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WASHINGTON – For Mike Bloomberg, the one-way conversation with Democratic voters is about to end.

By spending more than $400 million of his own money and largely bypassing his opponents by skipping the early primary states, Bloomberg has rocketed to double-digit support in enough national polls to qualify for Wednesday night’s Nevada debate.

But as Bloomberg’s support has risen, so has the criticism from his Democratic foes as well as the broader scrutiny of his past comments and record as New York City mayor.

U.S. stock indexes closed with mostly modest losses Tuesday as the market gave up some of its solid gains from the past two weeks.

Banks and technology stocks accounted for most of the decline.

TOKYO – 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.

The viral illness that emerged last year in central China has sickened tens of thousands of people, but the 542 cases confirmed among the ship’s 3,711 original passengers and crew are the most anywhere outside of China.

The Diamond Princess cruise s

WASHINGTON – A federal judge on Tuesday refused to delay sentencing for Trump confidant Roger Stone on his conviction for witness tampering and lying to Congress.

The decision by Judge Amy Berman Jackson came after President Donald Trump tweeted in defense of his longtime ally and said Stone's conviction “should be thrown out.”

Stone's defense team has requested a new trial and on Tuesday lobbied to delay the sentencing.

WASHINGTON – Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign plans to ask for a partial recount of the Iowa caucus results,after the state Democratic Party released results of its recanvass late Tuesday that show Sanders and Pete Buttigieg in an effective tie.

Sanders campaign senior adviser Jeff Weaver told The Associated Press in an interview Tuesday that the campaign has had a representative in contact with the Iowa Democratic Party throughout the recanvass process.

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 or other leaders.

The Scouts resorted to Chapter 11 in hopes of surviving a barrage of lawsuits, many of them made possible by recent changes in state laws to allow people to sue over long-ago sexual abuse.

Bankruptcy will enable the o

CHICAGO (AP) — Highlights from imprisoned former Illinois Gov.

Running against incumbent Rep.

President Donald Trump commuted former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's 14-year prison sentence for political corruption on Tuesday, calling the punishment "ridiculous" and letting Blagojevich walk out of prison after eight years.

“So he'll be able to go back home with his family,” Trump told reporters in Washington.

On Wednesday, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker will propose a $147 million budget increase - about a 20% boost from the previous fiscal year - for the Department of Children and Family Services.

As a part of his budget address, the governor's proposal includes about an 11% increase in staffing, bringing the total department employees to 3,056.