Jury deliberations are underway in the trial of an Idaho man accused of killing his wife and his girlfriend’s two youngest children. Chad Daybell is charged with three counts of first-degree murder in connection with the 2019 deaths. Prosecutors claim that Daybell and his girlfriend, Lori Vallow Daybell, conspired to kill Tammy Daybell and the children because they wanted to obtain money from survivor benefits and life insurance. Daybell's defense attorney says there isn’t enough evidence to tie Daybell to the deaths. Daybell could face the death penalty if he is convicted. Lori Vallow Daybell was convicted in the killings last year and received a life sentence.

The National Park Services says two climbers are awaiting rescue near the peak of North America’s tallest mountain a day after they and a third climber in their team requested help. That request came early Tuesday morning after they summited the 20,310-foot Denali. Their condition was not immediately known. The third climber was rescued late Tuesday. They indicated they were hypothermic and unable to descend. One climber was eventually able to descend to the mountain's high camp and was flown off Denali late Tuesday. But park personnel said Wednesday clouds and high winds are preventing them from reaching the other climbers. They are waiting for conditions to improve before making an attempt.

Manhattan prosecutors have told a judge they are evaluating new claims of sexual misconduct made against Harvey Weinstein. Assistant District Attorney Nicole Blumberg has said during a court hearing Wednesday that additional people have come forward with assault claims and prosecutors are currently assessing which fall under the statute of limitations. She says some potential survivors that were not ready to step forward during Weinstein’s first trial may now be willing to testify, and prosecutors could potentially seek a new indictment against Weinstein ahead of his scheduled retrial on rape charges later this year. Weinstein says he is innocent.

Seattle's embattled police chief has been dismissed. Mayor Bruce Harrell made the announcement Wednesday, saying he met with Police Chief Adrian Diaz on the previous day and they agreed the chief should step down. He will be reassigned within the department. KUOW reports that the move comes about a week after Capt. Eric Greening filed a lawsuit alleging that Diaz discriminated against women and people of color. Greening is one of at least a half-dozen officers to sue the department over such allegations since Diaz became chief. Diaz has vehemently denied the allegations. Former sheriff Sue Rahr will replace him on an interim basis.

The jury in Donald Trump’s hush money trial has ended its first day of deliberations without a verdict. The panel asked Wednesday to rehear potentially crucial testimony about the alleged hush money scheme at the heart of the history-making case. Jurors also asked to rehear at least part of the judge's legal instructions. The notes sent to the judge were the first burst of communication with the court after the jury of seven men and five women was sent to a private room just before 11:30 a.m. to begin weighing a verdict. The 12-person jury was sent home around 4 p.m. after about 4 1/2 hours of deliberations. The process is to resume Thursday.

Republican Sen. Steve Daines has blocked a Biden administration judicial nominee who would have been Montana's first Native American federal district court judge. Attorney Danna Jackson with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes was nominated by President Joe Biden in April. The post requires Senate confirmation. A spokesperson for Daines said Wednesday that he blocked Jackson from Senate Judiciary Committee consideration because the administration never consulted him prior to her nomination. A White House spokesperson said members of Daines' team interviewed Jackson last year but that the senator refused to meet with her.

Prosecutors at Sen. Bob Menendez's bribery trial have showed jurors hundreds of texts, emails and phone calls that show his girlfriend-turned-wife's desperate financial situation before New Jersey businessmen came to the rescue. Prosecutors elicited the evidence through the testimony of an FBI agent for a second day Wednesday as they sought to show that the Democratic senator conspired with three businessmen and his wife, Nadine Menendez, in a bribery scheme that enriched the couple with gold bars and tens of thousands of dollars in cash. The Mendezes and two of the businessmen have pleaded not guilty. The third pleaded guilty.

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry has signed legislation making it a crime to knowingly approach within 25 feet of a police officer while they are “engaged in law enforcement duties” after the officer has ordered the person to stay back. Proponents of the new law argue it creates a buffer-zone to help ensure the safety of officers. But opponents fear the measure could hinder the public’s ability to film officers. Video of police's actions has increasingly been used to hold officers accountable — including in high-profile cases, such as the killing of George Floyd. The law goes into effect Aug. 1.

The Scripps National Spelling Bee had its toughest day of competition with the quarterfinal and semifinal rounds. Wednesday began with 148 spellers on stage and by the end of the semifinals, 140 had been eliminated. Among them were several veteran spellers who hoped to improve on their previous performances and qualify for Thursday night's finals. Spellers say a lot of luck can come into play as Scripps pulls from more than half a million words in Webster's Unabridged dictionary. And those who've performed well in prior years often fall short of expectations.

