U.S. NEWS

Harvey Weinstein's looming #MeToo retrial takes shape as judge rules on what jury will hear

NEW YORK (AP) — Harvey Weinstein’s #MeToo retrial next month will largely be an abridged version of the original, with one big addition: a charge based on an allegation from a woman who wasn’t a part of the first case. But at a key pretrial hearing Wednesday, the disgraced movie mogul’s lawyers cautioned that because Weinstein’s 2020 rape and sexual assault conviction was overturned, the past isn’t prologue — it’s almost entirely irrelevant. New York’s Court of Appeals threw out Weinstein’s conviction last year, setting the stage for a retrial starting April 15 in state court in Manhattan. Prosecutors say it could take about five weeks. How the retrial will play out began to take shape Wednesday as Judge Curtis Farber ruled on a number of outstanding issues.

Former Texas megachurch pastor indicted in Oklahoma on child sexual abuse charges

DALLAS (AP) — The Oklahoma Attorney General’s office says a former pastor of a Texas megachurch who resigned after a woman accused him of sexually abusing her in the 1980s has been indicted on child sexual abuse charges. Robert Preston Morris was charged Wednesday with five counts of lewd or indecent acts with a child. The attorney general’s office says the alleged abuse started in 1982 when the victim was 12 years old and Morris was a traveling evangelist staying in Oklahoma with her family. The abuse allegedly continued for four years. Phone numbers associated with Morris were either disconnected or messages were not immediately returned Wednesday.

Columbia grad student's detention will stretch on as lawyers spar over Trump's plan to deport him

NEW YORK (AP) — A government lawyer has asked a federal judge to move the legal fight over the detention of Mahmoud Khalil to either New Jersey or Louisiana. The request was made Wednesday during a hearing in New York City. Khalil is a Columbia University graduate student whom the Trump Administration is trying to deport over his role in pro-Palestinian protests at the Ivy League school last year. Khalil is a legal U.S. resident and is married to an American citizen. After the 30-year-old's detention last weekend, Judge Jesse M. Furman in New York ordered that Khalil not be deported while the court considers his lawyers' legal challenge.

Woman trapped in crashed car survives on creek water for 6 days until rescue

BROOK, Ind. (AP) — Authorities say a woman in Indiana who was trapped in her car with broken legs after a crash survived for nearly a week by sucking water from a sweatshirt that she dipped into a creek. The Newton County Sheriff's Office says a man operating drainage equipment saw 41-year-old Brieonna Cassell's car off a road Tuesday near the town of Brook. Cassell had been reported missing by family members six days before. The sheriff's office says the man who spotted her car told his supervisor and they found Cassell inside, conscious and able to speak. She was flown to a Chicago hospital for her injuries.

Trump threatens retaliatory 200% tariff on European wine after EU proposes American whiskey tariff

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. bourbon makers want President Donald Trump to back off his trade war now that he's threatened a 200% tariff on European wine, champagne and spirits if Europe goes forward with a planned tariff on American whiskey. The European tariff is expected to go into effect April 1. Trump in a social media posting Thursday called the EU “one of the most hostile and abusive taxing and tariffing authorities.” The Republican president Wednesday had signaled he intended to take the action. The Distilled Spirits Council says it wants “toasts not tariffs” and is urging Trump to secure a spirits agreement with the EU.

February US wholesale prices unchanged showing inflation easing, though trade wars threaten trend

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. wholesale inflation decelerated last month, suggesting that price pressures are easing for now. The Labor Department reported Thursday that its producer price index — which tracks inflation before it reaches consumers — was unchanged from January after rising 0.6% the month before. Compared to a year earlier, producer prices were up 3.2%, down from a year-over-year gain of 3.7% in January. The readout comes as President Donald Trump ramps up his trade war with a wide range of U.S. trade partners, threatening to send inflation higher

US stocks drift as Trump's latest tariff threat offsets good news on the economy

NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. stock market is drifting lower, even after getting a double-shot of encouraging news on the economy. The S&P 500 dipped 0.2% Thursday after President Donald Trump upped the stakes in his trade war, with his most recent threat to tax European wines and spirits. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 39 points, and the Nasdaq composite fell 0.2%. Trump's escalating trade war is raising worries about the economy's strength, but reports came in better than expected on both inflation and on joblessness. Stock indexes fell across much of Europe and Asia, but the moves were much more modest than in prior weeks.

Vaccinating poultry could help cut soaring egg prices but US remains hesitant

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Vaccines could be a key means of suppressing bird flu and avoiding the slaughter of millions of chickens, which is blamed for egg prices averaging nearly $5 a dozen. But the move has been delayed in part because of concerns it could jeopardize chicken exports that totaled nearly $4.7 billion last year. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has announced plans to spend $100 million to study bird flu and consider vaccines and other strategies to fight the disease in concert with meat chicken, egg and turkey groups. Chicken meat producers remain the most resistant to vaccines.

