Meat-free school meals spark furor in France
LE PECQ, France — By taking meat off the menu at school canteens, the ecologist mayor of one of France’s most famously gastronomic cities has kicked up a storm of protest and debate as the country increasingly questions the environmental costs of its meaty dietary habits. Children in Lyon who...
Golden lion steps down after decades at Anchorage hotel
The golden lion that stood watch in at the Alaska hotel named after it has finally been retired after the building changed hands. The nearly 50-year-old stuffed lion was moved from its home at the Best Western Golden Lion Hotel in Midtown Anchorage last week, the Anchorage Daily News reported...
Ahmaud Arbery memorialized in Georgia a year after slaying
SAVANNAH, Ga. — When white men armed with guns pursued and killed Ahmaud Arbery as he ran through their neighborhood, few outside the Georgia port city of Brunswick paid much attention at first. A year later, as three men await trial in the Feb. 23, 2020 slaying, those closest to...
Judge says wife of drug kingpin ‘El Chapo’ to stay in jail
WASHINGTON — A federal judge has ordered the wife of Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman to remain temporarily jailed after she was arrested and accused of helping her husband run his multibillion-dollar cartel and plotting his audacious escape from a Mexican prison in 2015. Emma Coronel Aispuro, a...
Biden to visit storm-ravaged Texas on Friday
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden will visit Texas on Friday as the state begins its recovery from a devastating winter storm that caused serious damage to homes and businesses across the state and left many without power or clean water for days. The White House announced Tuesday that Biden and...
Pa. reports nearly 1.5 million at least partially vaccinated for covid
Pennsylvania reported 2,830 additional covid cases and 97 deaths Tuesday, according to the state Department of Health. Total cases in the state are now 917,848, with 74,624 cases reported in February. Total deaths in the state are now 23,711, with 2,050 deaths reported this month. As of Tuesday, the state...
Senate confirms Biden’s choice for UN ambassador
WASHINGTON — The Senate confirmed President Joe Biden’s choice to lead U.S. diplomacy at the United Nations on Tuesday. The vote for Linda Thomas-Greenfield reflected a divide between the Biden administration’s determination to re-engage with the world body and former President Donald Trump’s diplomacy that often left the U.S. isolated...
Drug executives: Big jump in vaccine supply is coming soon
Covid-19 vaccine makers told Congress on Tuesday to expect a big jump in the delivery of doses over the coming month after a rocky start to inoculations, and the companies insist they will be able to provide enough for most Americans by summer. By the end of March, Pfizer and...
Coronavirus forces Biden to forgo pomp for U.S.-Canada meeting
The coronavirus pandemic is forcing President Joe Biden to alter another first for his administration: the typically formal White House meeting with a foreign counterpart. Biden will play host to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Tuesday for the first bilateral meeting of his presidency, but he will do it...
Pennsylvania GOP sets meeting to discuss Toomey censure
HARRISBURG — Republican Party committee members in Pennsylvania expect to meet Wednesday night to decide whether to censure U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey amid a GOP backlash over his vote to convict Donald Trump during the former president’s second impeachment trial, members said. The state party chairman, Lawrence Tabas, emailed committee...
Extremism in military a top concern for key defense lawmaker
Mandatory Pentagon reports will give U.S. congressional overseers more insight into the threat and prevalence of extremism in the military after the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said. Sen. Jack Reed, the Rhode Island Democrat who leads the high-profile panel, said he’s...
Merrick Garland says Capitol siege probe will be top priorityVideo
WASHINGTON — Merrick Garland appeared headed to easy confirmation as attorney general after a hearing Monday during which the soft-spoken federal appellate judge won praise from senators of both parties as he promised to aggressively investigate the U.S. Capitol attack, boost enforcement of civil rights laws and enact other major...
Texas AG Ken Paxton was in Utah after historic freeze back home
AUSTIN, Texas — As Texas was reeling from last week’s historic freeze, the state’s attorney general was in Utah for previously scheduled meetings, a spokesman said Monday. Republican Ken Paxton’s trip was not previously known publicly, and he made no mention of being out of state while lashing out at...
