U.S./World category, Page 274
U.S. military targets Houthi radar sites in Yemen after a merchant sailor goes missing
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The U.S. military unleashed a wave of attacks targeting radar sites operated by Yemen’s Houthi rebels after one merchant sailor went missing and the vessel he was on caught fire in the latest Houthi strike on shipping in the crucial Red Sea corridor, authorities said...
Divers find remains of Finnish WWII plane that was shot down by Moscow with a U.S. diplomat aboard
HELSINKI — The World War II mystery of what happened to a Finnish passenger plane after it was shot down over the Baltic Sea by Soviet bombers appears to finally be solved more than eight decades later. The plane was carrying American and French diplomatic couriers in June 1940 when...
Police in Maine cancel shelter-in-place order after explosions and fire are reported
AUBURN, Maine — Police in Maine have canceled a shelter-in-place order in the city of Auburn after reporting that an armed person was in an area where a series of explosions and a house fire erupted early Saturday. The Auburn Police Department said on Facebook that the situation had been...
Crews rescue 30 people trapped upside down high on Oregon amusement park ride
PORTLAND, Ore. — Emergency crews in Oregon rescued 30 people Friday after they were stuck for about half an hour dangling upside down high on a ride at a century-old amusement park. Portland Fire and Rescue said on the social platform X that firefighters worked with engineers at Oaks Park...
Atlanta’s former Coca-Cola museum demolished for parking lot
ATLANTA — Once a shrine to the world’s most popular soft drink, the building that housed the original World of Coca-Cola is going flat at the hands of Georgia’s state government. Crews continued Friday to demolish the onetime temple of fizz in downtown Atlanta near the state capitol, with plans...
Las Vegas shooting survivors alarmed at Supreme Court’s strike down of ban on rifle bump stocks
Survivors of the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas and families who received somber calls from police hours later said they were alarmed when the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday struck down a ban on the gun attachment used by the shooter who rattled off over 1,000 bullets into a...
Yellowstone visitors hope to catch a glimpse of rare white buffalo
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. — Standing at the edge of a bluff overlooking the Lamar River in Yellowstone National Park, TJ Ammond stared through binoculars at hundreds of buffalo dotting the verdant valley below. Tan-colored calves frolicked near their mothers while hulking bulls wallowed in mud. As his wife and...
Justice Department won’t prosecute Garland for contempt, says refusal to provide audio wasn’t crime
WASHINGTON — Attorney General Merrick Garland will not be prosecuted for contempt of Congress because his refusal to turn over audio of President Joe Biden’s interview in his classified documents case “did not constitute a crime,” the Justice Department said Friday. In a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson, a...
Kate, Princess of Wales, says she’s making ‘good progress’ in cancer treatment
LONDON — The Princess of Wales says she is “making good progress” in her cancer treatment and will attend Saturday’s royal Trooping the Color ceremony, Kate’s first public appearance since her diagnosis. The 42-year-old wife of Prince William has not made any public appearances this year. She announced in March...
Alex Jones’ assets to be sold to pay Sandy Hook debt; company bankruptcy dismissed
HOUSTON — A federal judge on Friday ordered the liquidation of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones ′ personal assets but dismissed his company’s separate bankruptcy case, leaving the future of his Infowars media platform uncertain as he owes $1.5 billion for his false claims that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting...
Worst rainfall that triggered floods in Florida is over as affected residents clean up
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Although more rain could trigger additional isolated Florida flooding on Friday, forecasters say the strong, persistent storms that dumped up to 20 inches (50 centimeters) in southern parts of the state appear to have passed. Some neighborhood streets in the Miami and Fort Lauderdale areas still...
Demolition of the Parkland classroom building where 17 died in 2018 shooting begins
PARKLAND, Fla. — A large excavator stretched to the top floor of the three-story building where 17 people died in the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, punching its first hole Friday into the classroom where teacher Scott Beigel perished saving students. Beginning a weekslong demolition, the...
Bird flu is highly lethal to some animals, but not to others. Scientists wants to know why
NEW YORK — In the last two years, bird flu has been blamed for the deaths of millions of wild and domestic birds worldwide. It’s killed legions of seals and sea lions, wiped out mink farms, and dispatched cats, dogs, skunks, foxes and even a polar bear. But it seems...
