U.S./World category, Page 565
Trump lawyer John Eastman advised to plead the Fifth in Georgia probeVideo
ATLANTA — Lawyers for John Eastman, a lead architect of some of Donald Trump’s efforts to remain in power after the 2020 election, said Wednesday they advised their client to assert attorney-client privilege and invoke his constitutional right to remain silent when testifying before a special grand jury investigating possible...
Jackson water crisis forces residents to find alternativesVideo
JACKSON, Miss. — The water pressure at James Brown’s home in Jackson was so low the faucets barely dripped. He couldn’t cook. He couldn’t bathe. But he still had to work. The 73-year-old tree-cutter hauled bags of ice into his truck at a gas station on his way to a...
Reported sexual assaults across U.S. military increase by 13%
WASHINGTON — Reports of sexual assaults across the U.S. military jumped by 13% last year, driven by significant increases in the Army and the Navy as bases began to move out of pandemic restrictions and public venues reopened, The Associated Press has learned. Mirroring the increase in those reports is...
Justice Department is likely to wait past midterms to reveal any charges against Trump, sources sayVideo
WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors are likely to wait until after the November election to announce any charges against Donald Trump, if they determine he broke laws, according to people familiar. The unprecedented prospect of bringing charges against a former U.S. president is creating intense scrutiny of the Justice Department in...
Ex-Ohio schools chief charged with kidnapping 2 kids in West Virginia
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — A former Ohio schools superintendent has been charged in West Virginia with luring two children into his vehicle with money, police said. William J. Morrison III, 59, of Huntington, was charged with two felony counts of kidnapping after his arrest last week, Huntington police said in a...
Judge nixes no-prison deal in 2018 limo crash that killed 20
SCHOHARIE, N.Y. — A judge rejected a plea agreement that would have meant no prison time for the operator of a limousine company involved in a crash that killed 20 people in upstate New York. Wednesday’s turnabout drew applause and tears from victims’ relatives and plunged limo company boss Nauman...
Box of reptiles mailed to the wrong address in New York
PORT CHESTER, N.Y. — Several live lizards were wrongly delivered to a residence in a village north of New York City. “Needless to say the addressee was quite startled when they opened the box,” Port Chester police wrote on Facebook. Police received the call about the reptiles just after noon...
Kremlin offers mixed view of Gorbachev’s historic role
MOSCOW — The Kremlin treaded carefully Wednesday while reacting to Mikhail Gorbachev’s death, praising his prominent role in reshaping 20th-century history, but noting his “romantic” view of the West. The Kremlin’s ambivalence was reflected in the uncertainty about funeral arrangements. An iconic central venue chosen for Saturday’s farewell ceremony has...
EU to tighten travel rules for Russians, but no visa ban
PRAGUE — European Union countries agreed Wednesday to make it harder for Russian citizens to enter the 27-nation bloc, but they failed to find a consensus on imposing an outright tourist ban in response to Russia’s war on Ukraine. At talks in the Czech Republic, EU foreign ministers were desperate...
Updated covid boosters OK’d; shots could begin in days
WASHINGTON — The U.S. on Wednesday authorized its first update to covid-19 vaccines, booster doses that target today’s most common omicron strain. Shots could begin within days. The move by the Food and Drug Administration tweaks the recipe of shots made by Pfizer and rival Moderna that already have saved...
UN weather agency predicts rare ‘triple-dip’ La Nina in 2022
GENEVA — The U.N. weather agency is predicting that the phenomenon known as La Nina is poised to last through the end of this year, a mysterious “triple dip” — the first this century — caused by three straight years of its effect on climate patterns like drought and flooding...
High-stakes year begins for kids still learning to read
ATLANTA — Five of the 19 students in teacher Chelsea Grant’s third grade classroom are reading below grade level. When it’s time to read aloud on a recent Friday, the students show vastly different levels of skill and confidence. “Remember you read with expression, feeling and fluency,” Grant told her...