California lawmakers have advanced a host of artificial intelligence proposals that would protect jobs, build public trust, fight algorithmic discrimination, and outlaw deepfakes involving elections or pornography. Corporations have been weaving the rapidly evolving technologies into the daily lives of Americans without much oversight. California touts itself as a global hub for artificial intelligence development. The state is exploring ways to leverage the powerful technologies for public good while also cracking down on AI abuses such as discrimination in hiring. Experts say California's strong privacy laws put it in a good position to enact AI regulations even as efforts elsewhere fall short.

Authorities say a fugitive dubbed the “bad breath rapist” has been arrested in the San Francisco Bay Area more than 16 years after he fled following a conviction for sexually assaulting a coworker in Massachusetts. Authorities said Tuen Kit Lee was taken into custody Tuesday after investigators spotted him leaving a home in a community east of Oakland, California. Investigators said Lee had broken into the victim’s Massachusetts home in February of 2005 and raped her. State police said he was identified by DNA and that his horrible breath led to the nickname given him. Lee was being held by police in California pending his expected transfer to Massachusetts.

The man sentenced to 30 years in federal prison for bludgeoning Nancy Pelosi’s husband with a hammer inside their San Francisco home returned to a courtroom Wednesday to face state charges, including attempted murder. A federal jury found 44-year-old David DePape guilty of attempting to hold Pelosi hostage and assaulting her husband, Paul Pelosi, after he broke into their home on Oct. 28, 2022, looking for Nancy Pelosi, who was then House Speaker. State prosecutors charged DePape with attempted murder and other charges. DePape pleaded not guilty.

Second-degree murder charges against two sheriff’s deputies and a hospital worker have been reduced to involuntary manslaughter charges in the death of a Virginia man who was pinned to the floor while being admitted to a state psychiatric hospital. The downgrading of the charges in the 2023 death of Irvo Otieno comes just weeks after prosecutors withdrew charges against five other sheriff’s deputies. Otieno died after he was restrained on the floor for 11 minutes by Henrico County sheriff’s deputies and Central State Hospital workers. Prosecutors initially charged 10 people with second-degree murder, but withdrew charges against seven of them, leaving three facing prosecution.

President Joe Biden is renewing his election-year pitch to Black voters. At an appearance in Philadelphia with Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday, he lashed out at what he called Donald Trump’s “MAGA lies” and said the winner of this year’s White House race will make crucial decisions, including nominees for the Supreme Court, that could affect the country for decades. Biden also argued that Trump is peddling misinformation in an effort to win back the White House. Biden called on the crowd at a boarding school where the student body is predominantly Black to help him and Harris win a second term. Biden has seen his solid support among Black voters show signs of erosion.

Israel’s military says it has seized control of the entire length of Gaza’s border with Egypt, without elaborating. Capturing the strategic Philadelphi corridor signals that Israel has deepened its offensive in southern Gaza. Palestinians in the border city of Rafah reported heavy fighting Wednesday. Israel previously said it was carrying out limited operations in eastern Rafah along the Gaza-Egypt border. The United States and other allies of Israel have warned against a full-fledged offensive in the city, saying it would cause a humanitarian catastrophe. Earlier Wednesday, a top Israeli official said that Israel’s war with Hamas is likely to last through the end of the year.

A four-term Democratic incumbent in Houston has been ousted in a statehouse primary race that centered on her support for a ban on gender-affirming health care for minors. Democratic challenger Lauren Ashley Simmons defeated incumbent Shawn Thierry in Tuesday's primary by nearly 30 percentage points. Simmons had the support of LGBTQ+ groups in Texas and nationwide. Thierry faced criticism for her support of a bill in the Texas House that banned gender-affirming care for transgender children. Rice University political science professor Mark Jones says Thierry had the support of many Black religious leaders in the African American-majority district. But Jones says that support clearly wasn't enough to overcome Simmons' support from progressives in the district.

Residents across Texas are recovering again from storms that ripped off roofs in Dallas and flooded roads in Houston. Up to 1 million homes and businesses were without power during the severe weather Tuesday. One electric utility said Wednesday that some outages could linger into the weekend. A 16-year-old construction worker was killed when a house being built near Houston collapsed. A 6-year-old boy and two adults were critically hurt at a campground after they were shocked by a downed power line. The National Weather Service says the active weather pattern will continue in the central U.S.

