RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A young man accused in last year’s fatal shooting of a teenager who had received his Virginia high school diploma minutes earlier at a public event pleaded guilty on Thursday to first-degree murder and a firearm-related charge and was sentenced to 43 years in prison. Amari Pollard, 20, entered the plea during the fourth day of …

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Haiti’s prime minister arrived Thursday in Kenya to try to salvage a plan to have the African country deploy 1,000 police officers to the troubled Caribbean nation to help combat gang violence. Kenya agreed in October to lead a U.N.-authorized international police force to Haiti, but the Kenyan High Court in January ruled the plan unconstitutional …

BEIRUT (AP) — Austria’s foreign minister on Thursday urged Israel and Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group against escalating the conflict along the volatile Israel-Lebanon border and expressed hope for a pause in the fighting in Gaza in time for the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in March. The Middle East has witnessed enough devastation and cruelty, Austrian Foreign …

Health care providers across the country are reeling from a cyberattack on a massive U.S. health care technology company that has threatened the security of patients’ information and is delaying some prescriptions and paychecks for medical workers. The hack could also disrupt discharging people from the hospital, a major hospital association said. Change Healthcare announced Thursday that a ransomware group …

The AP Top 25 men’s college basketball poll is back every week throughout the season! Get the poll delivered straight to your inbox with AP Top 25 Poll Alerts. Sign up here. Kennesaw State Owls (15-14, 6-9 ASUN) at Queens Royals (12-18, 6-9 ASUN) Charlotte, North Carolina; Friday, 7 p.m. EST BOTTOM LINE: Queens hosts the Kennesaw State Owls after …

BASEBALL Major League Baseball American League DETROIT TIGERS — Claimed 3B Buddy Kennedy off waivers from St. Louis. TAMPA BAY RAYS — Agreed to terms with C Francisco Mejia on a minor league contract. National League ATLANTA BRAVES — Reassigned LHP Hayden Harris and RHP Taylor Widener to the minor league camp. Minor League Atlantic League LONG ISLAND DUCKS — …

NEW YORK (AP) — Sally Rooney will have a new novel out this fall, “Intermezzo,” a story of love, family and grief centered around two brothers. Farrar, Straus and Giroux announced Thursday that the novel, the Irish author’s fourth, will be published Sept. 24. “Since I began work on this novel several years ago, its characters and their relationships have …

The AP Top 25 men’s college basketball poll is back every week throughout the season! Get the poll delivered straight to your inbox with AP Top 25 Poll Alerts. Sign up here. Saint Mary’s Gaels (23-6, 14-0 WCC) at Pepperdine Waves (12-18, 5-10 WCC) Malibu, California; Thursday, 11 p.m. EST FANDUEL SPORTSBOOK LINE: Gaels -15.5; over/under is 136.5 BOTTOM LINE: …

More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed and over 70,000 wounded in the Gaza Strip since the Israel’s war on Hamas began nearly five months ago, health officials in the territory said. On Thursday, Palestinian witnesses say Israeli troops opened fire on a crowd of people scrambling for aid in Gaza City. More than 100 people were killed and at …

The College Football Playoff unveiled a 12-team format in the spring of 2021 that looked like an exciting step in the evolution of the postseason, with potential to lift the sport’s national profile even further while boosting all five power conferences and keeping the other five relevant. Three years later, the expanded playoff fans were promised is not what they …