U.S./World category, Page 237

Move over “Dick and Jane.” A different approach to teaching kids how to read is on the rise. For decades, two schools of thought have clashed on how to best teach children to read, with passionate backers on each side of the so-called reading wars. The battle has reached into...

ATLANTA — Michael Crowder stands nervously at the front of his third grade classroom, his mustard-yellow polo shirt buttoned to the top. “Give us some vowels,” says his teacher, La’Neeka Gilbert-Jackson. His eyes search a chart that lists vowels, consonant pairs and word endings, but he doesn’t land on an...

MACEDONIA, Ohio — Someone in Ohio went to bed $252.6 million richer, before taxes, after hitting the Powerball jackpot. The winning ticket for Wednesday night’s drawing was sold at Get Go #3279 in Macedonia and is Ohio’s fourth Powerball jackpot winner since joining the game in 2010. The retailer will...

Officials are searching for a man who shot at at least four people, wounding a child and two others near Gastonia, Gaston County Police said Wednesday. Police identified Robert Louis Singletary, 24, as the shooter, facing murder charges, officials said in a news release. The shooting happened Tuesday night just...

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. — The driver of a car that crashed into a group of Southern California high school students, killing one and injuring three, was arrested for investigation of murder and other crimes, including an earlier stabbing, authorities said Wednesday. The students were struck while on a sidewalk Tuesday...

BELLINGHAM, Wash. — A ban on dozens of semi-automatic rifles cleared the Washington state Legislature on Wednesday and the governor is expected to sign it into law. The high-powered firearms — once banned nationwide — are now the weapon of choice among young men responsible for most of the country’s...

OKLAHOMA CITY — A county commissioner in far southeast Oklahoma who was identified by a local newspaper as one of several officials caught on tape discussing killing reporters and lynching Black people has resigned from office, Gov. Kevin Stitt’s office confirmed Wednesday. Stitt spokesperson Carly Atchison said the office received...

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The family of Tyre Nichols, who died after a brutal beating by five Memphis police officers, sued the officers and the city of Memphis on Wednesday, blaming them for his death and accusing officials of allowing a special unit’s aggressive tactics to go unchecked despite warning signs....

KHARTOUM, Sudan — Terrified Sudanese who have been trapped for days in their homes by fighting in the capital of Khartoum fled on Wednesday, hauling out whatever belongings they could carry and trying to get out of the city, after an internationally brokered truce failed. Explosions shook the city as...

KYIV, Ukraine — American-made Patriot missiles have arrived in Ukraine, the country’s defense minister said Wednesday, providing Kyiv with a long-sought new shield against the Russian airstrikes that have devastated cities and civilian infrastructure. The U.S. agreed in October to send the surface-to-air systems, which can target aircraft, cruise missiles...

BOSTON — A hearing to decide whether a Massachusetts Air National Guardsman charged with leaking highly classified military documents should remain jailed while awaiting trial has been delayed to give the defense more time to prepare. Jack Teixeira, 21, was supposed to appear in Boston federal court on Wednesday for...

BAGHDAD — There are places around Baghdad where I’ll sometimes say a silent prayer for the dead when I pass — on certain residential streets, at a particular restaurant, in a square where minibuses gather. Today, people go about their daily business in these places, perhaps no longer thinking of...

RICHMOND, Va. — Nearly six years after a large gathering of white nationalists in Charlottesville erupted in violent clashes with counterprotesters, a grand jury in Virginia has indicted multiple people on felony charges for carrying flaming torches with the intent to intimidate. The Albemarle County Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office said in...

WARSAW, Poland — Presidents and Holocaust survivors and their descendants commemorated the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising on Wednesday with a poignant sense that the responsibility for carrying on the memory of the Holocaust is passing from the witnesses to younger generations. Germany’s president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said the...

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court has temporarily extended women’s access to an abortion pill until Friday while the justices consider whether to allow restrictions on mifepristone to take effect as a legal challenge to the medication’s Food and Drug Administration approval continues. In an order signed by Justice Samuel Alito...

AUSTIN, Texas — Parents whose children were killed in the Robb Elementary School massacre made sobbing pleads for stricter gun laws before legislators early Wednesday on languishing proposals that appeared headed to stall in the face of a Republican majority. The emotional late-night hearing — which started Tuesday morning and...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — In the wake of a deadly school shooting last month, Republican lawmakers in Tennessee awarded final passage Tuesday to a proposal that would further protect gun and ammunition dealers, manufacturers and sellers against lawsuits. The Senate’s 19-9 vote sends the bill to Republican Gov. Bill Lee, despite...

DENVER — Months after the state’s latest mass shooting, Colorado’s Democratic-controlled Legislature has passed a package of gun control measures that are expected to be signed by the state’s governor and more closely align it with the liberal strongholds of California and New York. The proposals include strengthening red flag...

ALBANY, N.Y. — A memoir from the top aide to former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo during the deadliest days of the covid-19 pandemic, and an investigation that concluded he sexually harassed 11 women, will come out in the fall. Union Square & Co. will release “What’s Left Unsaid: My...

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ appointees on Wednesday began trying to reshape Disney World’s governing body with proposals to eliminate a planning board and prohibit mask mandates and covid-19 vaccine requirements in an evolving showdown between the Republican governor and the world’s best-known entertainment company. The...