The first day of jury deliberations in Donald Trump's criminal hush money trial has concluded after the panel sent two notes to the judge. The panel asked to rehear jury instructions and to rehear select testimony from two key witnesses: former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker and Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen. Deliberations will resume on Thursday morning. Prosecutors say Trump falsified internal business records to cover up hush money payments tied to an alleged scheme to bury stories that might torpedo his 2016 White House bid. He has denied any wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty to all 34 felony counts.

Three Black men are suing American Airlines, claiming they were discriminated against when ordered to leave a plane in January. The lawsuit was filed Wednesday in federal court in New York. The men say they were told to leave a plane waiting to take off in Phoenix, and then noticed that five other Black men had also been removed from the flight. The three say an airline employee told them they were removed because a flight attendant had complained about a passenger's body odor. The men say they were were allowed to re-board the plane only when it became clear that American couldn't rebook them on another flight. American says it's looking into the matter.

The first ombudsman of West Virginia’s heavily burdened foster care system has resigned. Pamela Woodman-Kaehler’s resignation will take effect June 6. The state Department of Health announced her planned departure Wednesday. Woodman-Kaehler said she was pursuing a new opportunity but didn't give more details. The ombudsman position was created in 2019 to help investigate complaints and collect data about the state’s foster care system. That same year the state faced a massive class-action lawsuit on behalf of foster care children alleging that their needs were going unmet because of a shortage of case workers and a lack of mental health support.

A nurse was fired by a New York City hospital after she referred to Israel’s war in Gaza as “genocide” during a speech accepting an award. Hesen Jabr was being honored by NYU Langone Health for her compassion in caring for mothers who had lost babies when she drew a link between her work and the suffering of mothers in Gaza. Jabr said that Palestinian women are going through unimaginable losses "during the current genocide in Gaza,” She was fired the next time she reported for work. A spokesperson for NYU Langone said some of Jabr's colleagues were upset by her comments.

For years, less than 2% of philanthropic giving in the U.S. has gone to benefit women and girls, but that could change in part thanks to new resources that Melinda French Gates has pledged in recent weeks. The Women’s Philanthropy Institute at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy has researched giving to women and girls since 2019. While the overall amount has increased over the years, it’s never exceeded 2% of overall charitable dollars. Jacqueline Ackerman, the institute’s interim director, said French Gates’ $1 billion commitment announced Tuesday could finally help break that threshold, if others join her.

The election board in Georgia’s largest county has voted to certify its May 21 election results. But one of the board’s Republican-appointed members abstained Tuesday. The abstention by Republican-appointed Fulton County election board member Julie Adams aligns with a lawsuit she has filed. Adams wants more control over election operations and to get a legal ruling saying county election boards can refuse to certify election results. The other four members, including Republican-appointed Michael Heekin, voted to certify the results. In question is a portion of Georgia law that says county officials “shall” certify results. Adams argues counties can reject certification. It’s not clear what would happen if a county refused to certify. But the dispute would probably end in court.

New Jersey’s statewide police union is calling for what it calls “real consequences” for drunken, rowdy teens and adults who create mayhem in public places following disturbances at Jersey Shore towns over the Memorial Day weekend. The New Jersey State Policemens’ Benevolent Association called Wednesday for changes in laws and procedures governing how police interact with disorderly young people. A wave of such people overwhelmed police capabilities in Wildwood on Sunday night. that led to the city temporarily closing and clearing the boardwalk. And disturbances in Ocean City included the stabbing of a 15-year-old boy who is recovering from non-life-threatening wounds.

After nearly two dozen witnesses, 16 days of testimony and hours of lawyers’ closing arguments, it’s time for jurors to have their say in former President Donald Trump’s hush money trial. Jury deliberations began Wednesday in the first criminal trial of a former U.S. president. Jurors will return Thursday morning for a second day of discussion behind closed doors in a room reserved for them. The deliberations are secret, though jurors can communicate a bit by having a court officer deliver notes from them to the judge. The seven-man, five-woman, anonymous jury is tasked with deciding whether Trump is guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying his company’s records. The presumptive Republican nominee has pleaded not guilty.

U.S. stocks fell under the weight of higher yields in the bond market. The S&P 500 dropped 0.7% Wednesday, sinking further from its record set last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 1.1%, and the Nasdaq composite fell 0.6% after setting its latest all-time high. American Airlines Group led a slump for airlines after cutting its forecast for profit and other financial targets for the spring. Another climb for yields in the bond market also weighed on the stock market broadly following an auction of $44 billion in Treasurys. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.61%.

