U.S./World category, Page 964
Drug remdesivir being shipped to six states to help combat coronavirus
WASHINGTON — The federal government is sending supplies of the first drug that appears to help speed the recovery of some covid-19 patients to six states, where it will be distributed by health departments. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced Saturday that it is delivering 140 cases...
Belarus holds Victory Day parade, disregarding coronavirus concerns
MINSK, Belarus — The eastern European nation of Belarus held a full-fledged military parade Saturday to mark Victory Day, shrugging off safety concerns during the coronavirus pandemic that led Russia to curtail its own long-planned 75th anniversary observances. Tens of thousands of spectators lined the parade route as some 3,000...
Little Richard, flamboyant rock ‘n’ roll pioneer, dead at 87
NASHVILLE — Little Richard, the self-proclaimed “architect of rock ‘n’ roll” whose piercing wail, pounding piano and towering pompadour irrevocably altered popular music while introducing black R&B to white America, has died Saturday. He was 87. Pastor Bill Minson, a close friend of Little Richard’s, told The Associated Press that...
Lawns are the new wedding venue in the age of coronavirus
NEW YORK — Love in the age of coronavirus sometimes requires a lawn. Couples with dashed wedding plans due to lockdown restrictions have been tying the knot on those tidy green spreads instead, including at least one loaner. Danielle Cartaxo and Ryan Cignarella were supposed to get married in West...
Court halts ban on mass gatherings at Kentucky churches
FRANKFORT, Ky. — A federal court halted the Kentucky governor’s temporary ban on mass gatherings from applying to in-person religious services, clearing the way for Sunday church services. U.S. District Judge Gregory F. Van Tatenhove on Friday issued a temporary restraining order enjoining Gov. Andy Beshear’s administration from enforcing the...
‘It’s gone haywire’: When COVID-19 arrived in rural America
DAWSON, Ga. — The reverend approached the makeshift pulpit and asked the Lord to help him make some sense of the scene before him: two caskets, side by side, in a small-town cemetery busier now than ever before. Rev. Willard O. Weston had already eulogized other neighbors lost to COVID-19,...
Serbia protests EU description of Tesla as famous Croat
BELGRADE, Serbia — Serbia has protested to the European Union after one of its publications described inventor and electricity pioneer Nikola Tesla as a Croat. Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic said on Saturday he has sent the protest note to Brussels after the EU’s Learning Corner site for children described Tesla...
Georgia man’s death raises echoes of US racial terror legacy
BRUNSWICK, Ga. — Many people saw more than the last moments of Ahmaud Arbery’s life when a video emerged this week of white men armed with guns confronting the black man, a struggle with punches thrown, three shots fired and Arbery collapsing dead. The Feb. 23 shooting in coastal Georgia...
Vanessa Bryant files claim against LA County sheriff over Kobe Bryant crash site photos
LOS ANGELES — Vanessa Bryant has filed a claim against the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department over deputies sharing “unauthorized” photos of the scene of the helicopter crash that killed her husband Kobe Bryant, their daughter and seven others. According to the claim filed Friday, Sheriff Alex Villanueva “personally assured...
Bison transfers planned for US park, Indian reservation
BILLINGS, Mont. — Hundreds of wild bison would be transferred from federal lands to a South Dakota American Indian Reservation and a North Dakota national park as a first step in the latest initiative to restore the burly animals to Western U.S. lands that they once roamed by the millions,...
Stuck on cruise ships during pandemic, crews beg to go home
MIAMI — Carolina Vásquez lost track of days and nights, unable to see the sunlight while stuck for two weeks in a windowless cruise ship cabin as a fever took hold of her body. On the worst night of her encounter with COVID-19, the Chilean woman, a line cook on...
White father, son charged with murder in Ahmaud Arbery case
BRUNSWICK, Ga. — The white father and son stood quietly Friday as the judge read murder and aggravated assault charges against them in the fatal shooting of a black man who was running through their Georgia neighborhood. In just a few minutes, their first court appearance was over. It was...
