History in Georgia as 4 states vote ahead of midterms
ATLANTA (AP) It was a big night for women Tuesday as four states cast primary and runoff ballots, with Georgia Democrats taking the lead by giving Atlanta lawyer Stacey Abrams a chance to become the first black female governor in American history.
Abrams set new historical marks already with a primary victory that made her the first black nominee and first female nominee for governor of either majority party in Georgia.
Voters also picked nominees in Kentucky, Arkansas and Texas ahead of the November midterms. A closer look at key story lines:
GEORGIA GOVERNOR'S RACE
Democrats were set to nominate a woman for governor either way, with Stacey Abrams and Stacey Evans battling it out in a pitched primary fight.
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Trump rallies abortion opponents to vote for Republicans
WASHINGTON (AP) President Donald Trump on Tuesday issued a rallying call to opponents of abortion, encouraging them to head to the polls to elect conservative lawmakers.
Speaking at the Susan B. Anthony List's annual "Campaign for Life Gala," Trump took a victory lap for his anti-abortion policies and nominations of conservative justices to federal courts. But he warned the group that they must show up at the polls to preserve their gains under his administration.
"Every day between now and November we must work together to elect more lawmakers who share our values, cherish our heritage, and proudly stand for life," Trump said. He summed it up for the roomful of enthusiastic supporters: "The story is, '18 midterms, we need Republicans."
Trump has long been an unlikely sweetheart for conservative and evangelical voters. But now, in the lead-up to the midterm elections, the thrice-married former Democrat who used to describe himself as "very pro-choice" has been offering catnip to conservatives.
Last week, the administration unveiled a new push to strip funding from Planned Parenthood and other family planning clinics. The initiative, which was formally unveiled Tuesday, is aimed at resurrecting parts of a Reagan-era mandate banning federally funded family planning clinics from referring women for abortions, or sharing space with abortion providers.
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Trump, Moon try to keep NKorea summit on track amid doubts
WASHINGTON (AP) President Donald Trump labored with South Korea's Moon Jae-in Tuesday to keep the highly anticipated U.S. summit with North Korea on track after Trump abruptly cast doubt that the June 12 meeting would come off. Setting the stakes sky high, Moon said, "The fate and the future of the Korean Peninsula hinge" on the meeting.
The summit, planned for Singapore, offers a historic chance for peace on the peninsula but also the risk of an epic diplomatic failure that would allow the North to revive and advance its nuclear weapons program.
Trump's newfound hesitation appeared to reflect recent setbacks in efforts to bring about reconciliation between the two Koreas, as well as concern whether the self-proclaimed dealmaker can deliver a nuclear accord with the North's Kim Jong Un.
In an extraordinary public airing of growing uncertainty, Trump said "there's a very substantial chance" the meeting won't happen as scheduled.
Seated in the Oval Office with Moon, Trump said Kim had not met unspecified "conditions" for the summit. However, the president also said he believed Kim was "serious" about negotiations, and Moon expressed "every confidence" in Trump's ability to hold the summit and bring about peace.
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Trump won't say if he has confidence in Rosenstein
WASHINGTON (AP) President Donald Trump declined to say Tuesday whether he has confidence in Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, escalating pressure on the Justice Department as his White House negotiated rare access to classified documents for his congressional allies.
Asked before a private meeting with the president of South Korea if he has confidence in Rosenstein, who is overseeing the special counsel's Russia investigation, he asked reporters to move on to another question.
"Excuse me, I have the president of South Korea here," Trump said. "He doesn't want to hear these questions, if you don't mind."
The comments came just before White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced that a meeting to allow House Republicans to review highly classified information on the Russia probe will happen on Thursday.
Sanders said FBI Director Christopher Wray, National Intelligence Director Dan Coats and Justice Department official Edward O'Callaghan will meet with House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes and House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Trey Gowdy.
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Philip Roth, fearless and celebrated author, dies at 85
NEW YORK (AP) Philip Roth, a prize-winning novelist and fearless narrator of sex, death, assimilation and fate, has died.
The celebrated and controversial author of "Portnoy's Complaint," ''The Counterlife" and other novels was 85. His death was confirmed by his literary agent, Andrew Wylie, who said Roth died Tuesday night of congestive heart failure.
Roth won virtually every literary honor, including the Pulitzer Prize for "American Pastoral."
Author of more than 25 books, Roth was a fierce satirist and uncompromising realist, confronting readers in a bold, direct style that scorned false sentiment or hopes for heavenly reward. He was an atheist who swore allegiance to earthly imagination, whether devising pornographic functions for raw liver or indulging romantic fantasies about Anne Frank.
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AP Explains: Congress moves to roll back Dodd-Frank law
WASHINGTON (AP) Just over decade ago, the first inklings of the coming recession emerged as a housing bubble fueled by scant regulation, low-interest rates and easy credit gradually began to crater and soon would take the rest of the economy along for the painful ride.
By the time the Great Recession ended in June 2009, almost no one was spared.
Home prices fell 30 percent on average, the unemployment rate nearly doubled and the S&P 500 lost about half its value. The net worth of U.S. households and nonprofit organizations fell by nearly $14 trillion, about 20 percent.