A Vermont man who lost his job after he said a random drug test showed he'd used medical marijuana off duty for chronic pain has appealed to the Vermont Supreme Court saying he shouldn't have been denied unemployment benefits. He was terminated for misconduct from a job at the Marble Valley Regional Transit District in Rutland where he said he cleaned and fueled buses, and drove them into and out of the garage. A lawyer for Vermont Department of Labor said the court should affirm the Vermont Employment Security Board's decision about disqualifying him for the benefits because he was discharged for misconduct for violating an acknowledged workplace safety policy.

Denka Performance Elastomer in Louisiana threatened to shut down if the Biden administration doesn't give it more time to reduce its emissions. The company makes the synthetic rubber neoprene — and federal officials have accused the plant of increasing cancer risk to the nearby, majority-Black community. The Environmental Protection Agency in April imposed new emissions rules on more than 200 industrial facilities. Denka argues that more dangerous facilities face a 2-year deadline, but it was instead singled out with a much shorter 90-day deadline. It wants a federal appeals court to block the agency from enforcing that deadline.

South Carolina’s Supreme Court is going to be entirely white for the first time in nearly two decades. Circuit Judge Jocelyn Newman was the lone Black candidate for the state Supreme Court seat coming open. The only African American on the high court is Chief Justice Don Beatty. He has to leave because he has reached the mandatory retirement age of 72, and Newman has dropped out of next week's election. Diversity on the bench is a big topic in a state where African Americans and Hispanics make up a third of the population. South Carolina will soon join 18 other states with all-white high courts.

For the nation’s bicycle shops, the past few years have probably felt like the business version of the Tour de France. Early in the pandemic, a surge of interest in cycling pushed sales up 64% to $5.4 billion in 2020, according to the retail tracking service Circana. The boom didn’t last. Hobbled by pandemic-related supply chain issues, the shops sold all their bikes and had trouble restocking. Now, inventory has caught up, but fewer people need new bikes. It all adds up to a tough environment for retailers, although there are a few bright spots like gravel and e-bikes.

Authorities say two people died when a house exploded and caught fire in southern Wisconsin. One person was found dead in the home’s ruins after it exploded around 11 p.m. Tuesday just outside the city of Middleton. And Middleton Fire Chief Aaron Harris says a second body was found Wednesday. He says a dog was recovered alive and taken to an emergency veterinary clinic. Harris says the cause of the explosion remains under investigation. Neighbors reported hearing gunfire at the fire scene but authorities believe flames set off ammunition stored inside the home.

U.S. National Park Service officials say an unoccupied house has collapsed into the Atlantic Ocean along North Carolina’s Outer Banks. Tuesday's collapse was the sixth along the Cape Hatteras National Seashore in the past four years. About one mile of the beach was closed as the national seashore began its cleanup at the collapse site along Ocean Drive in Rodanthe. The public was invited to help employees clean up on Wednesday. A contractor hired by the property owner also is participating. North Carolina’s coast is almost entirely made up of narrow, low-lying barrier islands that are frequently washed over from both the bay and the sea and are particularly vulnerable to storm surges.

Abortion providers are asking a judge to expand the health exception to Indiana's abortion ban. Planned Parenthood also wants the judge to allow clinics as well as hospitals to provide abortions. Indiana allows abortions when the health or life of the woman is at risk. The plaintiffs say the health exception is written so narrowly that in practice, many doctors won’t end a pregnancy even when a woman’s condition qualifies under the law. The state has called the providers’ claims “vague and ambiguous” and denied that Indiana infringes on any constitutional rights. A three-day bench trial began Wednesday.

The Washington Post says it reported on a story about a controversial flag being flown outside the home of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito years ago, but chose not to write about it. The story broke in The New York Times earlier this month about an upside-down U.S. flag outside of the Alito house shortly after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection — a symbol that had been used by some supporters of former President Donald Trump that day. The Post said it had accepted the explanation that Alito's wife was responsible for the flag, and it wasn't sure the dispute was political.

Despite a long string of recalls that began more than two decades ago, about 6.2 million vehicles with potentially dangerous Takata air bag inflators remain on U.S. roads today. On Wednesday, Nissan warned drivers of about 84,000 older Nissan and Infiniti vehicles not to drive them because the front passenger inflators can explode with too much force in a crash, spewing metal fragments that could kill or injure people. In all, 67 million front driver and passenger inflators were included in what turned out to be the largest automotive recall in U.S. history. About 100 million inflators were recalled worldwide. But despite years of publicity, recall letters and phone calls from automakers, about 9% of the recalled vehicles remain on the road without repairs.

