U.S./World category, Page 595
‘Revolutionary’ Supreme Court term on abortion, guns and more
WASHINGTON — Abortion, guns and religion — a major change in the law in any one of these areas would have made for a fateful Supreme Court term. In its first full term together, the court’s conservative majority ruled in all three and issued other significant decisions limiting the government’s...
Uvalde schools’ police chief resigns from City Council
UVALDE, Texas — The Uvalde school district’s police chief has stepped down from his position in the City Council just weeks after being sworn in following allegations that he erred in his response to the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School that left 19 students and two teachers dead. Chief...
From morning to night, the fickle force of government is with you
WASHINGTON — When you groggily roll out of bed and make breakfast, the government edges up to your kitchen table, too. Unlike you, it’s perky. It’s an unseen force in your morning. The government makes sure you can see the nutrients in your cereal. It fusses over your toast, insisting...
Rescuers recover 26 dead from mudslide in India’s northeast
GAUHATI, India — Fresh rain and falling boulders on Saturday hampered rescuers who have so far pulled out 26 bodies from the debris of a mudslide that wiped out a railroad construction site in India’s northeast, officials said. Rescue work is expected to continue for a couple of days in...
Russians press assault on eastern Ukrainian city
KYIV, Ukraine — Russian forces are pounding the city of Lysychansk and its surroundings in an all-out attempt to seize the last stronghold of resistance in eastern Ukraine’s Luhansk province, the governor said Saturday. Ukrainian fighters have spent weeks trying to defend the city and to keep it from falling...
With hospitalizations up, France weighs return to masks
NICE, France — Tourism is booming again in France — and so is covid-19. French officials have “invited” or “recommended” people to go back to using face masks but stopped short of renewing restrictions that would scare visitors away or revive antigovernment protests. From Paris commuters to tourists on the...
Woman who killed pimp pardoned by California governor
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday pardoned a former inmate who received a life sentence when she was a teenager for killing her former pimp. It’s the final step in an official redemption that has spanned more than a decade and three governors of both political parties....
Jan. 6 committee eyes pal of Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows who pressured Cassidy Hutchinson
The Jan. 6 committee apparently suspects that the Trump loyalist who sought to pressure witness Cassidy Hutchinson into keeping quiet was not only acting as an intermediary for White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. The panel reportedly wants to interview the unnamed “associate” of Meadows as a “fact witness”...
2 police officers killed in Kentucky by suspect with rifle
ALLEN, Ky. — Two officers were killed when a man opened fire on police attempting to serve a warrant at a home in eastern Kentucky on Thursday night, authorities said. Several officers were shot at the scene in Floyd County. Police took 49-year-old Lance Storz into custody late Thursday night,...
Chip shortage leaves 95K GM vehicles incomplete in storage
DETROIT — The global shortage of computer chips forced General Motors to build 95,000 vehicles without certain components during the second quarter. The Detroit automaker said in a regulatory filing Friday that most of the incomplete vehicles were built in June, and that it expects most of them to be...
Couples wed as Swiss same-sex marriage law takes effect
GENEVA — Lesbian and gay couples in Switzerland rejoiced as they legally tied the knot Friday when the rich Alpine nation formally joined many other western European countries in allowing same-sex marriage, with some saying better late than never. The first same-sex marriages came about nine months after 64.1% of...
Hong Kong in limbo 25 years after British handover to China
HONG KONG — When the British handed Hong Kong to Beijing in 1997, it was promised 50 years of self-government and freedoms of assembly, speech and press that are not allowed on the Communist-ruled Chinese mainland. As the city of 7.4 million people marks 25 years under Beijing’s rule on...
Russian missiles kill at least 21 in Ukraine’s Odesa region
KYIV, Ukraine — Russian missile attacks on residential areas killed at least 21 people early Friday near the Ukrainian port of Odesa, authorities reported, a day after the withdrawal of Moscow’s forces from an island in the Black Sea seemed to ease the threat to the city. Video of the...
