U.S./World category, Page 876
Social media CEOs get earful on bias, warning of new limits
WASHINGTON — With next week’s election looming, the CEOs of Twitter, Facebook and Google received a hectoring from Republicans at a Senate hearing Wednesday for alleged anti-conservative bias in the companies’ social media platforms — and were warned of coming restrictions from Congress. Lawmakers of both parties, citing the companies’...
60 charged in $300M phone scam targeting elderly victims
MINNEAPOLIS — Sixty people have been charged in a widespread magazine telemarketing scam that authorities say netted $300 million from more than 150,000 elderly and vulnerable people nationwide, the U.S. attorney’s office in Minnesota announced Wednesday. U.S. Attorney Erica MacDonald called the scam the largest elder fraud scheme in the...
Justice Department charges 8 in Chinese harassment plot in U.S.Video
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department has charged eight people with working on behalf of the Chinese government in a pressure campaign aimed at coercing a New Jersey man who was wanted by Beijing to return to China to face charges, officials said Wednesday. The defendants participated in a Chinese government...
Police: 7 taken to hospitals after Trump Omaha airport rally
OMAHA, Neb. — At least seven people were taken to hospitals after an Omaha airport rally for President Donald Trump that drew thousands, many of whom were left stranded miles from their parked cars in freezing weather. Omaha police said in a written statement that first responders dealt with 30...
Germany, France look to more limits to curb rebounding virus
BERLIN — French President Emmanuel Macron has announced a second lockdown in France from Friday, to try to combat a strong resurgence of the coronavirus. With over 520 deaths recorded Tuesday, the French leader said that a new nationwide lockdown would be the only possible way to successfully fight covid-19....
Breonna Taylor grand jurors: Louisville officers deserved more chargesVideo
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A Kentucky man who served on the Breonna Taylor grand jury said he felt police actions on the night of her death were “criminal” but grand jurors were not given the chance to explore charges related to her shooting death by officers. Two grand jurors, one a...
German officials agree on partial lockdown to curb virus
BERLIN — Chancellor Angela Merkel says German officials have agreed to a four-week shutdown of restaurants, bars, cinemas, theaters and other leisure facilities in a bid to curb a sharp rise in coronavirus infections. Merkel and the country’s 16 state governors, who are responsible for imposing and easing restrictions, agreed...
All about Section 230, a rule that made the modern internet
OAKLAND, Calif. — Twenty-six words tucked into a 1996 law overhauling telecommunications have allowed companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google to grow into the giants they are today. Those are the words President Donald Trump’s administration has challenged directly via executive order, one that would strip those protections if online...
QAnon’s ‘Save the Children’ morphs into popular slogan
MORRIS, Ill. — At a busy intersection in this small Illinois town, Lynn Vermillion smiles at passing drivers who honk their support for the colorful posters she and friends wave: “Save Our Children. Save their Children. Save ALL the Children.” As the U.S. presidential campaign heated up in recent months,...
2 conservative hoaxers charged in Ohio for robocalls
CLEVELAND — Two conservative operatives facing criminal charges in Michigan were indicted in Cleveland on Tuesday for organizing tens of thousands of hoax robocalls — made to predominantly Black Midwestern cities — that falsely warned people information gleaned from their mail-in ballots could lead to their arrest or forced vaccinations....
Judge stops Election Day gun ban near Michigan polling sites
DETROIT — A judge on Tuesday blocked a ban on the open display of guns near Michigan polling places on Election Day, agreeing with critics who said a Democratic secretary of state failed to follow state law with her sudden order. Gun-rights groups accused Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson of...
Medicare finalizing coverage policy for coronavirus vaccine
WASHINGTON — Medicare will cover the yet-to-be approved coronavirus vaccine free for older people under a policy change expected to be announced shortly, a senior Trump administration official said Tuesday. The coming announcement from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services aims to align the time-consuming process for securing Medicare...
Still hampered by coronavirus, U.S. casinos want recovery aid
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — The U.S. casino industry is seeking tax and regulatory relief from the government as it tries to recover from the coronavirus outbreak, which cost states more than $2 billion in lost tax revenue while casinos were shut down for four months this year. While 90% of...