In the midst of a presidential election, Washington struggled in its response. The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and the takeover of Merrill Lynch turned the spotlight on Democratic Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois and Republican Sen. John McCain even brighter, with McCain's assertion that the "the fundamentals of our economy are strong" used to depict him as out of touch.
After the economy stabilized, Congress shifted from economic stimulus and bailouts to establishing the kind of regulatory framework that might keep another Great Recession from happening. The result was the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010.
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Elderly North Korean spies trapped in South yearn for home
GWANGJU, South Korea (AP) He's spent nearly six decades trapped on enemy soil, surviving 29 years in a prison where he was tortured by South Korean guards before being released to a life of poverty and police surveillance. Now, 89 years old and bedridden with illness, former North Korean spy Seo Ok-yeol just wants to go home.
"People have a need to die in a place where they are respected," Seo said, though he worries it could be too late to finally be reunited with the wife and children he left behind.
Seo is among 19 Cold War-era North Korean spies and guerrillas who have served their time in South Korean prison and are pushing to return to the North. Though they are officially free now, Seoul has refused to let them return as it seeks commitments from Pyongyang for the return of hundreds of South Koreans thought held there.
The Associated Press recently spoke with seven of the former spies, all men in their 80s and 90s who insist North Korea is their "ideological homeland." Though they have seen past efforts to negotiate their return fall apart, the men are filled with renewed optimism after the leaders of the Koreas held a summit last month and pledged to resolve all humanitarian issues caused by their nations' 70 years of division.
"I wept tears of joy," 82-year-old Yang Hee-chul, a former spy, said of the summit. "I have a ray of hope that our issue could be resolved."
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Workers plugging energy wells as lava flows nearby
PAHOA, Hawaii (AP) Authorities were racing Tuesday to close off production wells at a geothermal plant threatened by a lava flow from Kilauea volcano on Hawaii's Big Island. Workers were capping the 11th and last well at the plant to prevent toxic gases from wafting out after lava entered, then stalled, on the property near one of the new volcanic vents.
"Right now, they're in a safe state," Mike Kaleikini, senior director of Hawaii affairs for the Puna Geothermal Venture plant, said of the wells. There also were plans to install metal plugs in the wells as an additional stopgap measure.
The wells run as deep as 8,000 feet (2,438 meters) underground at the plant, which covers around 40 acres (16 hectares) of the 815-acre (329.8 hectare) property. The plant has capacity to produce 38 megawatts of electricity, providing roughly one-quarter of the Big Island's daily energy demand.
Lava destroyed a building near the plant, bringing the total number of structures overtaken in the past several weeks to nearly 50, including dozens of homes. The latest was a warehouse adjacent to the Puna plant, covered by lava on Monday night, Hawaii County spokeswoman Janet Snyder told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. The building was owned by the state of Hawaii, and was used in geothermal research projects in the early days of the site.
Puna Geothermal, owned by Nevada's Ormat Technologies, was shut down shortly after Kilauea began spewing lava on May 3. The plant harnesses heat and steam from the earth's core to spin turbines to generate power. A flammable gas called pentane is used as part of the process, though officials earlier this month removed 50,000 gallons (190,000 liters) of the gas from the plant to reduce the chance of explosions.
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Amazon urged not to sell facial recognition tool to police
SEATTLE (AP) Amazon's decision to market a powerful face recognition tool to police is alarming privacy advocates, who say the tech giant's reach could vastly accelerate a dystopian future in which camera-equipped officers can identify and track people in real time, whether they're involved in crimes or not.
It's not clear how many law enforcement agencies have purchased the tool, called Rekognition, since its launch in late 2016 or since its update last fall, when Amazon added capabilities that allow it to identify people in videos and follow their movements almost instantly.
The Washington County Sheriff's Office in Oregon has used it to quickly compare unidentified suspects in surveillance images to a database of more than 300,000 booking photos from the county jail a common use of such technology around the country while the Orlando Police Department in Florida is testing whether it can be used to single out persons-of-interest in public spaces and alert officers to their presence.
The American Civil Liberties Union and other privacy advocates on Tuesday asked Amazon to stop marketing Rekognition to government agencies, saying they could use the technology to "easily build a system to automate the identification and tracking of anyone."
That could have potentially dire consequences for minorities who are already arrested at disproportionate rates, immigrants who may be in the country illegally or political protesters, they said.
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Harden scores 30, Rockets even series at 2 games apiece
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) James Harden scored 30 points, Chris Paul had 27 and the Houston Rockets sustained the latest second-half flurry by Stephen Curry, evening the Western Conference finals at two games apiece with a 95-92 victory Tuesday night.
Curry scored 28 points and Kevin Durant added 27 points and 12 rebounds but the defending champions missed their final six shots from the floor and their NBA-record postseason winning streak at home ended at 16 games.
The Rockets shook off a 12-0 deficit to start the game and another big run by the Warriors in the third, then won it with defense down the stretch.
Paul rebounded Klay Thompson's miss just before the final buzzer sounded for the first time and pounded the ball down in delight. A replay review ensued and it was determined Shaun Livingston fouled Paul before the game ended, so Paul made a free throw with 0.5 seconds left.
Curry couldn't get off a final attempt before the buzzer.