Founded in 1846, the AP today remains the most trusted source of fast, accurate, unbiased news in all formats and the essential provider of the technology and services vital to the news business.
Memorial Circle, the proposed plot of land near Memorial Bridge where the Independence Arch could be built is seen in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Nathan Howard)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump says history is on his side.
He wants to build a towering arch near the Lincoln Memorial and argues that the nation’s capital first clamored for such a monument two centuries ago — even going so far as to erect four eagle statues as part of the project before being derailed by the attack on Fort Sumter.
A sign for the Washington Post is seen at the company's offices, Monday, Jan. 26, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
Mass layoffs at The Washington Post today (Wednesday) have prompted grief and outrage among D.C.-area reporters and a pointed rebuke of the newspaper’s owner from U.S. Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.).
The publication eliminated about one-third of its staff today, cutting the jobs of numerous respected journalists on its Metro desk while eliminating its sports section, several foreign bureaus and its books coverage in a widespread purge that represented a brutal blow to journalism and one of its most legendary brands.
Groundhog Club handler A.J. Dereume holds Punxsutawney Phil, the weather prognosticating groundhog, during the 140th celebration of Groundhog Day on Gobbler's Knob in Punxsutawney, Pa., Monday, Feb. 2, 2026. Phil's handlers said that the groundhog has forecast six more weeks of winter. (AP Photo/Barry Reeger)
After a frigid and snow covered past week and a half — and yet another APS snow day — you might be ready for a big warm-up.
Bad news: we have at least another week of mostly freezing temperatures, according to the forecast, and six more weeks of winter, according to Punxsutawney Phil.
The groundhog saw his shadow this morning in the woods of Pennsylvania.
PUNXSUTAWNEY, Pa. (AP) — Punxsutawney Phil predicted six more weeks of wintry weather Monday, a forecast sure to disappoint many after what’s already been a long, cold season across large parts of the United States.
His annual prediction and announcement that he had seen his shadow was translated by his handlers in the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club at Gobbler’s Knob in western Pennsylvania.
The news was greeted with a mix of cheers and boos from the tens of thousands who braved temperatures in the single-digits Fahrenheit to await the annual prognostication. The extreme cold kept the crowd bundled up and helped keep people on the main stage dancing.
Usually guests can come up on stage and take pictures of Phil after his prediction, but this year the announcer said it was too cold for that and his handlers were afraid to keep him out too long. Instead, the audience was asked to come to the stage, turn around and “do a selfie.”
The club says that when Phil is deemed to have not seen his shadow, that means there will be an early spring. When he does see it, it’s six more weeks of winter. Phil tends to predict a longer winter far more often than an early spring.
Is cabin fever setting in, after one of the longest stretches of very cold temperatures in recent memory? Are you in desperate need of a warm weather escape while winter still rages here in Arlington?
The Kennedy Center, as seen from Arlington (staff photo by Jay Westcott)
President Donald Trump said Sunday he will move to close Washington’s Kennedy Center performing arts venue for two years starting in July for construction.
Trump’s announcement on social media follows a wave of cancellations since Trump ousted the previous leadership and added his name to the building. Trump made no mention in his post of the recent cancellations.
That is mostly because this shutdown, which started Saturday, does not include the whole of government and may not last long, even as it now drags into the new week.
Metropolitan Police Department diver Robert Varga poses for a portrait, Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
WASHINGTON (AP) — For some, it was the children’s luggage and small ice skates that became indelible memories of the night a passenger plane and a helicopter collided over the murky Potomac River. Others remember boats navigating debris and shallow water to bring victims’ bodies ashore. And there was the suddenness: people seconds from landing, gone.
Families of those on board American Airlines Flight 5342 and an Army Black Hawk helicopter are marking Thursday as the one-year anniversary of the deadliest plane crash on U.S. soil in more than 20 years. Another group is reliving that night and the days, weeks and months that followed: the emergency responders who dove repeatedly into the river with nearly zero visibility, braving cold water, jet fuel and jagged wreckage in the hope of rescuing survivors.
