Here are the AP’s latest coverage plans, top stories and promotable content. All times EDT. For up-to-the minute information on AP’s coverage, visit Coverage Plan at https://newsroom.ap.org.
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TOP STORIES
FBC--T25-BIG 12-IMPACT TRANSFERS — TCU and Kansas, which meet this week in Lawrence, have become two of the surprise teams in the nation in part because of the contributions of transfers. Transfers also are big difference-makers on other Big 12 teams. By College Football Writer Eric Olson. UPCOMING: 650 words, photos by 5 p.m. UPCOMING , By 5:00 p.m. CDT.
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RUSSIA-UKRAINE-WAR — Russian troops abandoned a key Ukrainian city so rapidly that they left the bodies of their comrades in the streets. The scene offered more evidence Tuesday of Moscow’s latest military defeat as it struggles to hang on to four regions of Ukraine that it illegally annexed last week. Meanwhile, Russia’s upper house of parliament rubber-stamped the annexations following “referendums” that Ukraine and its Western allies dismissed as fraudulent. Responding to the move, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy formally ruled out talks with Russia. He declared that negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin are impossible after his decision to take over the regions. By Adam Schreck and Vasilisa Stepanenko. SENT: 960 words, photos. WITH: RUSSIA-UKRAINE-WAR-MUSK — Tesla CEO Elon Musk has gotten into a Twitter tussle with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy after the tech billionaire floated a divisive proposal to end Russia’s invasion. SENT: 580 words, photo.
ELECTION-2022-GEORGIA-WALKER — Herschel Walker has said he backs a national ban on abortion with no exceptions. But he’s spent much of his general election matchup with Sen. Raphael Warnock deflecting questions about his position, arguing instead that the Democratic incumbent supports abortion access under all circumstances. That strategy may not work much longer after a report surfaced that Walker paid for a girlfriend’s abortion in 2009. By Bill Barrow and Jeff Amy. UPCOMING: 1,200 words, photos by 2 p.m.
OBIT-LORETTA-LYNN — Loretta Lynn, the Kentucky coal miner’s daughter who became a pillar of country music, has died. Lynn’s family said she died at her home in Tennessee. She was 90. Her compositions reflected her pride in her humble background and spoke frankly of her experiences as a woman and mother in Appalachia on such hits as “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” “You Ain’t Woman Enough” and “The Pill.” Her bestselling 1976 autobiography was made into a movie, with Sissy Spacek winning an Oscar for her portrayal of Lynn. By Kristin M. Hall. SENT: 1,165 words, photos, video. WITH: OBIT-LORETTA-LYNN-REACTION — Musicians, fans react to death of country star Loretta Lynn. SENT: 510 words.
MUSK-TWITTER — Trading in shares of Twitter was halted after the stock spiked on reports that Elon Musk would proceed with his $44 billion deal to buy the company after months of legal battles. For a second time, Musk offered to buy the San Francisco company at $54.20. Shares jumped nearly 13% to $47.95 before trading stopped. By Tom Krisher, Matt O'Brien and Randall Chase. SENT: 705 words, photos. WITH: MUSK-TWITTER-TIMELINE -- A timeline of billionaire Elon Musk’s bid to control Twitter. SENT: 655 words, photo.
HAITI-LOCKDOWN — Almost a month after Prime Minister Ariel Henry announced a rise in fuel prices, Haiti finds itself in a state of chaos and near complete paralysis not seen in decades: roads are blocked, fuel is scarce and businesses have shut down in a situation the president of the neighboring Dominican Republic described as a “low-intensity civil war.” By Evans Sanon and Danica Coto. UPCOMING: 1,300 words, photos by 4 p.m.
SPORTS-BIOLOGICAL SEX AFFIDAVIT — Oklahoma has a new law that bans public elementary, middle school, high school and college athletes from competing on the sports teams of their gender identity if it is different from their sex assigned at birth. More than a dozen other states have similar laws. Oklahoma is believed to be the only one known to require a “biological sex affidavit” for participation. By Cliff Brunt. SENT: 1,150 words, photos.
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MORE ON RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR
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RUSSIA-UKRAINE-WAR-NUCLEAR-INTERVIEW -- The head of the company operating Europe’s largest nuclear plant, which is occupied by Russian troops, says Ukraine is considering restarting the facility to ensure its safety — just weeks after fears of a radiation disaster prompted its shutdown. Run by Ukrainian state nuclear company Energoatom, the Zaporizhzhia plant is one of the most worrying flashpoints in Russia’s occupation of Ukraine. SENT: 615 words. photos.
RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR-NUCLEAR RISKS — Trying to get inside the head of Putin is a tough nut to crack for Kremlin watchers trying to figure out whether his nuclear threats are bluff. SENT: 1,000 words, photos.
RUSSIA-UKRAINE-WAR-MILITARY-AID — The U.S. announced plans to provide an additional $625 million in military aid to Ukraine, a package that includes additional advanced rocket systems credited with helping the country’s military gain momentum in its war with Russia. SENT: 385 words, photo.
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TRENDING
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BRITAIN-ROYALS — Prince William has delivered his first speech as heir to the throne at a wildlife protection summit The choice of venue signals that the royal family will continue to champion environmental protection as King Charles III is forced to step back from front-line campaigning. SENT: 755 words, photos.
HOLLYWOOD-SIGN — The Hollywood sign is getting a makeover befitting its status as a Tinseltown icon. After a pressure-wash and some rust removal, workers this week began using 250 gallons of primer and white paint to spruce up the sign ahead of its centennial next year. SENT: 155 words, photos.
UGANDA-PRESIDENT-SON-FIRED — Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni fired his son as commander of the infantry forces after the son tweeted an unprovoked threat to capture the capital of neighboring Kenya. SENT: 435 words, photos.
BOSTON-CAMPUS-EXPLOSION — A Northeastern University employee who said he was injured when a package he was opening on the Boston campus exploded last month has been charged with fabricating the incident. SENT: 630 words, photo.
FAA-AIRLINE-CREW-REST -- Flight attendants are about to get an extra hour of required rest between shifts. The Federal Aviation Administration said that it will require the workers get at least 10 hours off between shifts, fulfilling a requirement that Congress approved in 2018. SENT: 345 words, photos.
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WASHINGTON/ POLITICS
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ELECTION 2022-VOTING MACHINES-EXPLAINER — Testing before and after elections show the voting machines accurately tally the ballots, contradicting a relentless campaign of unfounded conspiracy theories that has undermined confidence in voting equipment throughout the U.S. SENT: 1,000 words, photos.
BIDEN-ABORTION — President Joe Biden is highlighting his administration’s efforts to protect access to abortion as he marks 100 days since the Supreme Court overturned a national right to the procedure and Democrats hope the issue will galvanize their voters ahead of the midterm elections. SENT: 290 words, photo.
ELECTION-2022-NEVADA-SENATE -- Republican Adam Laxalt is trying to capitalize on his military experience and Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto’s lack of it as he tries to turn a red seat blue in the swing state of Nevada. The former attorney general served as a judge advocate general in the Navy in Iraq. But he couldn’t emphasize that military record much during a sometimes-heated GOP primary. His opponent, retired Army Capt. Sam Brown, was a war hero who was nearly killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan. SENT: 1,150 words, photos.
SUPREME COURT-REDISTRICTING-ALABAMA — The Supreme Court is taking up an Alabama redistricting case that could have far-reaching effects on minority voting power. The justices are hearing arguments in the latest high-court showdown over the federal Voting Rights Act, lawsuits seeking to force Alabama to create a second Black majority congressional district. SENT: 370 words, photo. UPCOMING: 700 words after 10 a.m. arguments.
ELECTION 2022-ARIZONA — Fortunes appear to have flipped for two Arizona Democrats — Secretary of State Katie Hobbs and Sen. Mark Kelly. SENT: 1,120 words, photos. WITH: ELECTION-2022-ARIZONA-ATTORNEY-GENERAL —Abortion rights a key issue in Arizona attorney general race. UPCOMING: 330 words, photos by 3 p.m.
ELECTION-2022-TENNESSEE-CONGRESS — Far-right conservative Andy Ogles has largely vanished from the public arena after securing the Republican nomination in a reconfigured congressional district cutting into left-leaning Nashville, Tennessee. Ogles successfully emerged in August as the winner of a crowded nine-way primary race for the state’s 5th Congressional District. He quickly set a bombastic tone in his victory speech, declaring that “we’re at war” in the fight “to get back to honoring God and country.” SENT: 895 words, photos.
INVESTIGATION-TRACKED-AI-BILL-OF-RIGHTS -- The Biden administration unveiled a set of far-reaching goals aimed at averting harms caused by the rise of artificial intelligence systems, including guidelines for how to protect people’s personal data and limit surveillance. Officials say the Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights does not set out specific enforcement actions, but instead is intended as a White House call to action for the U.S. government to safeguard digital rights in an AI-fueled world. SENT: 730 words, photos.
