Blinken shuttles from West Bank to Iraq trying to contain fallout from Israel-Hamas war

LOS ANGELES — "Friends" star Matthew Perry, the Emmy-nominated actor whose sarcastic but lovable Chandler Bing was among television's most famous and most quotable characters, has died at 54.

The actor was found dead at his Los Angeles home, according to coroner's records. An investigation into how Perry died is ongoing, and it may take weeks before his cause of death is determined.

Read more:

NEW YORK (AP) — Former Vice President Mike Pence is dropping his bid for the Republican presidential nomination, ending his campaign for the White House after struggling to raise money and gain traction in the polls.

“After much prayer and deliberation, I have decided to suspend my campaign for president effective today," Pence said at the Republican Jewish Coalition gathering in Las Vegas. “We always knew this would be an uphill battle, but I have no regrets," he said.

LEWISTON, Maine (AP) — Police teams had already searched a recycling center in Maine twice before eventually finding the body of the man suspected of killing 18 people in Lewiston was found, authorities said Saturday.

Department of Public Safety Commissioner Michael Sauschuck said the teams that scoured the Maine Recycling Corp. property that features as many as 60 trailers, including a tactical team, on Thursday night. He said another state police team returned the site Friday and found Robert Card’s body in a trailer rthat hadn’t been searched.

WASHINGTON — The federal judge overseeing Donald Trump's 2020 election interference case in Washington on Sunday reimposed a narrow gag order barring him from making public comments targeting prosecutors, court staff and potential witnesses.

The reinstatement of the gag order was revealed in a brief notation on the online case docket Sunday night, but the order itself was not immediately available, making it impossible to see the judge's rationale or the precise contours of the restrictions.

WASHINGTON — Rep. George Santos easily survived a vote Wednesday to expel him from the House as most Republicans opted to withhold punishment as both his criminal trial and a House Ethics Committee investigation proceed.

The effort to kick Santos out of the House was led by his fellow New York Republicans, who are anxious to distance themselves from a colleague infamous for fabricating his life story and accused of stealing from donors, lying to Congress and receiving unemployment benefits he did not deserve.

LOS ANGELES — The final Beatles recording is here.

Titled "Now and Then," the almost impossible-to-believe track is four minutes and eight seconds of the first and only original Beatles recording of the 21st century. There's a countdown, then acoustic guitar strumming and piano bleed into the unmistakable vocal tone of John Lennon in the song's introduction: "I know it's true / It's all because of you / And if I make it through / It's all because of you."

A woman wearing a costume of a Dos Equis beer bottle last Saturday approached me at a Halloween party.

“Matthew Perry died,” she said somberly.

WASHINGTON — The House approved $14.5 billion in military aid Thursday for Israel, a muscular U.S. response to the war with Hamas but also a partisan approach by new Speaker Mike Johnson that poses a direct challenge to Democrats and President Joe Biden.

In a departure from norms, Johnson's package required that the emergency aid be offset with cuts in government spending elsewhere. That tack established the new House GOP's conservative leadership, but it also turned what would typically be a bipartisan vote into one dividing Democrats and Republicans. Biden has said he would veto the bill, which was approved on a largely party-line vote.

Anheuser-Busch Inbev said Tuesday that revenue growth in most of its global regions was offset by a drop in North American sales, in a sign of continuing fallout from a promotion with a transgender influencer that cost it sales.

The world's largest brewer and parent company of Bud Light said adjusted earnings for the latest quarter rose 4.1% to $5.4 billion on revenues that climbed 5% to $15.6 billion.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Bob Knight, the brilliant and combustible coach who won three NCAA titles at Indiana and for years was the scowling face of college basketball, has died. He was 83.

Knight's family made the announcement on social media on Wednesday night. He was hospitalized with an illness in April and had been in poor health for several years.