Stories by Associated Press

Indiana is one of the first Republican-run state legislatures to debate tighter abortion laws following the U.S. Supreme Court decision last month overturning Roe v. Wade. The Supreme Court ruling is expected to lead to abortion bans in roughly half the states.

Destructive fires in recent years that burned too hot for forests to quickly regrow have far outpaced the government’s capacity to replant trees. That’s created a backlog of 4.1 million acres in need of replanting, officials said.

Your chance of winning the grand prize is minuscule, at one in 302.5 million. You have better odds of a smaller payoff, such as winning $1 million for matching five regular numbers but missing the Mega Ball. But even that is one in 12.6 million.

The Thursday prime-time hearing will dive into the 187 minutes that Trump failed to act on Jan. 6, 2021, despite pleas from aides, allies and even his family.

The House’s 228-195 roll call was largely along party lines and sent the measure to the Senate, where it seemed doomed. Democrats said that with the high court recently overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade decision from 1973, the justices and GOP lawmakers are on track to go even further than banning abortions.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that Biden was experiencing “mild symptoms” and has begun taking Paxlovid, an antiviral drug designed to reduce the severity of the disease.

Rep. Elaine Luria, a Democrat first elected in 2018, is facing a difficult reelection in a Virginia swing district that was redrawn to be more Republican. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a Republican who’s a pariah to some in his party because of his condemnation of former President Donald Trump, decided not to seek another term in his Illinois district.

Democrats hope that the 100-page bill moving through the Judiciary Committee will pass the House before the August break. But that is far from assured.

The two will hold dueling rallies in Arizona on Friday as they stump for rival candidates who offer dramatically different visions of the Republican Party in a critical battleground state. Days later, they will once again cross paths as they deliver major speeches on the same day in Washington, D.C.

Tuesday’s election-year roll call, 267-157, was partly political strategy, forcing all House members, Republicans and Democrats, to go on the record with their views. It also reflected the legislative branch pushing back against an aggressive court.

The downtown course will include famed areas of Chicago, including Lake Shore Drive, Michigan Avenue and South Columbia Drive, where the start/finish line and pit road will be located directly in front of Buckingham Fountain.

The retailer’s announcement comes as another side of the company’s operations is facing more scrutiny. On Tuesday, federal labor officials confirmed to the AP the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has opened inspections at Amazon facilities in New York, Illinois, and Florida. 

A cultural preservation organization announced Tuesday that the house will receive a share of $3 million in grants being distributed to 33 sites and organizations nationwide that are important pieces of African American history.

After a year-long investigation, the House Jan. 6 panel is seeking to wrap up what may be its last hearing, even as its probe continues to heat up. The committee says it continues to receive fresh evidence each day and isn’t ruling out additional hearings or interviews with a bevy of additional people close to the president.

Funeral services for the seven people killed by a gunman at an Independence Day parade will conclude Monday as family and friends gather in suburban Chicago to remember Kevin McCarthy.

The nearly 80-page report was the first to criticize both state and federal law enforcement, and not just local authorities in the South Texas town for the bewildering inaction by heavily armed officers as a gunman fired inside two fourth-grade classrooms at Robb Elementary School, killing 19 students and two teachers.

The findings from both Republican- and Democratic-controlled states run contrary to claims made by former President Donald Trump and his allies who have intensely criticized their use and falsely claimed they were a target for fraud.

“There’s no new evidence to open the case back up,” Michelle Williams, chief of staff for Attorney General Lynn Fitch, told The Associated Press.

Rock singer Billy Corgan of The Smashing Pumpkins a 20-year resident of Highland Park, where the shooting happened, said the show will be at the city’s plant-based tea house Madame Zuzu’s, which he owns with his partner Chloe Mendel.

In an unpublished memoir obtained by The Associated Press, Carolyn Bryant Donham says she was unaware of what would happen to the 14-year-old Till, who lived in Chicago and was visiting relatives in Mississippi when he was abducted, killed and tossed in a river. 

Some laws prohibit abortion at the point of the “first detectable heartbeat” while others restrict abortion at 15, 22 or 24 weeks of pregnancy. This means determining how far along someone is in pregnancy — gestational age — has become more important, because there is a smaller window of time to secure the procedure in about half of the states in the U.S.

Consumer prices soared 9.1% compared with a year earlier, the government said Wednesday, the biggest yearly increase since 1981, and up from an 8.6% jump in May. From May to June, prices rose 1.3%, another huge increase, after prices had surged 1% from April to May.

Sri Lanka’s prime minister, who said he’ll step down after a new government is installed, says the island nation’s debt-laden economy has “collapsed” as it runs out of money to pay for food, fuel and medicine.

The hearing Tuesday was the seventh for the Jan. 6 committee. Over the past month, the panel has created a narrative of a defeated Trump “detached from reality,” clinging to false claims of voter fraud and working feverishly to reverse his election defeat.

Tuesday’s releases showed parts of the universe seen by other telescopes. But Webb’s sheer power, distant location from Earth and use of the infrared light spectrum showed them in a new light that scientists said was almost as much art as science.

The new variants, labeled BA.4 and BA.5, are offshoots of the omicron strain that has been responsible for nearly all of the virus spread in the U.S. and are even more contagious than their predecessors.