U.S./World category, Page 683
Hubble telescope’s bigger, more powerful successor to soar
The Hubble Space Telescope’s successor is a time-traveling wonder capable of peering back to within a hair’s breadth of the dawn of the universe. And it’s finally on the brink of flight. It will be the biggest and most powerful astronomical observatory ever to leave the planet, elaborate in its...
W.Va. judge temporarily blocks charter schools’ implementation
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A judge on Monday temporarily blocked public charter schools from being implemented in West Virginia. Kanawha County Circuit Judge Jennifer Bailey granted a preliminary injunction sought by parents in a lawsuit filed against Gov. Jim Justice and leaders of the House of Delegates and state Senate, news...
Biden boosts fuel-economy standards to fight climate change
WASHINGTON — In a major step to fight climate change, the Biden administration is raising vehicle mileage standards to significantly reduce emissions of planet-warming greenhouse gases. A final rule being issued Monday would raise mileage standards starting in the 2023 model year, reaching a projected industry-wide target of 40 miles...
Trump sues N.Y. attorney general, seeking to end civil probeVideo
NEW YORK — Former President Donald Trump sued New York Attorney General Letitia James on Monday, resorting to a familiar but seldom successful strategy as he seeks to end a yearslong civil investigation into his business practices that he alleges is purely political. In the lawsuit, filed in federal court...
Inflation squeezes holiday budgets for low-income shoppers
NEW YORK — Emarilis Velazquez is paying higher prices on everything from food to clothing. Her monthly grocery bill has ballooned from $650 to almost $850 in recent months. To save money, she looks for less expensive cuts of meat and has switched to a cheaper detergent. She also clips...
Pope says parents should never slap their kids
ROME — Pope Francis has denounced domestic violence against woman as “nearly satanic” and said parents should never slap their children. Francis made the comments in a televised encounter with an abused woman who recently fled her home with her four children. Their meeting was broadcast late Sunday on the...
Japanese space tourists safely return to Earth
MOSCOW — A Japanese billionaire, his producer and a Russian cosmonaut safely returned to Earth on Monday after spending 12 days on the International Space Station. Fashion tycoon Yusaku Maezawa, his producer Yozo Hirano and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin made a soft landing in a Russian Soyuz capsule in the...
Fauci says omicron variant is `just raging around the world’
WILMINGTON, Del. — The covid-19 omicron variant is “just raging around the world,” the White House’s top medical adviser said Sunday, and President Joe Biden is planning to give “a stark warning of what the winter will look like” for unvaccinated Americans. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s leading infectious disease...
Johnny Isakson, former Georgia Republican U.S. senator, dies
ATLANTA — Johnny Isakson, an affable Georgia Republican politician who rose from the ranks of the state Legislature to become a U.S. senator known as an effective, behind-the-scenes consensus builder, died Sunday. He was 76. Isakson’s son John Isakson told The Associated Press his father died in his sleep before...
Sen. Joe Manchin says no to $2T bill: ‘I can’t vote for it’
WASHINGTON — Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin said Sunday he cannot back his party’s signature $2 trillion social and environment bill, dealing a potentially fatal blow to President Joe Biden’s leading domestic initiative heading into an election year when Democrats’ narrow hold on Congress was already in peril. Manchin told “Fox...
Fire damages QVC distribution center in North Carolina
ROCKY MOUNT, N.C. — A fire ripped through a distribution center in North Carolina for the QVC home-shopping television network early Saturday, causing extensive damage to the facility, officials said. More than 300 employees were working at the facility near Rocky Mount when the fire was reported shortly after 2...
Governor: No one still missing in Kentucky after tornadoes
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — All of the people reported missing in Kentucky after tornadoes swept through the state last weekend have been accounted for, Gov. Andy Beshear said Saturday. Beshear hailed the report by state emergency management officials and said he hoped it meant that no additional people in Kentucky would...
Gas explosion in sewer kills 12 in Pakistan’s largest city
KARACHI, Pakistan — A powerful gas explosion in a sewage system in Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi, killed at least 12 people and injured 11 others Saturday, police and a health official said. Police spokesman Sohail Jokhio said the blast was apparently caused when something ignited gas that had accumulated in...
