CHICAGO (AP) — Rod Blagojevich walked out of prison Tuesday after President Donald Trump cut short the 14-year prison sentence handed to the former Illinois governor for political corruption.

Yemen’s Houthi rebels have blocked half of the United Nations’ aid delivery programs in the war-torn country — a strong-arm tactic to force the agency to give them greater control over the massive humanitarian campaign, along with a cut of billions of dollars in foreign assistance, according…

BEIJING (AP) — New virus cases in China continued to fall Wednesday, with 1,749 more infections and 136 additional deaths as the top official in the outbreak's epicenter vowed to find and isolate every infected patient in the city by day's end.

YOKOHAMA, Japan (AP) — Hundreds of passengers began leaving the Diamond Princess cruise ship Wednesday after the end of a much-criticized, two-week quarantine that failed to stop the spread of a new virus among passengers and crew.

TOKYO (AP) — Asian shares mostly rose Wednesday, despite overnight losses on Wall Street and continuing fears about an outbreak of a new virus that began in China.

BEIJING (AP) — Wang Feng, house-bound by China’s virus outbreak, counts on the parka-clad delivery drivers of e-commerce giant JD.com to keep her kitchen stocked.

TOKYO (AP) — As an extraordinary two-week quarantine of a cruise ship ends Wednesday in Japan, many scientists say it was a failed experiment: The ship seemed to become an incubator for a new virus instead of an isolation facility meant to prevent the worsening of an outbreak.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Los Angeles city and county officials on Tuesday announced a new strategy to speed the process of getting homeless people into permanent housing that is modeled on the federal government’s response to natural disasters.

The Boy Scouts of America urged victims to come forward Tuesday as the historic, 110-year-old organization filed for bankruptcy protection in the first step toward creating a huge compensation fund for potentially thousands of men who were molested as youngsters decades ago by scoutmasters o…

RIDGELAND, Miss. (AP) — Forecasters expected more heavy rains in parts of the flood-ravaged South on Tuesday, prolonging the misery for worried people who still can't get back in homes surrounded by water.

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb 18, 2020--

The U.S. government made good on its warning to Americans who chose to remain on board a quarantined cruise ship in Japan, telling them they cannot return home for at least two weeks after they come ashore.

HOUSTON (AP) — A Venezuelan teenager has been forced back to Mexico by U.S. government authorities who denied her claims that she was fleeing political repression and violence, even after they accepted the same claims from her father.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A 6-year-old girl who disappeared from her front yard after school was killed by a neighbor who then killed himself, authorities said Tuesday.

BEIJING (AP) — As a mysterious new virus enveloped central China's Wuhan early this year, Liu Zhiming mobilized all the resources of his hospital in the city's Wuchang district to deal with the thousands of sick people arriving daily, threatening to overwhelm the local health care system.

GENEVA (AP) — The U.N.-supported government in Libya said Tuesday it has suspended its participation in talks in Geneva aimed at salvaging a fragile cease-fire in the North African country following an attack on Tripoli's strategic port.

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Talks between Russia and Turkey meant to reduce tensions in northwestern Syria did not yield a “satisfactory result” for Ankara, but both sides agreed to continue negotiations, a spokesman for Turkey's president said Tuesday.

ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkish prosecutors detained a prominent philanthropist for alleged ties to a 2016 coup attempt Tuesday night, just hours after a court acquitted him on terrorism-related charges and ordered his release from jail after 840 days.

Even before “Fresh Off the Boat” hit the airwaves on ABC in February 2015, the show was facing pressure that other new shows weren't.

NEW YORK (AP) — In a party that’s shifted leftward on abortion rights, Democratic presidential hopefuls are offering different approaches to a central challenge: how to talk to voters without a clear home in the polarizing debate over the government’s role in the decision to end a pregnancy.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Drafting, blocking and bumping are essential elements of racing on NASCAR's fastest tracks. When Ryan Blaney pushed fellow Ford driver Ryan Newman in the final lap of the Daytona 500, it was something both men have done hundreds of times on superspeedways.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — In a single thrilling lap around NASCAR's most storied track, Denny Hamlin and Ryan Newman displayed the risks and rewards of the dangerous sport they both love.

JERUSALEM (AP) — The criminal trial for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will begin March 17, court officials announced Tuesday, shaking up the final stretch of a contentious election campaign and hurting the longtime Israeli leader’s hopes of forming a new government after the vote.

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Even Cinderella needs an “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition."

LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) — The U.N. secretary-general said Tuesday the virus outbreak that began in China poses “a very dangerous situation” for the world, but “is not out of control.”

