wednesday urged Congress to suspend federal gasoline and diesel taxes for three months. Read more

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate bargainers reached agreement Tuesday on a bipartisan gun violence bill, potentially teeing up final passage by week’s end on an incremental but landmark package that would stand as Congress’ response to mass shootings in Texas and New York that shook the nation. Read more

HOUSTON (AP) — A 5-year-old boy has died after being left in a vehicle in the Houston area as his mother prepared for a birthday party and as temperatures soared past 100 degrees, authorities said. Read more

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is set to testify Tuesday at the House Jan. 6 committee about the extraordinary pressure he faced from former President Donald Trump to “find 11,780” votes that could flip the state to prevent Joe Biden’s election victory Read more

WASHINGTON (AP) — Members of the House committee investigating the Capitol riot said Sunday they may subpoena former Vice President Mike Pence and are waiting to hear from Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, about her role in the illegal plot to overturn the 2020 election. Read more

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump’s extraordinary effort to overturn his 2020 election defeat came into ever-clearer focus Thursday, with testimony describing his pressuring Vice President Mike Pence in vulgar private taunts and public entreaties to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the run-up to the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection. Read more

A roundup of some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals of the week. None of these are legit, even though they were shared widely on social media. The Associated Press checked them out. Here are the facts: Read more

Airlines canceled more than 1,400 flights in the U.S. on Thursday, one of the worst days yet for travel as the peak summer vacation season heats up. Read more

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate on Thursday approved a sweeping expansion of health care and disability benefits for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans in response to concerns about their exposure to toxic burn pits. Read more

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve intensified its fight against high inflation on Wednesday, raising its key interest rate by three-quarters of a point — the largest bump since 1994 — and signaling more rate hikes ahead as it tries to cool off the U.S. economy without causing a recession. Read more

WASHINGTON (AP) — Inflation is at a 40-year high. Stock prices are sinking. The Federal Reserve is making borrowing much costlier. And the economy actually shrank in the first three months of this year. Read more

NEW YORK (AP) — Journalists face harassment, fight against misinformation and are keenly aware of the industry’s financial troubles and the dim view many Americans have of them. Read more

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump’s closest campaign advisers, top government officials and even his family were dismantling his false claims of 2020 election fraud ahead of Jan. 6, but the defeated president seemed “detached from reality” and kept clinging to outlandish theories to stay in power, the committee investigating the Capitol attack was told Monday. Read more

WASHINGTON (AP) — The outline of a bipartisan Senate agreement to rein in gun violence has no game-changing steps banning the deadliest firearms. It does propose measured provisions making it harder for some young gun buyers, or people considered threatening, to have weapons. Read more

DALLAS (AP) — There is little evidence that gasoline prices, which hit a record $5 a gallon on Saturday, will drop anytime soon. Read more

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. (AP) — J. Joseph “Joe” Grandmaison, a larger-than-life Democratic operative who ran numerous campaigns and served as an appointee under three presidents, has died. He was 79. Grandmaison died from the effects of Parkinson’s disease Saturday at Wentworth Senior Living, his brother said. Read more

SMITHSBURG, Md. (AP) — An employee opened fire at a manufacturing business in rural western Maryland on Thursday, killing three coworkers before the suspect and a state trooper were wounded in a shootout, authorities said. Read more

IRWINDALE, Calif. (AP) — Bottles of the popular Sriracha hot sauce could be hard to find on store shelves this summer. Read more

LOS ANGELES (AP) — President Joe Biden tried to present a unifying vision for the Western Hemisphere on Thursday but the Summit of the Americas quickly spilled into open discord in a telling illustration of the difficulties of bringing North and South America together around shared goals on migration, the economy and climate. Read more

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA is launching a study of UFOs as part of a new push toward high-risk, high-impact science. Read more

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The leader of the Mexican megachurch La Luz del Mundo was sentenced Wednesday to more than 16 years in a California prison for sexually abusing female followers who said he made them his sex slaves. Read more

LONDON (AP) — Portuguese-British artist Paula Rego, who created bold, visceral works inspired by fairy tales, her homeland and her own life, has died at age 87. Read more

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Interior Department said Wednesday it will phase out sales of plastic water bottles and other single-use products at national parks and on other public lands over the next decade, targeting a major source of U.S. pollution. Read more

WASHINGTON (AP) — A former Maryland man held at the Guantanamo Bay detention center has languished in custody months after his scheduled release despite cooperating with authorities as part of a plea deal, according to a federal suit that seeks his immediate release. Read more

The prestigious Brookings Institution placed its president, retired four-star Marine Gen. John Allen, on administrative leave Wednesday amid a federal investigation into his role in an illegal lobbying campaign on behalf of the wealthy Persian Gulf nation of Qatar. Read more

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House passed a wide-ranging gun control bill Wednesday in response to recent mass shootings in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas, that would raise the age limit for purchasing a semi-automatic rifle and prohibit the sale of ammunition magazines with a capacity of more than 15 rounds. Read more

WASHINGTON (AP) — Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen acknowledged Tuesday that she and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell “could have used a better word” than “transitory” when describing the expected run of inflation in the U.S. economy. She added that she was hopeful it would soon be on the decline. Read more

DETROIT (AP) — Elon Musk is threatening to walk away from his $44 billion bid to buy Twitter, accusing the company of refusing to give him information about its spam bot and fake accounts. Read more

WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly a year since its inception, the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol will go public with its findings starting this week as lawmakers hope to show the American public how democracy came to the brink of disaster. Read more

SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP) — The “Donkey Kong defense” came into play Monday at a civil trial over sexual assault allegations against Bill Cosby, as his attorney pressed a key witness over previous statements that she had played the arcade game during a visit with Cosby to the Playboy Mansion in 1975, six years before its release. Read more

The former top leader of the far-right Proud Boys extremist group and other members were charged Monday with seditious conspiracy for what federal prosecutors say was a coordinated attack on the U.S. Capitol to stop Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral victory. Read more