SUPREME-COURT-THE-ONION — The satirical site The Onion has some serious things to say in defense of parody. The online humor publication has filed a Supreme Court brief in support of a man who was arrested and prosecuted for making fun of the Parma, Ohio, police force on social media. After being acquitted of criminal charges, Anthony Novak sued the police for violating his constitutional rights. A federal appeals court ruled the officers have “qualified immunity” and threw out his lawsuit. SENT: 365 words, photo.
CAPITOL RIOT-OATH-KEEPERS -- Within hours of news outlet declaring Biden the winning of the presidential election, the leader of the Oath Keepers extremist group began discussing how to push President Donald Trump to go further in his fight to cling to power, according to messages shown to jurors in his trial in the U.S. Capitol attack. UPCOMING: 365 words, photos.
BORDER-WALL-FUNDRAISER — A judge said Steve Bannon’s trial on charges he defrauded donors who gave money to build a wall on the U.S. southern border might not happen until late next year. Judge Juan Manuel Merchan said he anticipates Bannon, who is former President Donald Trump’s longtime ally, will go to trial in November 2023. SENT: 275 words, photos.
UNITED STATES-JAPAN-NORTH KOREA — President Biden spoke with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to discuss their next steps after North Korea conducted its longest ever test launch by firing nuclear-capable ballistic missile over Japan. The White House said the leaders condemned North Korea’s missile test “in the strongest terms, recognizing the launch as a danger to the Japanese people, destabilizing to the region, and a clear violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions.” SENT: 370 words, photos.
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NATIONAL
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TROPICAL-WEATHER — Nearly a week after Hurricane Ian smashed into Florida and carved a path of destruction that reached into the Carolinas, hundreds of thousands of Florida residents are facing another day without electricity. About 430,000 homes and businesses remained without power Tuesday morning in Florida and it will be the weekend before most power is restored. Meanwhile, the much weakened storm isn’t done. Officials warned there still was the potential of coastal flooding from Long Island in New York south to North Carolina’s Outer Banks from the hurricane’s remnants. SENT: 1,025 words, photos, videos.
TROPICAL WEATHER-CHURCHES — In darkness and despair, there were flickers of light and hope, even for Jane Compton who lost her home and possessions to Hurricane Ian’s wrath. As the storm approached last week, she and her husband found sanctuary at their Baptist church, huddling with fellow parishioners through wind, rain and worry. SENT: 1,065 words, photos, video.
SCHOOLS-INFORMAL-REMOVALS -- Advocates say schools increasingly are removing children with disabilities from the classroom because of behavior issues related to their disability but not recording the actions as suspension. The practice is known as informal removal, which advocates say amounts to a form of off-the-books, de facto denial of education that evades accountability. SENT: 1435 words, photos.
DROUGHT-WELLS RUN DRY — As California’s drought deepens, more rural communities are running out of water as heavy pumping depletes groundwater supplies that aren’t being replenished by rain and snowmelt. SENT: 1,140 words, photos, video.
FLINT-WATER — A judge has dismissed charges against seven people in the Flint water scandal, including two former state health officials blamed for deaths from Legionnaires’ disease. Judge Elizabeth Kelly took action, three months after the Michigan Supreme Court said a one-judge grand jury had no authority to issue indictments. Kelly rejected efforts by the attorney general’s office to just send the cases to Flint District Court and turn them into criminal complaints. SENT: 305 words, photos. WITH: FLINT-WATER-TIMELINE -- Key moments in Flint, Michigan’s lead-tainted water crisis. SENT: 975 words.
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INTERNATIONAL
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BRITAIN-CONSERVATIVES — Liz Truss should be celebrating her first month as Britain’s prime minister. Instead, she’s fighting for her job. Truss has spent her first Conservative Party conference as leader scrambling to reassure financial markets spooked by her government’s see-sawing economic pledges. She’s also seeking to restore her authority with a party that fears its chance of reelection is crumbling. Truss insisted that she is leading “a listening government” that learns from its mistakes. SENT: 950 words, photos.
IRAN-PROTESTS — Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi appealed for national unity and tried to allay anger against the country’s rulers, even as the anti-government protests that have engulfed the country for weeks continued to spread to universities and high schools. SENT: 965 words, photos.
INDONESIA-SOCCER-DEATHS — Indonesia’s national soccer association says delays in unlocking the gates at a stadium after violence broke out at the end of a match contributed to a disaster in which at least 131 people died. The Football Association of Indonesia says it has permanently banned the chief executive and security coordinator of the team that hosted Saturday’s match for failing to secure the field and promptly issue a command to unlock the gates. It says some gates were still locked when spectators began rushing to escape tear gas fired by police in an attempt to control fans who had entered the field. SENT: 800 words, photos.