California sets nation’s toughest plastics reduction rules
SACRAMENTO — Companies selling shampoo, food and other products wrapped in plastic have a decade to cut down on their use of the polluting material if they want their wares on California store shelves. Major legislation passed and signed Thursday by Gov. Gavin Newsom aims to significantly reduce single-use plastic...
U.S. official: Migrants who died in Texas cleared inland checkpoint
SAN ANTONIO — The tractor-trailer at the center of a human-smuggling attempt that left 53 people dead had passed through an inland U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint with migrants inside the sweltering rig earlier in its journey, a U.S. official said Thursday. The truck went through the checkpoint on Interstate 35...
Texas woman accused in cyclist death arrested in Costa RicaVideo
A Texas woman suspected in the fatal shooting of professional cyclist Anna Moriah Wilson at an Austin home has been arrested in Costa Rica, the U.S. Marshals Service said Thursday. Kaitlin Marie Armstrong, 34, was arrested Wednesday at a hostel on Santa Teresa Beach in Provincia de Puntarenas, the Marshals...
Woman fatally shot while pushing stroller on Upper East SideVideo
NEW YORK — A 20-year-old woman was fatally shot Wednesday night while she pushed her infant daughter in a stroller on the Upper East Side in New York, police said. The woman was near the intersection of Lexington Avenue and 95th Street around 8:30 p.m. when she was shot, police...
Treasury blocks $1 billion trust owned by Russian oligarch
WASHINGTON — The Treasury Department said Thursday it has blocked a $1 billion Delaware-based trust connected to sanctioned Russian oligarch Suleiman Abusaidovich Kerimov. The move comes after the U.S. seized a $325 million superyacht — the 348-foot-long Amadea — tied to Kerimov earlier this month. The size of the trust...
Ex-Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder takes the 5th at Flint water trial
DETROIT — Former Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder invoked his right against self-incrimination Thursday and declined to answer questions at a civil trial arising from lead contamination in Flint’s water in 2014-15. Snyder was called as a witness in federal court in Ann Arbor, two days after the Michigan Supreme Court...
Some medical debt is being removed from U.S. credit reports
Help is coming for many people with medical debt on their credit reports. Starting Friday, the three major U.S. credit reporting companies will stop counting paid medical debt on the reports that banks, potential landlords and others use to judge creditworthiness. The companies also will start giving people a year...
Justice Department to probe work of NYPD sex crimes unit
NEW YORK — The U.S. Justice Department is investigating the New York Police Department’s treatment of sex crime victims after concluding there is “significant justification” to do so and after receiving reports of deficiencies for more than a decade, prosecutors said Thursday. Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general for the Justice...
Justices to hear GOP appeal that could limit state courts over redistricting, elections
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to hear an appeal from North Carolina Republicans that could drastically limit state court authority over congressional redistricting, as well as elections for Congress and the presidency. The justices will consider whether state courts, finding violations of their state constitutions, can order...
Jackson sworn in, becomes 1st Black woman on Supreme Court
WASHINGTON —Ketanji Brown Jackson has been sworn in to the Supreme Court, shattering a glass ceiling as the first Black woman on the nation’s highest court. The 51-year-old Jackson is the court’s 116th justice and she took the place Thursday of the justice she once worked for. Justice Stephen Breyer’s...
Supreme Court limits EPA in curbing power plant emissions
In a blow to the fight against climate change, the Supreme Court on Thursday limited how the nation’s main anti-air pollution law can be used to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. By a 6-3 vote, with conservatives in the majority, the court said that the Clean Air Act...
Supreme Court: Biden properly ended Trump-era asylum policy
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that the Biden administration properly ended a Trump-era policy forcing some U.S. asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico. The justices’ 5-4 decision for the administration came in a case about the “Remain in Mexico” policy under President Donald Trump. Chief Justice John Roberts...
