U.S./World category, Page 753
U.S. jobless claims fall to 364,000, a new pandemic low
WASHINGTON — The number of Americans applying for unemployment aid fell again last week to the lowest level since the pandemic struck last year, further evidence that the job market and the broader economy are rebounding rapidly from the coronavirus recession. The Labor Department reported Thursday that jobless claims dropped...
Monument unveiled to activist, journalist Ida B. Wells
CHICAGO — A monument to journalist and civil rights activist Ida B. Wells-Barnett was unveiled Wednesday in Chicago. Officially called The Light of Truth Ida B. Wells National Monument, the commemoration created by sculptor Richard Hunt was dedicated in the South Side neighborhood where Wells lived out her life. The...
Israel welcomes German leader as ally against antisemitism
JERUSALEM — Israel’s president warmly welcomed his German counterpart on Thursday, praising him as an ally in combatting antisemitism. German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier is set to meet with Israel’s new Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, and is expected to reiterate Germany’s strong support for Israel. Israeli President Reuven Rivlin said that...
Registered sex workers in Germany drop sharply in pandemic
BERLIN — The number of people registered as sex workers with German authorities declined sharply last year as coronavirus restrictions shut brothels for months, official data showed Thursday. Legislation in 2002 legalized and regulated prostitution in Germany, giving sex workers social benefits, and they are now obliged to register. But...
GOP congressman flouts mask rules on airline flight to Texas
WASHINGTON — A Texas congressman who has been an outspoken critic of covid-19 mask mandates went without a mask for at least a portion of a commercial airline flight Tuesday evening, an apparent violation of federal law. Republican Rep. Chip Roy flew from Washington back to his home district in...
GOP embraces Trump during visit to Texas, border wall
PHARR, Texas — Republican lawmakers traveled to Texas to cheer former President Donald Trump as he paid a visit to the southern border Wednesday and hammered the Biden administration for its immigration policies amid a decades-high spike in border crossings. Trump, who was joined by more than two dozen House...
Lawsuit: St. Louis officers killed innocent man in ‘no knock’ raid
A lawsuit filed Wednesday accuses a St. Louis police SWAT team of killing an innocent man during a “no knock” raid at his home four years ago. The civil rights law firm ArchCity Defenders filed the federal lawsuit on behalf of the children of Don Clark Sr. It names the...
Wyoming man accused of torching toddler has bail set at $1M
CHEYENNE, Wyo. — A Wyoming man accused of burning a toddler with a butane torch, killing him and disposing of his body in an apartment complex dumpster in February has had his bail set at $1 million. The bail was set for Wyatt Dean Lamb, the boyfriend of the boy’s...
Revised vote count shows Adams ahead in New York City mayoral primary
NEW YORK — Revised vote counts in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary show Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams maintaining a thin lead, a day after a first attempt to report the results of a ranked choice voting analysis went disastrously wrong. The mayor’s race, part of the first city...
Over 100 deaths may be tied to historic Northwest heat wave
SALEM, Ore. — The grim toll of the historic heat wave in the Pacific Northwest became more apparent as authorities in Canada, Washington state and Oregon said Wednesday that they were investigating more than 100 deaths likely caused by scorching temperatures that shattered all-time records. Oregon health officials said more...
6 more bodies pulled from tower rubble in highest daily toll; confirmed dead reaches 18
SURFSIDE, Fla. — Search crews going through the ruins of a Florida condo tower pulled six more bodies from the rubble Wednesday, bringing the number of confirmed dead to 18. It was the highest one-day toll since the building collapsed almost a week ago into a heap of broken concrete....
AP, others win records lawsuit against Wisconsin legislators
MADISON, Wis. — The Associated Press and three other Wisconsin media outlets won a lawsuit Wednesday seeking records related to sexual harassment allegations against a former legislator. The AP, the Wisconsin State Journal, The Capital Times and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel sued in March 2020 after then-Assembly Chief Clerk Pat...
