COLU @ CONCEPTS

BOSTON (AP) — The anticipated release of thousands of never-before-seen government documents related to President John F. Kennedy’s assassination has scholars and armchair detectives buzzing. Now, they’re waiting to see whether President Donald Trump will block the release of files that could shed light on a tragedy that has stirred conspiracy theories for decades. The National Archives has until Oct. 26 to disclose the remaining files related to Kennedy’s 1963 assassination, unless Trump intervenes. The CIA and FBI, whose records make up the bulk of the batch, won’t say whether they’ve appealed to the Republican president to keep them under wraps. “The American public deserves to know the facts, or at least they deserve to know what the government has kept hidden from them for all these years,” Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics and author of a book about Kennedy, said in an email to The Associated Press. “It’s long past the time to be fo

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Firebrand jurist Roy Moore won the Alabama Republican primary runoff for U.S. Senate on Tuesday, defeating an appointed incumbent backed by both President Donald Trump and deep-pocketed allies of Sen. Mitch McConnell. In an upset certain to rock the GOP establishment, Moore clinched a nine-point victory over Sen. Luther Strange to take the GOP nomination for the seat previously held by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Moore will face Democrat Doug Jones in a Dec. 12 special election. It was a political resurrection for the 70-year-old former Alabama chief justice who was twice removed from those duties after taking stands for public display of the Ten Commandments and against gay marriage. Moore, in his victory speech, returned to themes of God and government, saying that he had “never prayed to win this campaign” but only that’s “God’s will be done.” “We have to return the knowledge of God and the Constitution of the United States to the United States

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the Republican effort to overhaul the Obama health law (all times local): 7 p.m. Senate Republicans have conceded defeat on their last-ditch effort to repeal and replace “Obamacare.” The bill’s authors acknowledge they don’t have the votes ahead of a critical deadline at the end of this week. President Donald Trump is slamming ‘certain so-called Republicans’ and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says the focus will now turn to tax reform. Sen. Lindsey Graham, a sponsor of the latest, last-ditch effort, says Republicans are going to fulfill the promise they’ve made to voters and the GOP base for the past seven years. ___ 2:39 p.m. Senate Republicans are insisting they won’t give up on repealing and replacing the Obama health care law even as they abandoned plans for a vote this week. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters after a closed-door luncheon in which the GOP decided not to hold the vote: “We haven’t given up on changi

WASHINGTON (AP) — Suddenly, just about all President Donald Trump can talk about is Puerto Rico. After not mentioning the hurricane-devastated island for days, Trump on Tuesday pushed back aggressively and repeatedly against criticism that he had failed to quickly grasp the magnitude of Maria’s destruction or give the U.S. commonwealth the top-priority treatment he had bestowed on Texas, Louisiana and Florida after previous storms. Trump announced that he would visit Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands next week. He also sent out a tweet about Puerto Rico’s needs. He talked about Puerto Rico during a meeting on tax cuts. He raised the subject at a Rose Garden news conference with the prime minister of Spain. And he attended a hurricane briefing. He called a meeting of agency heads tasked with helping Puerto Rico recover, and sent top officials out to the White House driveway to talk to reporters. FEMA Administrator Brock Long delivered specifics: 16 Navy and Coast Guard

WASHINGTON (AP) — White House officials are clearly instructed: Don’t use your personal phones for official business. But some aides appear to have done it anyway, and it’s getting fresh scrutiny along with questions about the use of personal email accounts. The inquiries into private communication could prove uncomfortable for President Donald Trump, who relentlessly attacked Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email account and server during her time as secretary of state. Multiple current and former Trump White House officials have used private email accounts and texts from personal phones for private conversations, sometimes using encrypted messaging apps. That’s despite clear directives not to use personal devices for administration business and to save the records if they do. House lawmakers have requested more information about the use of private email addresses and texting or the use of messaging apps on personal phones. They’re also asking

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats and Republicans are poised for a Supreme Court fight about political line-drawing with the potential to alter the balance of power across a country starkly divided between the two parties. The big question at the heart of next week’s high court clash is whether there can be too much politics in the inherently political task of drawing electoral districts. The Supreme Court has never struck down a districting plan because it was too political. The test case comes from Wisconsin, where Democratic voters sued after Republicans drew political maps in 2011 that entrenched their hold on power in a state that is essentially evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans. “It could portend massive changes in our electoral system,” Washington lawyer Christopher Landau said, if the court for the first time imposes limits on extreme partisan gerrymandering, or redistricting. Courts have struck down racially discriminatory maps for decades. Wisconsin Re