Fewer Americans file for jobless claims last week, signaling a still-healthy US labor market

The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits fell slightly last week, indicating a still-healthy U.S. labor market. U.S. jobless claims filings fell by 2,000 to 220,000 for the week ending March 8, the Labor Department said Thursday. That’s fewer than the 226,000 new applications analysts forecast. Weekly applications for jobless benefits are considered a proxy for layoffs, and have remained mostly in a range between 200,000 and 250,000 for years. The four-week average, which evens out some of the week-to-week swings, ticked up by 1,500 to 226,000. The total number of Americans receiving unemployment benefits for the week of March 1 fell by 27,000 to 1.87 million.

Meta to start testing crowd-sourced fact-checking, based on X example, next week

Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta Platforms Inc. says it will launch its crowd-sourced fact-checking program, called Community Notes, on March 18. It will initially be based on a ratings system used by Elon Musk’s X. Meta ended its fact-checking program in January. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said at the time that fact-checkers had become “politically biased,” using some of the language that conservatives have long used to criticize his platforms. But media experts and those who study social media were aghast at Meta’s policy shift.

US envoy visits Moscow for ceasefire talks that a Russian official says would help Ukraine

Russia claimed Thursday that its troops have driven the Ukrainian army out of a key town in Russia’s Kursk border region, as a senior Kremlin official said that a U.S.-proposed 30-day ceasefire in the three-year war on Ukraine would help Kyiv by giving its military a break. The Russian Defense Ministry’s claim that it recaptured the town of Sudzha, hours after President Vladimir Putin visited his commanders in Kursk and wore military fatigues, could not be independently verified. Ukrainian officials made no immediate comment on the claim.

Trump administration withdraws nomination of David Weldon for CDC director

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House has withdrawn the nomination of David Weldon, a former Florida congressman, to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Senate health committee announced Thursday morning that it was canceling a planned hearing on Weldon’s nomination because of the withdrawal. A person familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said the White House pulled the nomination because it became clear Weldon did not have the votes for confirmation.

SpaceX delays flight to replace NASA's stuck astronauts after launch pad problem

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A launch pad problem has forced a flight delay to replace NASA's two stuck astronauts. The new crew needs to get to the International Space Station before Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams can head home after nine months in orbit. Concerns over a critical hydraulic system arose less than four hours before the Falcon rocket’s planned evening liftoff from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center. The decision to cancel finally came down with less than an hour remaining in the countdown. Officials say the launch is off until at least Friday.

Maintenance hole explosion at Texas Tech University causes fires, outages and cancels classes

LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) — Authorities at Texas Tech University say an explosion inside a maintenance hole set off fires and power outages on the campus, leading school officials to issue evacuation orders for several buildings and cancel classes for the rest of the week. Lubbock Fire Rescue Capt. Jon Tunnell says no injuries were reported Wednesday evening. He says firefighters responding to campus for a possible gas leak found multiple maintenance hole covers with fire and smoke coming from them. It wasn’t clear what might have caused the explosion. A spokesperson for the university’s police department says power was being shut down to the entire campus in Lubbock, Texas, while repairs are underway.

From soup cans to airplanes, steel and aluminum are a fundamental part of American life

Steel and aluminum are ubiquitous in Americans’ lives. A stainless steel refrigerator holds aluminum soda cans. A stainless steel drum tumbles inside an aluminum washing machine. That’s why President Donald Trump’s 25% tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports could have a widespread impact on manufacturers and consumers. The Retail Industry Leaders Association says the compound effect from Wednesday's metal tariffs and Trump's multiple rounds of tariffs on Chinese products could be substantial. The trade group calculated potential duties of 45% to over 70% for a range of common household items when they go through U.S. customs. They include pushpins, trash cans, ladders, mixing bowls, wine racks, shower caddies, chicken coops and steel wool.

Education Department layoffs gut its civil rights office, leaving discrimination cases in limbo

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Education Department’s civil rights branch is losing nearly half its staff in the Trump administration’s layoffs, effectively gutting an office that already faced a backlog of thousands of complaints from students and families across the country. Among more than 1,300 layoffs announced Tuesday were roughly 240 in the department’s Office for Civil Rights. Seven out of 12 regional offices were entirely laid off. It leaves thousands of cases hanging in the air, including cases from families trying to get school services for students with disabilities, allegations of bias related to race or religion, and complaints over sexual violence on college campuses.

Ford shows off a treasure trove of rarely seen vehicles to a select few at its Michigan headquarters

DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) — About 50 cars and trucks that are part of Ford's Heritage Fleet are on display in Dearborn, Michigan. Employees and members of the media got to take a look this week. They’ll be available for viewing as part of “Bring Your Child to Work Day” at the automaker's headquarters next month. Ford has existing Heritage Fleets in the U.K., Germany and Australia. Company CEO Jm Farley ordered the creation of a U.S.-based collection more than a year ago. Some highlights include a series of Mustang performance vehicles, a 1938 V-8 Ambulance and a 2003 Ford Model T-100 that replicates a 1914 Model T.