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BY PETER SMITH Less than a month after finalizing the ouster of one of its largest churches for having women pastors, the Southern Baptist Convention has lost another of its biggest congregations. Elevation Church - a North Carolina-based megachurch that draws thousands of worshippers to its multiple campuses and has wielded a strong influence on contemporary Christian worship music - sent notice to the SBC on June 26 that it was

Nathan Hill started receiving $12.75 an hour from a state Medicaid program to help care for his severely disabled son during the pandemic, money he said allowed his family to stop using food stamps. The program was designed to provide a continuation of care and ease a home health worker shortage that grew worse after COVID-19 hit. But now, with the COVID-19 public health emergency over, he worries that the

BY JONATHAN MATTISE NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Tennessee Rep. Justin Pearson raised about $860,000 through some 31,700 campaign donations after Tennessee Republican lawmakers abruptly moved to expel him and two other Democrats for a gun control protest on the House floor, his campaign said. The short-lived expulsion propelled the Memphis environmental activist, a fresh face just months into his first term, to become a nationally watched progressive figure who sat in

It's three years until the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary, but festivities are already starting. The anniversary push will formally launch July 4 with an event during a Major League Baseball game between the Milwaukee Brewers and the Chicago Cubs at American Family Field in Milwaukee. The organization spearheading the celebration, known as America250, will start recruiting people to share their stories of what the country means to them.

DETROIT (AP) - The Detroit area woke up Wednesday to some of the worst air quality in the United States as smoke from Canada's wildfires settled over most of the Great Lakes region and unhealthy haze spread southward, as far as Missouri and Kentucky. Drifting smoke from the wildfires has lowered curtains of haze on broad swaths of the United States, pushing into southern Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, and moving

REPRESA, California (AP) - The graduates lined up, brushing off their gowns and adjusting classmates' tassels and stoles. As the graduation march played, the 85 men appeared to hoots and cheers from their families. They marched to the stage - one surrounded by barbed wire fence and constructed by fellow prisoners. For these were no ordinary graduates. Their black commencement garb almost hid their aqua and navy-blue prison uniforms as

GREENSBORO, N.C. (AP) - A federal judge said Wednesday that she won't temporarily block most of a newly revised abortion law from taking effect this weekend in North Carolina, including a near-ban on the procedure after 12 weeks of pregnancy. U.S. District Judge Catherine Eagles said at a court hearing that she won't grant the request by lawyers for Planned Parenthood South Atlantic and a physician to set aside most

Simone Biles is back. The gymnastics superstar plans to return to competition at the U.S. Classic outside Chicago in early August, her first event since the pandemic-delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics. USA Gymnastics announced Wednesday that Biles, a seven-time Olympic medalist and the 2016 Olympic champion, is part of the women's field for the single-day event set for Aug. 5 at NOW Arena in Hoffman Estates. Biles has taken most of

WASHINGTON (AP) - The warnings have been sounded for more than a year: A recession is going to hit the United States. If not this quarter, then by next quarter. Or the quarter after that. Or maybe next year. So is a recession still in sight? The latest signs suggest maybe not. Despite much higher borrowing costs, thanks to the Federal Reserve's aggressive streak of interest rate hikes, consumers keep

NEW YORK - Outside a Harlem subway station, Yusef Salaam, a candidate for New York City Council, hurriedly greeted voters streaming out along Malcolm X Boulevard. For some, no introductions were necessary. They knew his face, his name and his life story. But to the unfamiliar, Salaam needed only to introduce himself as one of the Central Park Five - one of the Black or Brown teenagers, ages 14 to