Supreme Court strikes down Trump-era ban on bump stocks, gun accessories used in 2017 massacre
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Friday struck down a Trump-era ban on bump stocks, the rapid-fire gun accessories used in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, in a ruling that threw firearms back into the nation’s political spotlight. The high court’s conservative majority found that the Trump...
Illinois is hit with cicada chaos. This is what it’s like to see, hear and feel billions of bugs
RIVERWOODS, Ill. — The ground had seemed to undulate at night, alive with bugs. Crawling cicada nymphs, striving to get higher after 17 years underground, marched en masse toward and up trees, pausing to shed their skin and emerge as adults. And then the fun began. Cicada chaos is flourishing...
How do cicadas make their signature sound, so eerie and amazingly loud?
WHEATON, Ill. — The most noticeable part of the cicada invasion blanketing the central United States is the sound — an eerie, amazingly loud song that gets in a person’s ears and won’t let much else in. “It’s beautiful chaos,” said Rebecca Schmidt, a U.S. Department of Agriculture research entomologist....
Ready to renew your U.S. passport? You can now apply online
WASHINGTON — There’s an easier way to renew your passport — online. The State Department has opened a trial run allowing a limited number of people to apply for their updated travel documents with a few clicks. You can’t just start anytime — windows will open at midday Eastern time...
Make mine medium-rare: Men really do eat more meat than women, study says
CHICAGO — Vacationing in Chicago this week from Europe, Jelle den Burger and Nirusa Naguleswaran grabbed a bite at the Dog House Grill: a classic Italian beef sandwich for him, grilled cheese for her. Both think the way their genders lined up with their food choices was no coincidence. Women,...
Swedish officials say weak replacement parts caused a fatal roller coaster derailment last year
COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Swedish accident investigators on Friday said the country’s oldest amusement park didn’t properly test new parts for a roller coaster that derailed last year and sent some passengers plunging to the ground, killing one and injuring nine others, one seriously. The June 25 derailment at the Grona...
Putin offers truce if Ukraine exits Moscow-occupied areas and drops NATO bid — a nonstarter for Kyiv
Russian President Vladimir Putin promised Friday to “immediately” order a cease-fire in Ukraine and begin negotiations if Kyiv started withdrawing troops from the four regions annexed by Moscow in 2022 and renounced plans to join NATO. Such a deal appears a nonstarter for Kyiv, which wants to join the military...
NATO approves a plan to speed security aid and training to Ukraine’s beleaguered armed forces
BRUSSELS — NATO defense ministers on Friday approved a plan to provide reliable long-term security aid and military training for Ukraine after delays in Western deliveries of funds, arms and ammunition helped invading Russian forces to seize the initiative on the battlefield. Kyiv’s Western backers have mostly concentrated their efforts...
Pope Francis meets more than 100 comedians at the Vatican: ‘You also make God smile’
VATICAN CITY — Before flying to Italy’s southern Puglia region to meet world leaders at the Group of Seven summit, Pope Francis hosted a very different audience at the Vatican on Friday celebrating the importance of humor. The pontiff welcomed more than 100 comedians from 15 nations, including U.S. celebrities...
Howard Fineman, veteran political journalist and analyst, dies at 75
Howard Fineman, the political journalist who covered presidents from Reagan to Biden for a variety of outlets, died Tuesday at the age of 75. Fineman died from pancreatic cancer, which he had been battling for two years, his wife, Amy Nathan, said in a social media post Wednesday afternoon. “I...
Trump refers to Milwaukee as ‘horrible’ just before the city hosts the Republican conventionVideo
MADISON, Wis. — Former President Donald Trump used the word “horrible” in talking about Milwaukee — the city where he will accept the Republican nomination next month — during a closed-door meeting Thursday with GOP congressmen, according to several people in the room who spoke afterward. The comment, first reported...
Justice Clarence Thomas took more trips paid for by donor Harlan Crow, Senate panel revealsVideo
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin says his committee has uncovered at least three additional trips given to Justice Clarence Thomas by GOP megadonor Harlan Crow as part of the panel’s ethics investigation into the Supreme Court. Durbin, D-Ill., said Thursday the committee obtained information from Crow that Thomas took...
