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US Interior Secretary Haaland reflects on tenure and tradition amid policy challenges

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 10:04:00 GMT

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — It was never about making history for Deb Haaland, but rather making her parents proud.She says she worked hard, putting herself through school, starting a small business to pay bills and eventually finding her way into politics — first as a campaign volunteer and later as the first Native American woman to lead a political party in New Mexico.The rest seems like history. Haaland was sworn in as one of the first two Native American women in Congress in 2019. Two years later, she took the reins at the U.S. Interior Department — an agency whose responsibilities stretch from managing energy development to meeting the nation’s treaty obligations to 574 federally recognized tribes.Haaland, the first Native American Cabinet member in the U.S., spoke to The Associated Press about her tenure leading the 70,000-employee agency that oversees subsurface minerals and millions of acres of public land.The hardest part? Balancing the interests of every single American, she...

Washington’s long-term care payroll tax starts July 1, as other states explore similar programs

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 10:04:00 GMT

SEATTLE (AP) — On some days, Anthony Jones can’t get to work.Since he was a teen, the 41-year-old Seattle resident has often struggled with lupus, an autoimmune disease that can cause the body to attack tissue surrounding joints and organs, making everyday tasks like showering, cooking and commuting to his golf course restaurant job impossible.And due to his preexisting condition, Jones doesn’t qualify for private long-term care insurance to help manage his disease when he is older and needs more assistance.Lawmakers had cases like his in mind when they passed a new program called WA Cares. Beginning July 1, Washington will be the first state to deduct money from workers’ paychecks to finance long-term care benefits for residents who can’t live independently due to illness, injury or aging-related conditions such as dementia. “There have been times I’ve been unable to work,” Jones said. “It’s very hard for me to live, walk my dog, cook for myself. Sometimes it gets so ba...

Judge to weigh whether Trump’s New York criminal case should be moved to federal court

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 10:04:00 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — A U.S. judge is set to hear arguments Tuesday over President Donald Trump’s attempt to move his criminal case in New York out of the state court, where he was indicted, to a federal court where he could potentially try to get the case dismissed.Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein will listen to the afternoon arguments, though he isn’t expected to immediately rule.Trump’s lawyers sought to move the case to Manhattan federal court soon after Trump pleaded not guilty in April to charges that he falsified his company’s business records to hide hush money payouts aimed at burying allegations of extramarital sexual encounters.While requests to move criminal cases from state to federal court are rarely granted, the prosecution of Trump is unprecedented.The Republican’s lawyers say the charges, while related to his private company’s records, involve things he did while he was president. U.S. law allows criminal prosecutions to be removed from state court if th...

Trump valet set for arraignment in classified documents case

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 10:04:00 GMT

MIAMI (AP) — A valet for Donald Trump is set to be arraigned Tuesday on charges that he helped the former president hide classified documents that the Justice Department wanted back.Walt Nauta was charged earlier this month alongside Trump in a 38-count indictment filed by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith. Though Trump has already entered a not guilty plea to the charges, a judge postponed the arraignment for Nauta to give him time to find a Florida-based lawyer.The indictment accuses Nauta of conspiring with Trump to conceal records that he had taken with him from the White House to his Florida property, Mar-a-Lago. Prosecutors allege that Nauta, at the former president’s direction, moved boxes of documents bearing classification markings so that they would not be found by a Trump lawyer who was tasked with searching the home for classified records to be returned to the government. That, prosecutors said, resulted in a false representation to the Justice Departme...

Fire engulfs high-rise in United Arab Emirates. No reports of injuries

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 10:04:00 GMT

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A fire tore through a high-rise residential building in the United Arab Emirates early Tuesday before being brought under control, according to videos circulating online.There were no immediate reports of injuries from the blaze in Ajman, one of the seven emirates that makes up the UAE, which also includes the futuristic cities of Dubai and Abu Dhabi.The footage showed a corner of the building engulfed in flames reaching from the ground level to the top, with debris falling to the street below.Ajman News, a local media outlet, later reported that the fire had been brought under control. Footage on its Instagram showed the blackened exterior of the building and firefighters on the street below.There was no immediate comment from UAE officials.The UAE has seen a number of similar fires in recent years that have been linked to flammable cladding on many of the country’s ubiquitous high-rises.On New Year’s Eve in 2015, a blaze raced through an up...