NXIVM guru gets 120 years in prison in sex-slaves case
NEW YORK — Disgraced self-improvement guru Keith Raniere, whose NXIVM followers included millionaires and Hollywood actors, was sentenced to 120 years on Tuesday for turning some adherents into sex slaves branded with his initials and sexually abusing a 15-year-old. U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis called Raniere “ruthless and unyielding” in...
Texas National Guard to send up to 1,000 troops to major cities for support after electionVideo
DALLAS — The Texas National Guard plans to send up to 1,000 troops to five cities to support local law enforcement and the Texas Department of Public Safety after the Nov. 3 election, the San Antonio Express-News reported. The troops could be sent as early as this weekend, the outlet...
Wife trapped in back of husband’s Miami cop car died of accidental heat stroke, autopsy says
The woman who got trapped in the back of her husband’s Miami Police SUV died of heat stroke, the county medical examiner’s office investigation has ruled. Clara Paulino’s death was also deemed an accident. The 56-year-old woman died on the afternoon of Aug. 21 after she climbed into the back...
4 dead, 15 rescued in English Channel migrant boat sinking
At least four people, including two young children, died Tuesday when a boat carrying at least 19 migrants capsized off France while trying to cross the English Channel to Britain, French authorities said. Fifteen migrants have been saved so far and rescue and search operations were still under way, according...
At least 11 shot dead ahead of Tanzania’s presidential vote
ZANZIBAR, Tanzania — Police in Tanzania shot dead at least nine citizens amid unrest over alleged fraud ahead of the presidential election, a major opposition party asserted Tuesday, while officials denied it and one of Africa’s most populous countries watched internet service slow to a crawl ahead of Wednesday’s vote....
‘We’re working on it:’ Pope’s covid advisers and the mask
ROME — Pope Francis’ decision to forgo wearing a mask has been noticed, with some concern, by the commission of Vatican experts he appointed to help chart the Catholic Church’s path through the coronavirus pandemic and the aftermath. The Rev. Augusto Zampini, one of the key members of the pope’s...
Trump trade policy: 4 years of high drama, limited results
President Donald Trump spent four years upending seven decades of American trade policy. In what became his defining economic act, Trump launched a trade war with China. On another front, he taxed the steel and aluminum of U.S. allies. And he terrified America’s own corporations by threatening to wreck $1.4...
Judge: U.S. can’t replace Trump in accuser’s defamation suit
NEW YORK — A federal judge on Tuesday denied President Donald Trump’s request that the United States replace him as the defendant in a defamation lawsuit alleging he raped a woman in a Manhattan department store in the 1990s. The decision by U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan came after...
Bomb at seminary in Pakistan kills 8 students, wounds 136
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — A powerful bomb blast ripped through an Islamic seminary on the outskirts of the northwest Pakistani city of Peshawar on Tuesday morning, killing at least eight students and wounding 136 others, police and a hospital spokesman said. The bombing happened as a prominent religious scholar during a...
Gulf Coast braces, again, for hurricane as Zeta takes aimVideo
NEW ORLEANS — Residents of the storm-pummeled Gulf Coast steeled themselves for yet another tropical weather strike Tuesday as Tropical Storm Zeta took aim at southeast Louisiana, fraying the nerves of evacuees from earlier storms and raising concerns in New Orleans about the low-lying city’s antiquated drainage pump system. Zeta,...
Hong Kong arrests 3 activists under national security law
HONG KONG — Three members of a former student group advocating independence for Hong Kong were arrested Tuesday under the city’s new national security law on suspicion of publishing content inciting secession on social media platforms. The three include former Studentlocalism leader Tony Chung and former members William Chan and...
100,000 in Southern California to evacuate as blaze growsVideo
LOS ANGELES — Fast-moving wildfires forced evacuation orders for more than 100,000 people and seriously injured two firefighters in Southern California on Monday as powerful wind across the state prompted power to be cut to hundreds of thousands to prevent utility equipment from sparking new blazes. A smoky fire exploded...