Atlanta mayor: 2 officers ambushed, 1 wounded in shooting
ATLANTA — Two police officers responding to reports of gunfire in one of Atlanta’s busiest commercial districts were ambushed Wednesday, leaving one of them shot and wounded, the city’s mayor said. A bystander reported hearing a barrage of shots and said he later saw an officer, bleeding badly and, being...
2nd Oath Keeper pleads guilty to conspiracy in Jan. 6 riot
An Alabama man who stormed the U.S. Capitol with other members of the Oath Keepers extremist group pleaded guilty Wednesday to conspiracy and is cooperating with prosecutors in another major boost for the Justice Department in its sweeping Jan. 6 investigation. Mark Grods, 54, is the second member of the...
Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld dies at 88
WASHINGTON — Donald Rumsfeld, the two-time defense secretary and one-time presidential candidate whose reputation as a skilled bureaucrat and visionary of a modern U.S. military was unraveled by the long and costly Iraq war, died Tuesday. He was 88. In a statement Wednesday, Rumsfeld’s family said he “was surrounded by...
Actor Allison Mack gets 3 years in NXIVM sex-slave case
TV actor Allison Mack, who played a key role in the scandal-ridden, cult-like group NXIVM, was sentenced to three years in prison Wednesday on charges she manipulated women into becoming sex slaves for the group’s spiritual leader. Mack — best known for her role as a young Superman’s close friend...
Putin: U.S. aircraft involved in Black Sea incident
MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin said a U.S. reconnaissance aircraft was operating in sync with a British destroyer during last week’s Black Sea incident. Moscow said one of its warships fired warning shots and a warplane dropped bombs in the path of British destroyer Defender on Wednesday to force...
Census Bureau dodges challenge to controversial privacy tool
The U.S. Census Bureau on Tuesday dodged a challenge for now to its use of a controversial statistical method aimed at keeping people’s data private in the numbers used for redrawing congressional and legislative districts after federal judges refused to stop the technique’s implementation. A panel of three federal judges...
‘Our backyard’: Tragedy strikes home for Miami-Dade rescuers as death toll rises to 12
SURFSIDE, Fla. — Search and rescue teams from Miami-Dade are considered among the best and most experienced in the world, dispatched to epic disaster scenes far beyond Florida — from the rubble of the World Trade Center to earthquake-ravaged Haiti, Mexico and the Philippines. This time disaster struck at home....
Confusion surrounds vote count in New York City mayoral primary
NEW YORK — The Democratic primary for mayor of New York City was thrown into a state of confusion Tuesday when election officials abruptly retracted their latest report on the vote count after realizing it had been corrupted by test data never cleared from a computer system. The bungle was...
Condo board boss warned of worsening damage before collapse
Weeks before a Florida condo building collapsed, the president of its board wrote that structural problems identified in a 2018 inspection had “gotten significantly worse” and owners needed to pay a hefty price to get them fixed. The April 9 “Dear Neighbors” letter from Champlain Towers South Condominium President Jean...
Search at collapsed tower goes into 6th day; Biden to visit
SURFSIDE, Fla. — The slow work of sifting through the remnants of a collapsed Florida condo building stretched into a sixth day Tuesday, as families desperate for progress endured a wrenching wait for answers. “We have people waiting and waiting and waiting for news,” Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava told...
France legalizes in vitro fertilization for lesbians, single women
PARIS — France’s lower house of parliament on Tuesday definitively adopted a law that will allow single women and lesbians access to medically assisted reproduction for the first time. The wide-ranging bioethics law, presented by French President Emmanuel Macron’s government, was approved at the National Assembly with 326 votes for...
Federal agency blocks Indiana’s Medicaid work requirements
INDIANAPOLIS — The Biden administration has revoked the federal authorization for Indiana’s planned work requirements for low-income residents who receive their health insurance through Medicaid. Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb sought to implement the work requirements for the Healthy Indiana Plan program in 2019 under approval from the Trump administration. But...
Congressional leaders urge FCC to perform equity audit
Congressional leaders and a media advocacy group are urging the Federal Communications Commission to examine how policy decisions and programs have disparately harmed Black Americans and other communities of color, according to a letter sent Tuesday to the acting FCC chair. In the letter, first shared with the Associated Press,...
