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OKLAHOMA CITY — Oklahoma’s higher education officials reported a 4.5% increase in enrollment by headcount from last fall at the state’s public colleges and universities. The state’s freshman class also saw enrollment grow by over 1,700 students, or 6.4%, from last year, according to a report from the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education. This follows enrollment growth trends at some of Oklahoma’s largest public universities. Total enrollment across the state’s public higher education institutions is just over 169,000 this fall, which...
BATON ROUGE, LA. (AP) — A new Louisiana requirement that the Ten Commandments be displayed in all public classrooms is "unconstitutional on its face," a federal judge ruled Tuesday, ordering state education officials not to take steps to enforce it and to notify all local school boards in the state of his decision. U.S. District Judge John W. deGravelles in Baton Rouge said the law had an "overtly religious" purpose, and rejected state officials' claims that the government can mandate the posting of the Ten Commandments because they hold histor...
WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday said Elon Musk and former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy will lead a new "Department of Government Efficiency" — which is not, despite the name, a government agency. The acronym "DOGE" is a nod to Musk's favorite cryptocurrency, dogecoin. Trump said in a statement that Musk and Ramaswamy will work from outside the government to offer the White House "advice and guidance" and will partner with the Office of Management and Budget to "drive large scale structural reform, and cre...
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli airstrikes killed at least 46 people in the Gaza Strip in the past day, including 11 at a makeshift cafeteria in an Israeli-declared humanitarian zone, medics said. In Lebanon, warplanes struck Beirut's southern suburbs and killed 33 people elsewhere in the country on Tuesday. The latest bombardment came as the United States said it would not reduce its military support for Israel after a deadline passed for allowing more humanitarian aid into Gaza. The State Department cited some progress, even as i...
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump moved to build out his national security team Tuesday, announcing he is nominating Fox News host and Army veteran Pete Hegseth to serve as his defense secretary and former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe to lead the Central Intelligence Agency. In a flurry of announcements, Trump said he had chosen former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee as ambassador to Israel and his longtime friend Steven Witkoff to be a special envoy to the Middle East. Trump also said he would n...
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — The Federal Aviation Administration prohibited U.S. airlines from flying to Haiti for 30 days after gangs shot three planes and the United Nations also Tuesday temporarily suspended flights to Port-au-Prince, limiting humanitarian aid coming into the country. Bullets hit a Spirit Airlines plane when it was about to land in the capital Monday, injuring a flight attendant and forcing the airport to shut down. Photos and videos obtained by The Associated Press show bullet holes dotting the interior of a plane. On T...
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Four women suing over Idaho's strict abortion bans told a judge Tuesday how excitement over their pregnancies turned to grief and fear after they learned their fetuses were not likely to survive to birth — and how they had to leave the state to get abortions amid fears that pregnancy complications would put their own health in danger. "We felt like we were being made refugees, medical refugees," said Jennifer Adkins, one of the plaintiffs in the case. The women, represented by the Center for Reproductive Rights, aren't ask...
OWASSO, Okla. (AP) — A federal investigation into an Oklahoma school district launched after the death of a nonbinary student has led to the school agreeing to develop policies to prevent sexual discrimination and harassment, federal officials announced Wednesday. The February death of 16-year-old Owasso High School student Nex Benedict took place the day after a fight with several girls in a school bathroom. It was ultimately ruled a suicide by the state's medical examiner, and no charges were filed in connection with the fight. The U.S. D...
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The homes of Kansas City Chiefs' quarterback Patrick Mahomes and tight end Travis Kelce were broken into within days of each other last month, law enforcement reports show. "Obviously it's frustrating, disappointing," Mahomes said before practice on Wednesday. The break-ins, which were first reported by TMZ, happened just before and the day of the Chiefs' 26-13 home victory over the New Orleans Saints on Oct. 7, as Kelce's superstar girlfriend Taylor Swift watched from the stands. No injuries were reported in either c...
BANGKOK (AP) — In case you can't get enough of the little pygmy hippo Moo Deng from Thailand, there's now an official song featuring the internet's favorite baby animal — released in four languages for her global fans. The upbeat 50-second song "Moodeng Moodeng," available in Thai, English, Chinese and Japanese versions, features simple lyrics like "Moo Deng Moo Deng, boing boing boing/ Mommy mommy, play with me." Its music video consists of short clips of the baby hippo bouncing, playing with her keeper or hanging out with her mom Jona. The...
GALVESTON, Texas (AP) — An endangered sea turtle that was found about a year ago some 5,000 miles (8,047 kilometers) from its native waters has been released into the Gulf of Mexico, according to the Houston Zoo. The Kemp's ridley sea turtle, named Boeier after the boat that rescued it, was found off the coast of the Netherlands after becoming entangled in the net of the commercial fishing boat. The zoo said the turtle apparently was carried away by currents until it was found and the U.S. National Fish and Wildlife Service secured the t...
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea ratified a major defense treaty with Russia stipulating mutual military aid, the North's state media reported Tuesday, as the U.S., South Korea and Ukraine say North Korea has sent thousands of troops to Russia to support its war against Ukraine. Russia had completed the ratification of the treaty last week after it was signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in June. It is considered both countries' biggest defense deal since the end of the Cold War. The C...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Racist text messages invoking slavery raised alarm across the country this week after they were sent to Black men, women and students, including middle schoolers, prompting inquiries by the FBI and other agencies. The messages, sent anonymously, were reported in several states, including New York, Alabama, California, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Tennessee. They generally used a similar tone but varied in wording. Some instructed the recipient to show up at an address at a particular time "with your belongings," while others d...
LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — It's hard to call any series between basketball programs a rivalry when they've met just 12 times in their shared history. Hard to call North Carolina-Kansas anything else, though. They are linked by Dean Smith and Larry Brown, Matt Doherty and Roy Williams. And when they have played, the stakes have been the highest: Seven matchups in the NCAA Tournament, five in the Final Four, and twice the winner has cut down the nets — the Tar Heels won the national title in a triple-overtime thriller in 1957, turning back a team led...
Forty-three monkeys escaped from a compound used for medical research in South Carolina but the nearby police chief said there is "almost no danger" to the public. "They are not infected with any disease whatsoever. They are harmless and a little skittish," Yemassee Police Chief Gregory Alexander said Thursday morning. The Rhesus macaque primates escaped from the Alpha Genesis facility Wednesday when a new employee didn't fully shut an enclosure, Alexander said. The monkeys are females weighing about 7 pounds (3 kilograms) and are so young and...
CAMARILLO, Calif. (AP) — Southern California firefighters made progress against a wildfire that has destroyed 132 structures, mostly homes, and that was fanned by fierce wind gusts that began easing Friday, allowing some people to return to sort through the charred remains of their homes. Joey Parish returned to the site of his former home of more than 20 years in Camarillo Heights. All that was left was part of the burned-out steel frame. "It's tough, it's really tough to know how to process the emotions," he told KNBC-TV late Thursday. He h...
AMSTERDAM (AP) — Israeli fans were assaulted after a soccer game in Amsterdam by hordes of young people apparently riled up by calls on social media to target Jewish people, Dutch authorities said Friday. Five people were treated at hospitals and dozens were arrested after the attacks, which were condemned as antisemitic by authorities in Amsterdam, Israel and across Europe. Reports of antisemitic speech, vandalism and violence have been on the rise across Europe since the start of the war in Gaza, and tensions mounted in the Dutch capital a...
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department unsealed criminal charges Friday in a thwarted Iranian plot to kill President-elect Donald Trump before this week's presidential election. A criminal complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan alleges that an unnamed official in Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard instructed a contact this past September to put together a plan to surveil and ultimately kill Trump. If the man, identified as Farjad Shakeri, was unable to create a plan by then, the complaint said, the official told him Iran would p...
NEW YORK (AP) — Welcome toBeyoncé country. When it comes to the 2025 Grammy Award nominations, "Cowboy Carter" rules the nation. She leads the nods with 11, bringing her career total to 99 nominations. That makes her the most nominated artist in Grammy history. "Cowboy Carter" is up for album and country album of the year, and "Texas Hold 'Em" is nominated for record, song and country song of the year. She also received nominations in a wide swath of genres, including pop, country, Americana and melodic rap performance categories. This is he...
RIO GRANDE CITY, Texas (AP) — Jorge Bazán's family has lived on the U.S.-Mexico border for generations and voted for Democrats as long as he can remember. He broke the family tradition this year and voted for Donald Trump because he doesn't trust the Democratic Party's economic policies. "I think they forgot about the middle class," said Bazán, who works for the utility company in Rio Grande City, seat of the most Hispanic county in the nation. "People are suffering right now. Everything's very expensive." The South Texas region — stret...
BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — A Spanish research vessel that investigates marine ecosystems has been abruptly diverted from its usual task to take on a new job: Helping in the increasingly desperate search for the missing from Spain's floods. The 24 crew members aboard the Ramón Margalef were preparing Friday to use its sensors and submersible robot to map an offshore area of 36 square kilometers — the equivalent of more than 5,000 soccer fields — to see if they can locate vehicles that last week's catastrophic floods swept into the Medite...
WASHINGTON (AP) — A relatively trouble-free presidential election was good news for those working to restore faith in the system. Less encouraging was a flood of misinformation that sought to undermine trust in voting and sow chaos, something experts say is likely to get worse in the years ahead. The most significant test for officials on Election Day was a series of bomb threats reported in five battleground states, some of which forced polling places to be evacuated temporarily. The day otherwise played out like most other election days, w...
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. presidents usually at least pay lip service to being leaders of the free world, at the helm of a mighty democracy and military that allies worldwide can rally around and reasonably depend on for support in return. Not so under President-elect Donald Trump, a critic of many existing U.S. alliances, whose win of a second term this week had close European partners calling for a new era of self-reliance not dependent on American goodwill. "We must not delegate forever our security to America," French President Emmanuel M...
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian missiles, bombs and drones battered three regions of Ukraine in targeted nighttime attacks, officials said Friday, as Russia mounts an intensified aerial campaign that Ukrainian officials say they need more Western help to counter — even as doubts deepen over what Kyiv can expect from a new U.S. administration. Since the war began almost three years ago following Russia's full-scale invasion of its neighbor, the Russian military has repeatedly used its superior air power to blast civilian targets across Ukr...
A federal judge on Thursday struck down a Biden administration policy that aimed to ease a path to citizenship for some undocumented immigrants who are married to U.S. citizens. The program, lauded as one of the biggest presidential actions to help immigrant families in years, allowed undocumented spouses and stepchildren of U.S. citizens to apply for a green card without first having to leave the country. The temporary relief from deportation brought a brief sense of security to some 500,000 immigrants estimated to benefit from the program...