WASHINGTON (AP) — Suddenly, just about all President Donald Trump can talk about is Puerto Rico. After not mentioning the hurricane-devastated island for days, Trump on Tuesday pushed back aggressively and repeatedly against criticism that he had failed to quickly grasp the magnitude of Maria’s destruction or give the U.S. commonwealth the top-priority treatment he had bestowed on Texas, Louisiana and Florida after previous storms. Trump announced that he would visit Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands next week. He also sent out a tweet about Puerto Rico’s needs. He talked about Puerto Rico during a meeting on tax cuts. He raised the subject at a Rose Garden news conference with the prime minister of Spain. And he attended a hurricane briefing. He called a meeting of agency heads tasked with helping Puerto Rico recover, and sent top officials out to the White House driveway to talk to reporters. FEMA Administrator Brock Long delivered specifics: 16 Navy and Coast Guar

WASHINGTON (AP) — White House officials are clearly instructed: Don’t use your personal phones for official business. But some aides appear to have done it anyway, and it’s getting fresh scrutiny along with questions about the use of personal email accounts. The inquiries into private communication could prove uncomfortable for President Donald Trump, who relentlessly attacked Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email account and server during her time as secretary of state. Multiple current and former Trump White House officials have used private email accounts and texts from personal phones for private conversations, sometimes using encrypted messaging apps. That’s despite clear directives not to use personal devices for administration business and to save the records if they do. House lawmakers have requested more information about the use of private email addresses and texting or the use of messaging apps on personal phones. They’re also asking

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — University of Arizona assistant basketball coach Emanuel Richardson entered the federal court wearing the same clothes he was arrested in earlier in the day, there to face charges of accepting bribes and paying at least one recruit to attend the school. Across the country, nine other people, including three more assistant coaches, were arrested after a federal probe revealed hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to influence star athletes’ choice of schools, shoe sponsors, agents, even tailors. The arrests will have an immediate — and potentially long-lasting — impact on the programs involved. As the tentacles of the probe reach deeper into college basketball, more schools could come into the crosshairs and the black eye on the sport could darken. “The picture of college basketball painted by the charges is not a pretty one,” acting U.S. Attorney Joon H. Kim said. Richardson, along with fellow assistant coaches Chuck Person of Auburn, Southern C

BANGKOK (AP) — A Thai court on Wednesday sentenced ousted Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra in absentia to five years in prison for alleged negligence in a money-losing rice subsidy program. Yingluck, who says the charges are politically motivated, is believed to have fled the country last month before the court session at which the verdict initially was to have been delivered. Yingluck’s government was overthrown in a military coup in 2014. She and her supporters said she was innocent and was persecuted as part of an effort to dismantle the political machine of her brother, former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, a telecommunications tycoon. Thaksin was toppled from power by a 2006 military coup after being accused of abuse of power, corruption and disrespect for the country’s monarchy. He is living in self-imposed exile to avoid serving a prison term for what he calls a politically motivated 2008 conviction on a conflict of interest charge. Yingluck, who inherited t

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats and Republicans are poised for a Supreme Court fight about political line-drawing with the potential to alter the balance of power across a country starkly divided between the two parties. The big question at the heart of next week’s high court clash is whether there can be too much politics in the inherently political task of drawing electoral districts. The Supreme Court has never struck down a districting plan because it was too political. The test case comes from Wisconsin, where Democratic voters sued after Republicans drew political maps in 2011 that entrenched their hold on power in a state that is essentially evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans. “It could portend massive changes in our electoral system,” Washington lawyer Christopher Landau said, if the court for the first time imposes limits on extreme partisan gerrymandering, or redistricting. Courts have struck down racially discriminatory maps for decades. Wisconsin Re

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans are rolling out a wide-ranging plan to cut taxes for individuals and corporations, simplify the tax system, and likely double the standard deduction used by most Americans. Months in the making, the plan meets a political imperative for Republicans to deliver an overhaul of the U.S. tax code after the failure of the health care repeal. The public reveal of the plan was set for Wednesday. The day before, details emerged on Capitol Hill while Trump personally appealed to House Republicans and Democrats at the White House to get behind his proposal. “We will cut taxes tremendously for the middle class. Not just a little bit but tremendously,” Trump said as he met with members of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee. He predicted jobs “will be coming back in because we have a non-competitive tax structure right now and we’re going to go super competitive.” Among the details: repeal of the tax on multi