USA

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — County education boards in West Virginia could contract with military veterans and retired law enforcement officers to provide armed security at K-12 public schools under a bill passed Friday by the Republican-controlled state Senate.

Republican Sen. Eric Tarr of Putnam County said the bill was brought to him by retired military officers concerned about school shootings happening across the country.

JACKSON, MISS. (AP) — Mississippi health officials told residents in the state’s capital to boil their tap water Thursday after traces of E. coli bacteria were found in the city’s supply — a result the manager of Jackson’s long-troubled water system disputed while calling it a devastating setback for rebuilding public trust.

LEWISTON, Maine (AP) — Sean Hodgson watched and worried as his best friend of nearly two decades unraveled. His former roommate and fellow U.S. Army reservist’s anger and paranoia were mounting, he had access to guns, and he refused to get help. So Hodgson did the hardest thing of his life: He sent a text about Robert Card to their Army supervisor.

“I believe he’s going to snap and do a mass shooting,” he wrote on Sept. 15.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden’s son will head back to court on Thursday for arraignment in Los Angeles on federal tax charges filed after the collapse of a plea deal that could have spared him the spectacle of a criminal trial during the 2024 campaign.

HONOLULU (AP) — In life, Abigail Kawānanakoa embodied the complexities of Hawaii: Many considered her a princess — a descendant of the royal family that once ruled the islands.

But she was also the great-granddaughter of a sugar baron and inherited vast wealth thanks to Westerners who upended traditional ways of life through the introduction of private property and the diversion of water for industrial plantations.

BOSTON (AP) — Online retailer eBay Inc., will pay a $3 million fine to resolve criminal charges over a harassment campaign waged by employees who sent live spiders, cockroaches and other disturbing items to the home of a Massachusetts couple, according to court papers filed Thursday.

NEW YORK (AP) — The illegal tunnel discovered under a historic Brooklyn synagogue compromised the stability of several structures surrounding the religious complex, prompting an order to vacate as well as citations against its owners, city officials said.

Inspectors with New York City’s building safety agency uncovered a tunnel that was 60 feet (18.3 meters) long and 8 feet (2.4 meters) wide beneath the Chabad-Lubavitch global headquarters in Crown Heights. It extended under several buildings in the vicinity, connecting between openings cut into basement walls.

NEW YORK (AP) — Barred from giving his own closing argument, Donald Trump took in his lawyer’s summation as a glowering, arms-folded spectator at the end of his New York civil fraud trial Thursday, hours after authorities responded to a bomb threat at the judge’s house.

Police checked out the threat at Judge Arthur Engoron’s Long Island home, which came a day after he denied the former president’s extraordinary request to deliver his own courtroom close, officials said. The proceedings were not delayed.

WASHINGTON/LONDON, Jan 10 (Reuters) - U.S. and British naval forces shot down 21 drones and missiles fired by Yemen-based Houthis on Tuesday towards the southern Red Sea, the United States said, with Britain hinting at further measures to protect international shipping lanes.

British Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said it was the largest attack in the area by the militants to date as the three-month-long war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza spills over into other parts of the Middle East.

WAUKEE, Iowa (AP) — After spending much of the Republican presidential primary flanked by lower-polling rivals, Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis will be alone on the debate stage Wednesday for the first time as they wage an increasingly contentious push to become the primary alternative to Donald Trump.