Headline News from The Associated Press
AP Headline News - May 17 2024 09:00 (EDT)
This is AP News, I'm Rita Falle. Houston's mayor is asking residents to stay home from work today unless they're essential. Deadly thunderstorms have been battering the area, the AP's Donna Warder. Storms blew out windows and high-rise buildings, downed trees, flooded streets, and knocked out power to more than 900,000 homes and businesses in the Houston area. At least four people were killed. At a news conference carried by KTRK, Houston Mayor John Whitmire says it's not a time for people to be on the roads. We had a storm with 100 mph winds, the equivalent of Hurricane Ike, considerable damage downtown. National Weather Service Lead Forecaster Bob Orvick says it was a quick-moving storm. Thunderstorms have moved pretty quickly across the Gulf Coast over night and into the early morning hours. They're not as strong as they were earlier. I'm Donna Warder. There's word from Louisville, Kentucky this morning that Masters Golf Champion Scotty Shuffler was detained by police this morning while on his way to the PGA Championship. ESPN says he failed to follow police instructions in a traffic jam after an accident in which a pedestrian was killed. The latest known Republicans in Congress and their efforts to hold the Attorney General in contempt, the AP's Jennifer King with this story. Republicans on the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees voted Thursday to send contempt charges against Attorney General Merrick Garland to the full House. House Speaker Mike Johnson slammed the White House decision to block the release of audio recordings of President Biden's Special Counsel interviews from the classified documents investigation. Garland advised Biden that the audio falls within the scope of executive privilege, Jennifer King, Washington. Overseas now, this is a first. Trucks carrying badly-needed aid for the Gaza Strip have rolled across that newly-built U.S. peer and into Gaza. This is AP News. You may have heard about those several Americans arrested separately in the Turks and Caicos Islands. The AP is Lisa Dwyer. Five Americans are facing prison sentences of up to 12 years in the Turks and Caicos Islands on charges that they illegally carried ammunition while in the popular tourist destination about 600 miles southeast of Miami. Three of those arrests have prompted pleas for mercy from the governors of Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Virginia, who say the three inadvertently had ammunition in their luggage. The British territory significantly tightened its gun laws in 2022, while the island's courts do have sentencing discretion for exceptional circumstances, by law, they cannot just pay a fine. That means that the Americans may not get 12 years in prison, but they also likely won't be able to just pay a fine and then just return home. I'm Lisa Dwyer. And I'm Rita Foley, AP News.