AP Top News at 7:51 a.m. EST – The Associated Press – en Español
SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Brittney Griner returned to the United States early Friday, nearly 10 months after the basketball star’s detention in Russia made her the most high-profile American jailed abroad and set off a political firestorm. Griner’s status as an openly gay Black woman, her prominence in women’s basketball and her imprisonment in a country where authorities have been hostile to the LBGTQ community heightened concerns for her and brought tremendous attention to the case. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine after her arrest complicated matters further. The deal that saw Griner exchanged for notorious arms dealer Viktor Bout achieved a top goal for President Joe Biden.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona announced Friday that she now has registered as an independent, but she does not plan to caucus with Republicans, ensuring Democrats will retain their narrow voting majority in the Senate. Sinema has modeled her political approach on the renegade style of the late Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, and has frustrated Democratic colleagues at times with her overtures to Republicans and opposition to Democratic priorities. Rather than assailing the Democratic Party in her statement, she said she was “declaring my independence from the broken partisan system in Washington.” At the White House, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre praised Sinema as a “key partner” in passing some of President Joe Biden’s priorities and said the switch “does not change the new Democratic majority control of the Senate.
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin was on the Senate floor, but her mind was on the other side of the Capitol. The House was voting that July afternoon on Democratic legislation to protect same-sex and interracial marriages in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the federal right to an abortion. And it was suddenly winning more Republican votes than Baldwin — or anyone else — had expected. Baldwin, who became the first openly gay senator when she was elected a decade ago, said she was “overjoyed” as she saw the votes coming in. She excitedly walked over to Ohio Sen.
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COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — The Colorado Springs gay nightclub shooter had charges dropped in a 2021 bomb threat case after family members who were terrorized in the incident refused to cooperate, according to the district attorney and court documents unsealed Thursday. The charges were dropped despite authorities finding a “tub” full of bomb-making chemicals and later receiving warnings from other relatives that suspect Anderson Lee Aldrich was sure to hurt or murder a set of grandparents if freed, according to the unsealed documents. In a letter last November to state District Court Judge Robin Chittum, the relatives painted a picture of an isolated, violent person who did not have a job and was given $30,000 that was spent largely on the purchase of 3D printers to make guns.
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LIMA, Peru (AP) — Peru’s first female president is pushing to cement her hold on power, saying she expects to complete the term of her ousted predecessor and buck the trend of presidential failures blighting the Andean nation. Yet, even as Dina Doluarte made the call Thursday, some politicians already were calling for early elections in an indication of continued political rancor. Boluarte, who was elevated from vice president to replace leftist Pedro Castillo as the country’s leader Wednesday after he angered many by trying to dissolve the legislature before an impeachment vote, said she should be allowed to hold the office for the remaining 3 1/2 years of his term.
BEIJING (AP) — A rash of COVID-19 cases in schools and businesses were reported Friday in areas across China after the ruling Communist Party loosened anti-virus rules as it tries to reverse a deepening economic slump. While official data showed a fall in new cases, they no longer cover large parts of the population after the government on Wednesday ended mandatory testing for many people. That was part of dramatic changes aimed at gradually emerging from “zero COVID” restrictions that have confined millions of people to their homes and sparked protests and demands for President Xi Jinping to resign. “There’s very few people coming in because there’s so many cases,” said Gang Xueping, a waitress in a Beijing restaurant.
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FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Ukraine’s finance minister says crucial Western financial support is “not charity” but “self-preservation” in the fight to defend democracy as his country deals with growing costs to repair electrical and heating infrastructure wrecked by Russian attacks. Serhiy Marchenko also told The Associated Press in an interview Thursday from Kyiv that he believes European Union officials will sort out a dispute with Hungary that has blocked a key 18 billion-euro ($18.97 billion) aid package and would cover much of Ukraine’s looming budget gap. Marchenko said financial support for Ukraine is tiny compared to what developed countries spent to combat emergencies like the global financial crisis of 2008 and the COVID-19 pandemic.
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DOHA, Qatar (AP) — Lionel Messi up against Virgil van Dijk. The youngest coach at the World Cup taking on the oldest. South America versus Europe. A back catalog of famous meetings. The quarterfinal match between Argentina and the Netherlands on Friday has all the ingredients of a classic. And the possibility of it being Messi’s final game on soccer’s biggest stage just adds to the anticipation. The seven-time world player of the year is three wins away from achieving his ultimate dream but he has two people, in particular, blocking his path. First, the not inconsiderable frame of Van Dijk, who has been one of the world’s best defenders over the past five years.
Hate mealy apples and soggy french fries? Science can help. Restaurants, grocers, farmers and food companies are increasingly turning to chemistry and physics to tackle the problem of food waste. Some are testing spray-on peels or chemically-enhanced sachets that can slow the ripening process in fruit. Others are developing digital sensors that can tell — more precisely than a label — when meat is safe to consume. And packets affixed to the top of a takeout box use thermodynamics to keep fries crispy. Experts say growing awareness of food waste and its incredible cost — both in dollars and in environmental impact — has led to an uptick in efforts to mitigate it.
NUIQSUT, Alaska (AP) — Though the weather outside was frightful, schoolchildren in the northern Alaska Inupiac community of Nuiqsut were so delighted for a visit by Santa that they braved wind chills of 25 degrees below zero just to see him land on a snow-covered airstrip. Once again, it was time for Operation Santa Claus in Alaska. And here in Nuiqsut, a roadless village of about 460 residents on Alaska’s oil-rich North Slope, the temperatures may have been plunging but the children were warming quickly. Never mind that Santa left Rudolph at home to catch a ride on an Alaska Air National Guard cargo plane to Nuiqsut, just 30 frosty miles (50 kilometers) south of the Arctic Ocean.