AP Posts

California Republicans who have been trying to rebrand their party as more inclusive and attuned with the issues that Californians care about had hoped this year to offer a candidate for governor who fit that image. Now, however, the party faces the prospect of a conservative gubernatorial nominee who is on probation for carrying a loaded gun into an airport, is accused of race-baiting and is best known for his far-right positions on gun control and immigration.

At least 200 people have been left trapped underground after an explosion and fire at a coal mine in western Turkey that killed one miner, an official said Tuesday. Other reports are suggesting that as many as 20 workers have already died, but officials refused to specify the number of deaths at this time.

State and federal officials say two workers who were trapped when the ground failed at a West Virginia mine with a history of safety violations have died. A state agency says preliminary indications show that a coal outburst was responsible but provided no other details for the accident at the mine owned by Patriot Coal.

Indonesia banned the popular video sharing site Vimeo, saying it contains nudity, which officials in the world's most populous Muslim country consider to be pornographic material. Information and Communication Minister Tiffatul Sembiring said that his ministry's found nearly 15,000 videos tagged with words related to nudity and ordered all Indonesia-based Internet service providers to block the New York-based site.

The huge West Antarctic ice sheet is starting a glacially slow collapse in an unstoppable way, two new studies show. Alarmed scientists say that means even more sea level rise than they figured.

A new ad from an independent political group is giving voters a peek of the unrelenting barrage of negative ads linking likely Democratic Senate nominee Alison Lundergan Grimes with the as-unpopular-as-ever President Barack Obama. Of the $3.3 million the group has raised, just $172,000 has come from Kentucky addresses. Most of that — $125,000 — is from health insurance giant Humana founder David A. Jones Sr.

Days after President Barack Obama touted executive actions aimed at increasing energy efficiency, a bill with similar goals is expected to fall victim to partisan gridlock in the Senate. A bipartisan bill to promote many of the same efficiency goals Obama touted Friday in California is expected to go down in defeat Monday amid a dispute over the Keystone XL oil pipeline.

The head of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee said Tuesday that instability in Ukraine makes the case for building the Keystone XL oil pipeline in the United States. "Progress has been too slow," said Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La. She said the proposed pipeline from Canada to the United States would contribute only marginally to air quality problems.

Michigan's attorney general and chief environmental regulator have asked the company that owns two oil pipelines stretched beneath an ecologically sensitive area of the Great Lakes for evidence that the 61-year-old lines are properly maintained and in good condition. Attorney General Bill Schuette and Dan Wyant, director of the state Department of Environmental Quality, posed a lengthy series of questions and requested stacks of documentation in a letter sent Tuesday to Enbridge Inc. and made public Wednesday. They said the pipelines, which run beneath the Straits of Mackinac — the waterway linking Lakes Huron and Michigan — pose a unique safety risk.

Moderate Republican Sen. Susan Collins says she expects to oppose the Democratic effort to raise the federal minimum wage, all but dooming the election-year proposal. The Senate is expected to vote Wednesday on the measure. It would gradually raise today's $7.25 hourly minimum to $10.10 over 30 months.

Pan-Arab satellite network Al Jazeera says it has filed a claim against Egypt demanding $150 million in compensation to cover what it says are damages to its investments in the country since July. It says it will seek international arbitration if it the two sides do not reach a settlement within six months.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren is insisting she isn't running for president in 2016. She says to interviewers, "You can ask this a lot of different ways. The key is, I am not running for president." Warren, whose name has been mentioned in building Democratic speculation, said she wants to fight for the consumer issues she champions.

The CEO of Exxon Mobil Corp. received compensation worth $28.1 million last year, a 3 percent increase over the previous year, according to an Associated Press analysis of a company regulatory filing. Most of Rex W. Tillerson's compensation was in the form of stock awards, which the largest U.S. oil company valued at $21.3 million when they were granted.

The Pentagon says there were no U.S. military deaths in Afghanistan in March — the first zero-fatality month there since January 2007. American casualties in Afghanistan have declined as the number of U.S. forces has grown smaller and their role has shifted away from combat. The Pentagon says there are about 33,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, down from a 2011 peak of about 100,000.

Experts say a bigger earthquake along the lesser-known fault that gave Southern California a moderate shake could do more damage to the region than the long-dreaded "Big One" from the more famous San Andreas Fault. The Puente Hills thrust fault, which brought Friday night's magnitude-5.1 quake centered in La Habra and well over 100 aftershocks by Sunday, stretches from northern Orange County under downtown Los Angeles into Hollywood — a heavily populated swath of the Los Angeles area.

A Republican candidate for a state house seat is withdrawing from the race in light of reports about his arrest record and ties to white supremacists.

The former owner of a Youngstown-based wastewater company pleaded guilty Monday to federal Clean Water Act violations in the dumping of thousands of gallons of fracking wastewater into a northeast Ohio storm sewer.

A sailor was fatally shot aboard a guided-missile destroyer docked at the world's largest naval base late Monday, and security forces killed the lone suspect, according to the Navy.

Vice President Joe Biden called on Congress to pass a measure to outlaw workplace discrimination against gays, saying it's outrageous that the country is even debating the subject. Speaking to supporters of the gay advocacy group Human Rights Campaign, Biden said it's "close to barbaric" that in some states, employees can be fired because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

(UPDATED) Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak says a new analysis of satellite data shows that the missing Malaysia Airlines plane plunged into the southern Indian Ocean. If confirmed, the news would be a major breakthrough in the unprecedented two-week struggle to find out what happened to Flight 370, which disappeared shortly after takeoff from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers and crew aboard.