Trump and DeSantis to hold dueling campaign events in New Hampshire after squabbling over timing

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 10:04:00 GMT

HOLLIS, N.H. (AP) — Former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will hold dueling campaign events Tuesday in New Hampshire after some squabbling over the close timing of the appearances.DeSantis, who released an immigration and border security policy proposal on Monday, was set to appear at a town hall event in Hollis, while Trump, the leading GOP presidential candidate, was scheduled to speak at a lunch in Concord hosted by a Republican women’s club and attend the opening of his campaign’s state office in Manchester.The New Hampshire Federation of Republican Women, which is hosting Trump, issued a statement last week saying it was disappointed with the DeSantis campaign for scheduling a town hall around the same time as its own event — 40 miles (64 kilometers) away and a couple of hours before.The group branded it “an attempt to steal focus from” the organization’s sold-out “Lilac Luncheon” fundraiser and said that other presidential candidates had sched...

Court to hear appeal over Biden-backed Nevada lithium mine opposed by tribes, environmentalists

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 10:04:00 GMT

RENO, Nev. (AP) — A U.S. appeals court will consider challenges Tuesday to a huge lithium mine in Nevada in a case that pits environmentalists and Native Americans against President Joe Biden’s plans to combat climate change and could have broad implications for mining operations across the West.For the first time since it blocked construction of an Arizona copper mine last year, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was scheduled to hear oral arguments in a two-year-old legal battle with striking similarities to the Arizona case. The Nevada mine is in the works near the Oregon line and would involve extraction of the silvery-white metal used in electric-vehicle batteries.Lawyers for Lithium Americas — the Canadian company that broke ground on the project in March — as well as the U.S. government, conservationists, tribes and a Nevada rancher were allotted time to highlight their positions during Tuesday’s hearing before a three-judge panel in Pasadena, California.Leaders of t...

States clamp down on freight trains, fearing derailments and federal gridlock

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 10:04:00 GMT

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Spurred on by train derailments, some states with busy criss-crossing freight railroads are pursuing their own safety remedies rather than wait for federal action amid industry opposition and questions about whether they even have authority to make the changes.The activity comes after a train carrying toxic chemicals derailed on Feb. 3 along the Ohio-Pennsylvania border, prompting new legislation and reviving long-stalled efforts as backers voice skepticism that the federal government is capable of helping.Legislatures in at least a dozen states have advanced measures in recent weeks, including some in states such as Minnesota that have witnessed disruptive derailments.Some of the new requirements include provisions long resisted by the railroad industry. It contends it’s capable of making improvements and that its growing efficiency — including significantly longer trains and a much smaller workforce — doesn’t compromise safety.In large part, stat...

A scientist’s 4-decade quest to save the biggest monkey in the Americas

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 10:04:00 GMT

CARATINGA, Brasil (AP) — The emerald-green canopy shifts and rustles as a troop of willowy, golden-gray monkeys slides through a tropical ecosystem more threatened than the Amazon.Karen Strier started studying the biggest monkey in the Americas four decades ago, when there were just 50 of the animals left in this swath of the Atlantic forest, in southeastern Brazil’s Minas Gerais state. Strier immediately fell in love with the northern muriqui, dedicating her life to saving it and launching one of the world’s longest-running primate studies.“I love everything about them; they’re beautiful animals, they’re graceful, they even smell good, like cinnamon,” the American primatologist told The Associated Press on a recent field trip. “It was a complete and total sensory experience that appealed to my mind as a scientist, and to my mind as a person.”Scientists then knew almost nothing of the species, except that it was on the verge of extinction. Rampant deforestation had drama...

US cautious on Russian rebellion to avoid creating an opening for Putin

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 10:04:00 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — On the surface, the turmoil in Russia would seem like something for the U.S. to celebrate: a powerful mercenary group engaging in a short-lived clash with Russia’s military at the very moment that Ukraine is trying to gain momentum in a critical counteroffensive.But the public response by Washington has been decidedly cautious. Officials say the U.S. had no role in the conflict, insist this was an internal matter for Russia and decline to comment on whether it could affect the war in Ukraine. The reason: to avoid creating an opening for Russian President Vladimir Putin to seize on the rhetoric of American officials and rally Russians by blaming his Western adversaries.Even President Joe Biden, known for straying from talking points, has stayed on script.Biden told reporters Monday that the United States and NATO weren’t involved. Biden said he held a video call with allies over the weekend and they are all in sync in working to ensure that they give Putin “no excus...