Biden marks anniversary of 1972 car crash that killed wife
GREENVILLE, Del. — President Joe Biden on Saturday commemorated the 49th anniversary of the car crash that killed his first wife and infant daughter, visiting their graves at the Saint Joseph on the Brandywine Roman Catholic Church. Their deaths occurred just after Delaware voters elected Biden to the Senate in...
Ransomware persists even as high-profile attacks have slowed
In the months since President Joe Biden warned Russia’s Vladimir Putin that he needed to crack down on ransomware gangs in his country, there hasn’t been a massive attack like the one last May that resulted in gasoline shortages. But that’s small comfort to Ken Trzaska. Trzaska is president of...
GOP Oklahoma House leader, wife accused of multiple felonies
OKLAHOMA CITY — An Oklahoma County grand jury indicted a top Republican House leader on multiple felony counts, alleging he misused his power to change state law so his wife could become a tag agent. House Speaker Pro Tempore Terry O’Donnell, the second-highest ranking member in the House, was charged...
Ghislaine Maxwell declines to testify as defense rests case
NEW YORK — After 12 days of testimony over three weeks, jurors heard from the final witnesses Friday in the sex trafficking trial of British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, who told the judge she wouldn’t testify because she was confident prosecutors hadn’t proved their case. Closing arguments are now set for...
California governor boosts efforts to combat smash-and-grabs
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Stung by recent headline-grabbing smash-and-grab robberies, California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday said he will seek more than $300 million in state funding over three years to boost law enforcement efforts to combat retail theft. “The issue of crime and violence is top of mind all throughout...
Amazon driver texts reveal chaos as Illinois tornado bore down
The messages between an Amazon delivery driver and her boss began about 80 minutes before a tornado struck one of the company’s warehouses in Edwardsville, Ill., on Dec. 10, killing six workers. The dramatic exchange cast in sharp relief the chaos that can ensue when disaster hits and disagreements erupt...
Typhoon leaves 12 dead, traps people on roofs in Philippines
MANILA, Philippines — A powerful typhoon that battered the central Philippines left at least 12 people dead in massive floods that trapped residents on roofs and damaged buildings including a hotel and an airport, officials said. Typhoon Rai slightly weakened after slamming ashore Thursday on the country’s southeastern coast but...
‘Doomsday glacier’: Giant Antarctica ice mass could collapse within 3 to 5 years
The rapid deterioration of Thwaites Glacier, the widest glacier on Earth, and one of Antarctica’s largest could result in the ice shelf’s total collapse within a few years, contributing to rising sea levels, researchers have warned. According to a report by Live Science, the warning came during a virtual press...
Suspected arson in downtown Osaka building leaves 24 dead
OSAKA, Japan — A fire that spread from a fourth-floor mental clinic in an eight-story building in downtown Osaka in western Japan on Friday left 24 dead in what police were investigating as a possible case of arson and murder. Police were searching for a man in his 50s to...
Officials: 22 die in Istanbul from bootleg alcohol poisoning
ANKARA, Turkey — At least 22 people have died in Istanbul and 16 others have been hospitalized and are in serious condition after drinking bootleg alcohol, the local governor’s office said Friday, as authorities intensified a crackdown on counterfeit drinks across Turkey ahead of New Year’s celebrations. Eleven of the...
Judge rejects Purdue Pharma’s sweeping opioid settlement
A federal judge rejected OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma’s bankruptcy settlement of thousands of lawsuits over the opioid epidemic Thursday because of a provision that would protect members of the Sackler family from facing litigation of their own. U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon in New York found that federal bankruptcy law...
House subpoenas Mark Meadows contact who pushed false fraud claim
WASHINGTON — The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection is subpoenaing James P. “Phil” Waldron, a onetime contact of former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows who the panel says pushed false claims about fraud in the 2020 presidential election. The Democratic chairman of the committee, Mississippi...
