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BY CHRISTOPHER RUGABER WASHINGTON (AP) - Fitch Ratings has downgraded the United States government's credit rating, citing rising debt at the federal, state, and local levels and a "steady deterioration in standards of governance" over the past two decades. The rating was cut Tuesday one notch to AA+ from AAA, the highest possible rating. The new rating is still well into investment grade. The decision illustrates one way that growing political

BY ERIC TUCKER AND MICHAEL KUNZELMAN WASHINGTON (AP) - Donald Trump was indicted on felony charges Tuesday for working to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the run-up to the violent riot by his supporters at the U.S. Capitol, with the Justice Department acting to hold him accountable for an unprecedented effort to block the peaceful transfer of presidential power and threaten American democracy. The four-count indictment, the third

Most of what North Carolina Republican gubernatorial candidate and State Treasurer Dale Folwell raised during the first half of the year for his campaign committee has come from $1 million that he loaned it, according to a new campaign finance report. Folwell's campaign, like others whose candidates are on ballots in 2024, had until late Friday to send in reports to the State Board of Elections covering activities through June 30.

BY ISABELLA O'MALLEY Sunlight beats down on a graveyard for dead solar panels in Yuma, Arizona, hundreds stacked in neat piles, waiting for their next life. The great majority of worn and damaged panels are still dumped in landfills. But with more and more piling up, many people know that needs to change. In this desert city where Arizona, California, Sonora, and Baja California meet, North America's first utility-scale solar panel

Three North Carolina residents died this month from infections from bacteria naturally found in warm seawater and brackish water, state health officials said Friday. Cases of Vibrio are rare in North Carolina. While healthy people typically develop a mild illness, infections can be severe or life-threatening for those with weakened immune systems or chronic liver disease, the Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement. The bacteria are naturally

BY ANNE D'INNOCENZIO NEW YORK (AP) - Overstock has officially relaunched the Bed Bath & Beyond domain online Tuesday in the U.S., after acquiring the bankrupt retail chain's intellectual property assets for $21.5 million last month. The online retailer Overstock.com said in late June that it was dumping its name online and it would become Bed & Bath & Beyond, which declared bankruptcy earlier this year. The name change was made in Canada on

RIVERHEAD, N.Y. (AP) Rex Heuermann, the architect accused of murdering at least three women and leaving their bodies along a remote stretch of coastline near Long Island's Gilgo Beach, is due back in court for the first time since his arraignment. Heuermann is charged with killing Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Lynn Costello, who disappeared over five months in 2010. Prosecutors also say he's also suspected in the death of

BY LEA SKENE BALTIMORE (AP) - More than 70 years after doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital took Henrietta Lacks' cervical cells without her knowledge, a lawyer for her descendants said they have reached a settlement with a biotechnology company they sued in 2021, accusing its leaders of reaping billions of dollars from a racist medical system. Tissue taken from the Black woman's tumor before she died of cervical cancer became the first

BY ALEXANDRA OLSON NEW YORK (AP) - Six straight days of 12-hour driving. Single-digit paychecks. The complaints come from workers in vastly different industries: UPS delivery drivers and Hollywood actors and writers. But they point to an underlying factor driving a surge of labor unrest: The cost to workers whose jobs have changed drastically as companies scramble to meet customer expectations for speed and convenience in industries transformed by technology. The

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) - Another structural issue has been located with a large roller coaster that's been closed for weeks since a large crack in a support column was discovered, a North Carolina agency confirmed on Friday. A Swiss-based engineering company that designed and built the Fury 325 roller coaster at Carowinds, which sits along the North Carolina-South Carolina border, replaced that steel support column earlier this month, news outlets