Drone strike kills al-Qaida leader; Kansas voters to guide future of abortion; Capitol rioter sentenced to seven years | Hot off the Wire podcast

President Joe Biden has announced that al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Kabul. Biden is hailing the operation as delivering “justice” while expressing hope that it brings “one more measure of closure” to families of the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

Kansas is having the first test of voters’ feelings since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade. Its voters were deciding Tuesday whether to allow state lawmakers to further restrict or ban abortion. The measure is a proposed anti-abortion amendment to the Kansas Constitution and voting on it coincided with the state’s primary, when the electorate typically skews conservative and Republican.

The Supreme Court has certified its month-old ruling allowing the Biden administration to end a cornerstone Trump-era border policy to make asylum-seekers wait in Mexico for hearings in U.S. immigration court. The sparse entry records that justices voted 5-4 that the administration could scrap the “Remain in Mexico” policy, overruling a lower court that forced the policy to be reinstated in December.

The Ohio Supreme Court has upheld the death penalty for a man convicted of killing a couple whose house and dog he was caring for while they were away on vacation. Death row inmate George Brinkman was convicted of the 2017 deaths of Rogell and Roberta John and sentenced to death by a three-judge Stark County panel.

A Texas man convicted of storming the U.S. Capitol with a holstered handgun, helmet and body armor has been sentenced to seven years and three months in prison. The sentence imposed Monday is the longest so far among hundreds of Capitol riot cases.

New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge hits another home run, lots of trades in major league baseball, and Deshaun Watson gets a six game suspension.

Another round of rainstorms are hitting flooded Kentucky mountain communities. The rain fell Monday as more bodies emerged from the sodden landscape, and the governor warned that high winds could bring another threat — falling trees and utility poles.

Thirty people have already been killed amid the rising water, and hundreds of others remain unaccounted for. Gov. Andy Beshear said that death toll does not include some recently recovered bodies.

California officials say two bodies were found inside a charred vehicle in a driveway in the wildfire zone of a raging blaze that is among several menacing thousands of homes in the western U.S. The McKinney Fire in Northern California was burning out of control Monday in Klamath National Forest.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development is providing $2.8 billion in fresh funding for homeless services organizations across the country.

Gas prices have been falling, but for how long? Prices are below $4 gallon in more than half the gas stations around the country. But as prices decrease, demand may increase and slow prices from falling further.

Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson was suspended for six games for violating the NFL’s personal conduct policy following accusations of sexual misconduct made against him by two dozen women in Texas during massage treatments.

The White House is making more than $1 billion available to states to address flooding and extreme heat exacerbated by climate change. Vice President Kamala Harris is set to announce the grant programs Monday at an event in Miami with the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other officials.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is proposing new regulations that would force food processors to reduce the amount of salmonella bacteria found in some raw chicken products or risk shutdowns. The proposed USDA rules announced Monday would declare salmonella an adulterant — a contaminant that can cause food-borne illness — in breaded and stuffed raw chicken products.

The Vatican says Pope Francis will travel next month to Kazakhstan. It’s possible that he could meet there with Patriarch Kirill, the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church who has justified Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

The first ship carrying Ukrainian grain has set out from the port of Odesa. The departure of the ship laden with corn follows an internationally brokered deal that is expected to finally allow large stores of Ukrainian crops to reach foreign markets and ease a growing hunger crisis.

The Major League Baseball trade deadline is always a stressful time of year for the league’s 30 general managers. Add COVID-19 vaccination status to the list of concerns. The Toronto Blue Jays have the toughest constraints as the only team in Canada.

Federal regulators are giving Boeing the green light to soon resume deliveries of its big 787 airliner. That’s according to a person familiar with the situation who talked to The Associated Press on Saturday. Boeing has been forced to stop deliveries of the 787, which it calls the Dreamliner, for most of the last two years because of production problems.