U.S. life expectancy plunged again in 2021, down nearly a year
NEW YORK — U.S. life expectancy dropped for the second consecutive year in 2021, falling by nearly a year from 2020, according to a government report being released Wednesday. In the first two years of the covid-19 pandemic, the estimated American lifespan has shortened by nearly three years. The last...
Feds cite efforts to obstruct probe of docs at Trump estate
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department says classified documents were “likely concealed and removed” from a storage room at former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate as part of an effort to obstruct the federal investigation into the discovery of the government records. The FBI also seized boxes and containers holding more...
Storms blamed in deaths of 3 in Michigan, Ohio, ArkansasVideo
MONROE, Mich. — Severe storms that brought damaging winds, heavy rains and flash flooding to parts of the Midwest and the South were blamed for the deaths of three people, including two children in Michigan and Arkansas as well as a woman in Ohio. Monday’s storms also knocked out electrical...
WVU fraternity suspended over reported hazing incidents
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — West Virginia University suspended a fraternity Tuesday over reported hazing incidents, the school said. The interim suspension of Pi Kappa Phi fraternity prevents it from all recruitment activities along with participating or attending social functions, WVU said in a news release. The suspension will remain in place...
Tony Ornato, Secret Service agent for Trump, retires after Jan. 6 scrutinyVideo
WASHINGTON — A U.S. Secret Service agent whose name figured prominently in testimony before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection has retired from the agency. Tony Ornato retired Monday after 25 years with the Secret Service “in good standing,” a spokesman said. It wasn’t immediately clear what prompted...
Russian media: Ex-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev dead at 91
MOSCOW — Mikhail Gorbachev, who as the last leader of the Soviet Union waged a losing battle to salvage a crumbling empire but produced extraordinary reforms that led to the end of the Cold War, died Tuesday. He was 91. The Central Clinical Hospital said in a statement that Gorbachev...
Explainer: Why were Dutch soldiers at Indiana military camp?
INDIANAPOLIS — Before three Dutch soldiers were shot, one fatally, in downtown Indianapolis, they were training in a southern Indiana military camp where international soldiers enter highly specialized urban combat simulations they might not be able to get in their own country. Simmie Poetsema, 26, was identified Monday as the...
43% of Americans say a civil war is at least somewhat likely in next 10 years
More than 2 in 5 Americans say a U.S. civil war is at least somewhat likely in the next decade, highlighting the deepening political divisions in the country heading into the midterms. A recent poll by YouGov and The Economist found that 43% believe a civil war was either “very”...
Danube drought reveals parts of hidden WWII history near Serbia, Romania
PRAHOVO, Serbia — The worst drought in Europe in decades has not only scorched farmland and hampered river traffic, it also has exposed a part of almost forgotten World War II history: The hulks of dozens of World War II German battleships have emerged from the Danube River as its...
On Mexico’s Caribbean coast, mountains of seaweed grow
TULUM, Mexico — Scraping the smelly sargassum seaweed off some beaches on Mexico’s resort-studded Caribbean coast has become not only a nightmare, but possibly a health threat, for the workers doing it — with the quantities washing ashore this year seemingly mountains not mounds. Decomposing sargassum, which is actually algae,...
Heavy fighting rages in Ukraine’s Russian-occupied south
KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine claimed to have destroyed bridges and ammunition depots and pounded command posts in a surge of fighting in the Russian-occupied south, fueling speculation Tuesday that its long-awaited counteroffensive to try to turn the tide of war was underway. Russia said it repelled the attack and inflicted...
Explainer: What spurred the bloody armed clashes in Baghdad?
BAGHDAD — Iraq’s long-running power struggle between rival Shiite camps devolved into bloody street violence this week — the culmination of months of simmering tensions and a political vacuum. For 24 hours, loyalists of powerful cleric Muqtada al-Sadr transformed the country’s government Green Zone into a front line, trading fire...
In new gun law, a quiet breakthrough for victims of abuse
WASHINGTON — Nikiesha Thomas was on her way to work one day when she told her sister that she was thinking about getting involved with domestic violence prevention. The idea gave Keeda Simpson pause. Her younger sister had never mentioned anything like that before, and she was bringing it up...