NEW YORK (AP) — Jurors in Harvey Weinstein’s rape trial started deliberating on Tuesday, weighing charges in the landmark #MeToo case that could put the once-powerful Hollywood mogul behind bars for the rest of his life.

EASTHAM, Mass. (AP) — One of the jurors who convicted notorious crime boss James “Whitey” Bulger says she regrets her decision after learning that he was an unwitting participant in a covert CIA experiment with LSD.

What's more deadly — the flu, SARS or the new coronavirus discovered in China?

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Ashraf Ghani won a second term as president of Afghanistan, the country's independent election commission announced Tuesday, but his closest opponent refused to recognize the results, declaring himself winner and potentially endangering peace negotiations with the Taliban.

NEW YORK (AP) — In Arizona, a burgeoning Asian American community fields xenophobic calls about a planned night market featuring Asian street foods. In New York, a dim sum restaurant owner worries he won't make rent. In the San Francisco Bay Area, a local Asian American-owned restaurant chai…

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — At Facebook, Stan Chudnovsky oversees the Messenger chat app that's used by well over 1 billion people each month. He's playing a key role in helping Facebook integrate that app with its other chat tools, WhatsApp and Instagram Direct.

JUBA, South Sudan (AP) — The worst locust outbreak that parts of East Africa have seen in 70 years has reached South Sudan, a country where roughly half the population already faces hunger after years of civil war, officials announced Tuesday.

Blogger Dani Austin of Dallas, Texas, logged into her Southwest Airlines account a few days before the end of 2019.

NEW YORK (AP) — Greg Laurie is among America’s most successful clergymen -- senior pastor at a California megachurch, prolific author, host of a global radio program. Yet after a youthful colleague’s suicide, his view of his vocation is unsparing.

AHMEDABAD, India (AP) — A half-kilometer (1,640-foot) brick wall has been hastily erected in India's Gujarat state ahead of a visit by U.S. President Donald Trump, with critics saying it was built to block the view of a slum area inhabited by more than 2,000 people.

BANGKOK (AP) — Stock markets slipped Tuesday as the impact from the virus outbreak that began in China deepened, with Apple saying it would fail to meet its profit target this quarter and China moving to postpone or cancel major events, including the Beijing auto show.

Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about today:

MAINZ, Germany (AP) — A victorious British Prime Minister Boris Johnson with a grim looking Queen Elizabeth II standing behind him, a bare-chested Russian President Vladimir Putin holding a remote control to steer Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan atop a tank, and a triumphant U.S. Pres…

BANGKOK (AP) — Shares slipped in Asia on Tuesday as the impact from the virus outbreak that began in China deepened, with Apple saying it would fail to meet its profit target and China moving to postpone or cancel major events including the Beijing auto show.

NAJAF, Iraq (AP) — When Iraq’s top Shiite cleric underwent surgery for a fractured bone last month, it sent shivers around the country and beyond. “May God heal Iraq,” read a photo of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani that circulated online.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Ryan Newman flipped across the finish line, his Ford planted upside down and on fire, a grim reminder of a sport steeped in danger that has stretched nearly two decades without a fatality.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — Taylor Swift's father recently fought a burglar who broke into his $4 million Florida penthouse, a newspaper is reporting.

PLYMOUTH, Mass. (AP) — The iconic Plymouth Rock and other sites were covered in red graffiti Monday during a vandalism spree discovered at the site marking the landing of the Pilgrims in Massachusetts 400 years ago.

NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said Monday that he plans to spend $10 billion of his own fortune to help fight climate change.

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — The feel-good story of how Cambodia allowed a cruise ship to dock after it was turned away elsewhere in Asia for fear of spreading a new disease took an unfortunate turn after a passenger later tested positive for the virus.

Mainland China reported 1,886 new virus cases and 98 more deaths for a total of 1,868 in its update Tuesday, following a report that 80% of cases have been mild, prompting guarded optimism from health officials.

Pier 1 Imports Inc. — the once-trendy supplier of home goods like papasan chairs and throw pillows — filed for bankruptcy protection Monday after years of sliding sales.

Beijing (AP) — For decades, the Uighur imam was a bedrock of his farming community in China’s far west. On Fridays, he preached Islam as a religion of peace. On Sundays, he treated the sick with free herbal medicine. In the winter, he bought coal for the poor.

TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. (AP) — More than 300 American cruise ship passengers, including 14 who tested positive for coronavirus, were being quarantined at military bases in California and Texas on Monday after arriving from Japan on charter flights overnight.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Mickey Wright, the golf great with a magnificent swing who won 13 majors among her 82 victories and gave the fledgling LPGA a crucial lift, died Monday of a heart attack. She was 85.