Amazon HQ2 in Pentagon City (staff photo by Jay Westcott)
Amazon is slashing about 16,000 corporate jobs in the second round of mass layoffs for the ecommerce company in three months.
The tech giant has said it plans to use generative artificial intelligence to replace corporate workers. It has also been reducing a workforce that swelled during the pandemic.
People walk through Arlington, Va. during a snowstorm, Sunday, Jan. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
HOUSTON (AP) — Winter’s brutal grip on the U.S. East is not letting up, with coming days bringing subfreezing temperatures that will plunge deep into what had been a toasty Florida peninsula and a powerful blizzard forecast that may strike the Atlantic coast.
Deep cold is forecast to stick around at least into the first week of February. Meteorologists are also watching what could become a “ bomb cyclone ” — a quickly intensifying storm that’s a winter version of a hurricane — forming off the Carolinas Friday night into Saturday.
National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy presides over the NTSB fact-finding hearing on the DCA midair collision accident, at the National Transportation and Safety Board boardroom in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
WASHINGTON (AP) — National Transportation Safety Board members were deeply troubled Tuesday over years of ignored warnings about helicopter traffic dangers and other problems, long before an American Airlines jet and an Army Black Hawk collided a year ago, killing 67 people near Washington, D.C.
The placement of a helicopter route in the approach path of Reagan National Airport’s secondary runway created a dangerous airspace and a lack of regular safety risk reviews made it worse, the board said. That was a key factor in the crash along with air traffic controllers’ over reliance on asking helicopter pilots to avoid other aircraft.
FILE - The state and U.S. flags fly over the Virginia State Capitol as the 2024 session of the Virginia General Assembly gets underway, Jan. 10, 2024, in Richmond, Va. (AP Photo/Steve Helber, File)
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A Virginia judge ruled Tuesday that a proposed constitutional amendment letting Democrats redraw the state’s Congressional maps was illegal, setting back the party’s efforts to pick up seats in the U.S. House in November. In Maryland, Gov. Wes Moore testified for a new map that could enable Democrats to defeat the state’s only House Republican.
The latest developments are part of a national battle over unusual mid-decade redistricting attempts, launched last summer by President Donald Trump who urged Republican officials in Texas to redraw maps to help the GOP win more seats. He did so in hopes of holding on to a narrow House majority in the face of political headwinds that typically favor the party out of power in midterms.
Water samples are taken from the Potomac River, Friday, Jan. 23, 2026 in Glen Echo, Md. A massive pipe that moves millions of gallons of sewage has ruptured and sent wastewater flowing into the Potomac River northwest of Washington, polluting it ahead of a major winter storm that has repair crews scrambling. (AP Photo/Nathan Ellgren)
Tests of water samples from the Potomac River are reporting dangerously high levels of E. coli following a rupture in a sewage pipe upstream from Arlington.
The Potomac Riverkeeper Network recorded bacteria levels 60 times higher than what is considered safe for human contact in a sample taken at Fletchers Cove on Friday, the organization announced in a press release yesterday (Monday). This is in D.C., across the river from Potomac Overlook Regional Park.
A plane takes off from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport as Roberto Marquez of Dallas places flowers at a memorial of crosses he erected for the 67 victims of a midair collision between an Army helicopter and an American Airlines jet, Feb. 1, 2025, in Arlington, Va. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)
So many things went wrong last Jan. 29 to contribute to the deadliest plane crash on American soil since 2001 that the National Transportation Safety Board isn’t likely to identify a single cause of the collision between an airliner and an Army helicopter over the Potomac River at its hearing Tuesday.
Instead, their investigators will detail what they found that played a role in the crash, which killed 67 people, and the board will recommend changes to help prevent a similar tragedy. Last week, the Federal Aviation Administration already took the temporary restrictions it imposed after the crash and made them permanent to ensure planes and helicopters won’t share the same airspace again around Reagan National Airport.