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HEALTH & SCIENCE
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NOBEL PRIZE-PHYSICS — Three scientists jointly won this year’s Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for their work on quantum information science, a “totally crazy” field that has significant applications, including in the field of encryption. Frenchman Alain Aspect, American John F. Clauser and Austrian Anton Zeilinger were cited by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for discovering the way that unseen particles, such as photons, can be linked, or “entangled,” with each other even when they are separated by large distances. SENT: 1,140 words, photos, video. WITH NOBEL-PRIZE-GLANCE —A quick look at the 2022 Nobel Prizes. SENT; 260 words, photo.
SNAIL-DARTER — The snail darter, a tiny Southeastern fish at the center of an epic battle over Endangered Species Act protection in the 1970s, is no longer considered imperiled, officials announced. SENT: 505 words, photos.
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BUSINESS/ECONOMY
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FINANCIAL MARKETS — Stocks rose sharply on Wall Street and clawed back more of the ground they lost in a miserable several weeks. SENT: 435 words, photos.
JOB OPENINGS — The number of available jobs in the U.S. plummeted in August compared with July, a sign that businesses may pull back further on hiring and potentially cool chronically high inflation. There were 10.1 million advertised jobs on the last day of August, down a huge 10% from 11.2 million openings in July. In March, job openings had hit a record of nearly 11.9 million. SENT: 475 words, photo.
AP-POLL-SOCIAL-MOBILITY — More than half of Americans believe it’s unlikely younger people today will have better lives than their parents, according to a new poll from the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. SENT: 970 words, photos.
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ENTERTAINMENT
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OBIT-CHARLES-FULLER — Charles Fuller, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of the searing and acclaimed “A Soldier’s Play” who often explored and exposed how social institutions can perpetuate racism, has died. He was 83. Fuller’s most famous work, “A Soldier’s Play,” used a military setting in its tale of the search for the murderer of a Black sergeant on an Army base in Louisiana during World War II. The work has attracted a who’s who of Black acting talent. The film version starred a young Denzel Washington, who had appeared in its first stage incarnation in New York alongside Samuel L. Jackson. SENT: 835 words, photos.
NATIONAL-BOOK-AWARDS — Finalists for the National Book Awards were announced Tuesday. They include Gayl Jones’ “The Birdcatcher,” a short, lyrical novel about a writer’s trip to the island of Ibiza and the gifted, unstable couple she stays with. The activist and former Olympics gold medalist Tommie Smith is a young people’s literature nominee for “Victory. Stand!: Raising My Fist for Justice.” Pulitzer Prize winner Sharon Olds is a poetry finalist for “Balladz.” Robert Samuels’ and Toluse Olorunnipa’s “His Name Is George Floyd” is a nonfiction nominee. By Hillel Italie. SENT: 560 words, photo.
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SPORTS
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BBO-SUPERSIZED-PLAYOFFS — It’s the first year for the majors’ new playoff format — part of the negotiations that resulted in the March labor deal that ended a 99-day lockout. Each league has three wild cards, taking the postseason field from 10 to 12 teams. The new-look October has erased some of the usual tension from the final few days of the regular season. But there is still valuable positioning at stake for the playoff teams. By Baseball Writer Jay Cohen. UPCOMING: 700 words, photos by 6 p.m.
BBO-THE-UMPIRE'S VOICE — After a century and a half of Major League Baseball, something quietly extraordinary happened this year. The umpires began talking to the world. A rule change at the beginning of the season designed to explain on-field call challenges and outcomes introduced umpires’ voices to ballpark speakers, something fans are sure to notice anew in the postseason. By National Writer Ted Anthony. UPCOMING: 1,000 words, photos by 3 p.m.
FBN-MENTAL-HEALTH — Marcus Smith III nearly tried to commit suicide because of pressure from football. He’s dedicated himself now to making sure other players don’t reach that point. By Pro Football Writer Rob Maaddi. UPCOMING: 800 words, photos by 1 p.m.
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HOW TO REACH US
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At the Nerve Center, Richard A. Somma can be reached at 800-845-8450 (ext. 1600). For photos, Donald E. King (ext. 1900). For graphics and interactives, ext. 7636. Expanded AP content can be obtained from http://newsroom.ap.org. For access to AP Newsroom and other technical issues, contact apcustomersupport@ap.org or call 844-777-2006.