Jacqueline Stewart is leaving her post leading the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures to return to the University of Chicago. Academy Museum veteran Amy Homma will succeed her as director and president. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the organization behind the Oscars, announced Wednesday several more promotions in its executive ranks to unite teams within the academy, including the foundation, the museum and the Oscars. In May, the film academy launched a $500 million fundraising campaign in the leadup to the 100th Oscars in 2028.

- FliFlik is offering free 3-month licenses to both their innovative FliFlik Voice Changer and the powerful FliFlik Watermark Remover -

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has filed an election complaint alleging CNN is colluding with Democratic President Joe Biden and presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump to exclude him from a debate the network is hosting next month. CNN says the complaint is without merit. A lawyer for Kennedy laid out his argument in a filing Wednesday with the Federal Election Commission. The Kennedy campaign says the requirements to participate in the June 27 debate were designed to ensure only Biden and Trump would qualify. Kennedy still has time to meet the requirements, but the window is narrowing.

Yale University has named its 24th president. Maurie McInnis will take over on July 1 and succeed Peter Salovey, who is retiring to take a faculty position after leading the New Haven, Connecticut, school for the past decade. McInnis is the first woman to be appointed permanently as Yale's president. She is president of Stony Brook University on Long Island in New York, and has previously served in leadership positions at the universities of Texas and Virginia. McInnis is not new to New Haven. She earned her master's degree and doctorate at Yale while studying art history and is a Yale trustee.

France’s president has joined the head of NATO in pushing for a policy shift that could change the complexion of the Ukraine war: allowing Kyiv to strike military bases inside Russia with sophisticated long-range weapons provided by its Western partners. It is the most recent sign of a potentially significant policy shift that could help change the complexion of the war. The question of whether to allow Ukraine to hit targets on Russian soil with Western-supplied weaponry has been a delicate issue since the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor in February 2022. Western leaders have mostly shrunk from taking the step because it runs the risk of provoking Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has repeatedly warned that such a move could put the world on a path to nuclear conflict.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore are assessing the country’s bridges after the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge. The team includes students and faculty. They hope to determine whether other structures are similarly vulnerable. University officials say they hope policymakers will use the findings of their assessment to inform future investment decisions and prioritize infrastructure safety upgrades. Baltimore’s Key Bridge crumbled in an instant after the container ship Dali lost power and crashed into one of its supporting columns on March 26. Six members of a roadwork crew died.

Thanks to heavy use of nitrogen fertilizer, tiny organisms that flourish in farm fields emit nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas that can warm the planet more than carbon dioxide and stay in the atmosphere for over a century. Now some researchers think they've found a bacteria that can help. Writing in this week's Nature journal, they say extensive lab and field trials showed the naturally derived bacteria reduced the nitrous oxide without disrupting other microbes in the soil. It also survived well in soil and would be relatively cheap to produce. Further trials are needed, but they hope farmers could start using the bacteria within the decade.

Authorities say a massive explosion killed a bank employee, injured several other people and left an apartment building uninhabitable in Youngstown, Ohio. Police and emergency officials initially blamed natural gas, but the fire chief later said the cause is under investigation. The blast blew out part of the ground floor of Realty Tower on Tuesday afternoon. Firefighters helped some people get out of the building, where a ground-floor bank branch stood below upper-floor apartments. The Chase Bank employee found dead was identified as 27-year-old Akil Drake. Police say all other people are accounted for.

ConocoPhillips is buying Marathon Oil in an all-stock deal valued at approximately $17.1 billion as energy prices soar and big oil companies reap massive profits. The deal announced Wednesday is valued at $22.5 billion when including $5.4 billion in debt. Marathon Oil shareholders will receive 0.2550 shares of ConocoPhillips common stock for each share of Marathon Oil common stock that they own. ConocoPhillips said Wednesday that the transaction will add highly desired acreage to its existing U.S. onshore portfolio.

The Federal Reserve’s decision Wednesday to keep its benchmark rate at a two-decade high should have ripple effects across the economy. Mortgage rates, credit card rates, and auto loan rates will all likely maintain their highs, with consequences for consumer spending. The Fed has indicated it doesn’t plan to cut interest rates until it has “greater confidence” that price increases are slowing to its 2% target. The central bank kept its key rate at roughly 5.3%, where it has been since last August. While inflation has cooled from a peak of 7.1% to 2.7%, average prices remain well above pre-pandemic levels.