Report: No burglaries were reported in neighborhood where Ahmaud Arbery was killed, contradicting suspects’ claim
An explanation for the Ahmaud Arbery killing became shakier on Friday. The two Georgia men who were caught on video shooting the unarmed jogger to death in February claim they were chasing a suspect behind a series of burglaries in the area. But a local police official said the last...
Roy Horn, dark-haired half of flamboyant illusionists Siegfried & Roy, dies of complications related to coronavirus
Roy Horn, the dark-haired half of Siegfried & Roy, the flamboyant, German-born illusionists whose lavish stage productions and trademark disappearing white tigers and lions made them one of the biggest draws on the Las Vegas Strip, died Friday. He was 75. Horn, who suffered a severe wound to his neck...
SeaWorld develops plans for reopening; no official date set
ORLANDO, Fla. — SeaWorld guests could be sitting in every other row of the stadium to watch orca shows when the parks eventually reopen, the company’s CEO said Friday. Interim CEO Marc Swanson gave an update Friday on a coronavirus safety plan under development, but no official reopening dates have...
IRS sets Wednesday deadline for direct deposit stimulus payments
WASHINGTON — The IRS said it will accept bank account information until noon Wednesday for people who want to receive stimulus payments by direct deposit. After that, the IRS will send the money by check to the address on file, with those payments expected to arrive in late May and...
New Mexico town near vast US reservation shuts everyone out
GALLUP, N.M. — Like clockwork, payday arrives and tens of thousands of people from the Navajo reservation and other rural stretches along the New Mexico-Arizona border flood into Gallup, a freewheeling desert oasis of just 22,000 that can quickly quadruple in size with all the visitors. Not now. As the...
Mike Pence says lack of religious services has been ‘burden’
URBANDALE, Iowa — Vice President Mike Pence spoke Friday to a group of faith leaders in Iowa about the importance of resuming religious services, saying the cancellations in the name of slowing the spread of the coronavirus have “been a burden” for congregants. Pence spoke with the religious leaders and...
Nearly 1 in 5 U.S. kids are obese, according to latest data
NEW YORK — Nearly 1 in 5 U.S. children are obese, according to the latest national data. The news is disappointing, given that programs across the country have for years been trying to reduce childhood obesity, one expert said. “We really were expecting and hoping to see the trends decrease,”...
Crossings rise on US northern border; many are Mexicans
SWANTON, Vt. — The number of people apprehended for illegally crossing from Canada into the United States along its northern border has nearly tripled over the past three years, and a growing portion are Mexican citizens, according to federal data. One Mexican man who crossed illegally to work on a...
Lawyers: Investigators recommend that whistleblower at HHS be reinstated
WASHINGTON — Federal investigators have found “reasonable grounds” that a government whistleblower was punished for opposing widespread use of an unproven drug that President Donald Trump touted as a remedy for covid-19, his lawyers said Friday. Dr. Rick Bright headed the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority. He had received...
Judge denies bid to dismiss charges against Lori Loughlin
A federal judge refused Friday to dismiss charges against actress Lori Loughlin; her fashion designer husband, Mossimo Giannulli; and other prominent parents accused of cheating the college admissions process, siding with prosecutors who denied that investigators had fabricated evidence. U.S. District Judge Nathaniel Gorton rejected a bid by the defense...
Jetliner hits and kills man on Texas airport runway
AUSTIN, Texas — A man was struck and killed by a commercial jet landing on a runaway at an Austin, Texas, airport, authorities said. The pilot of Southwest Airlines Flight 1392, a Boeing 737 arriving from Dallas, reported seeing a person on Runway 17R at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport shortly after...
Space agency: Human urine could help make concrete on moon
BERLIN — The European Space Agency said Friday that human urine could one day become a useful ingredient in making concrete to build on the moon. The agency said researchers in a recent study it sponsored found that urea, the main organic compound in urine, would make the mixture for...
President Donald Trump says in his mother’s eyes, he ‘could do no wrong’
WASHINGTON — Reflecting on Mother’s Day this weekend, President Donald Trump said Friday that he could do no wrong in his mother’s eyes and perhaps that’s what framed his personality today. “I had a great mom. I loved my mom and she loved me, which … is probably not easy...