Colorado city probe faults overall police treatment of Elijah McClain
DENVER — The results of an investigation into the fatal arrest of Elijah McClain in suburban Denver released Monday criticizes how police handled the entire incident, faulting officers for their quick, aggressive treatment of the 23-year-old Black man and the department for having a weak accountability system that failed to...
Wife of drug kingpin ‘El Chapo’ arrested on U.S. drug charges
WASHINGTON — The wife of Mexican drug kingpin “El Chapo” Guzman was arrested on Monday at an airport in Virginia on international drug trafficking charges, the Justice Department said. Emma Coronel Aispuro, 31, who is a dual citizen of the U.S. and Mexico, was arrested at Dulles International Airport and...
In Rush Limbaugh’s home state, a flap over lowering flagsVideo
TALLAHASSEE — In life, the conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh was a divisive figure, who proudly waved the flag of conservatism and wallowed in the controversies he helped ignite. In death, those controversies follow him as partisans in his home state of Florida debate over whether to lower flags in...
Ohio governor: Up to 30% of fans for spring pro teams
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio’s major league sports teams beginning their seasons this spring could be allowed up to 30% of fan capacity under approved pandemic plans, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said Monday. Permitting 30% of fans into stadiums would be contingent on social distancing and continued mask wearing, the governor...
U.S. tops 500,000 coronavirus deaths, matching the toll of 3 warsVideo
The covid-19 death toll in the U.S. topped 500,000 Monday, a staggering number that all but matches the number of Americans killed in World War II, Korea and Vietnam combined. The lives lost, as recorded by Johns Hopkins University, are about equal to the population of Kansas City, Mo., and...
U.N. experts: Erik Prince, UAE firms violated Libya sanctions
UNITED NATIONS — American security contractor Erik Prince, a close ally of former U.S. President Donald Trump, violated the U.N. arms embargo against Libya along with three United Arab Emirates-based companies and their top managers during an operation to help a rebel military commander take the capital Tripoli, U.N. experts...
After long wait, New Jersey moves ahead on recreational potVideo
TRENTON, N.J. — A recreational marijuana marketplace, cannabis decriminalization and looser penalties for underage possession of the drug and alcohol became law Monday in New Jersey, more than three months after voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot question to legalize adult use of the drug. Acknowledging that the legislation took much...
Big factor in covid votes: Would Democrats sink first Biden goal?
WASHINGTON — Democratic leaders have a potent dynamic on their side as Congress preps for its first votes on the party’s $1.9 trillion covid-19 relief bill: Would any Democrat dare cast the vote that scuttles new President Joe Biden’s leadoff initiative? Democrats’ wafer-thin 10-vote House majority leaves little room for...
Dominion Voting Systems sues ‘MyPillow Guy’ for $1.3 billionVideo
MINNEAPOLIS — Dominion Voting Systems filed a $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit Monday against the founder and CEO of Minnesota-based MyPillow, saying that Mike Lindell falsely accused the company of rigging the 2020 presidential election. The lawsuit filed in federal court in the District of Columbia alleges that Lindell ignored repeated...
Police say N.Y. man killed by exploding gender reveal device
LIBERTY, N.Y. — An expectant father was killed when a device he was building for a gender reveal party exploded, police in New York said Monday. Christopher Pekny, 28, was assembling a device for his child’s gender reveal party in the Catskills town of Liberty when it exploded just before...
We might need to keep wearing masks into 2022 to defeat covidVideo
Despite a sharp decline in coronavirus cases and continued success with covid-19 vaccines, it’s looking likely we will still be wearing masks for some time to come. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s coronavirus czar, said it’s possible masks could be needed until 2022. “I want it to keep going down...
2 giraffes in Kenya park electrocuted by power linesVideo
NAIROBI, Kenya — Kenya’s wildlife agency says two giraffes were electrocuted Sunday when they walked into low-lying electric power transmission lines that pass through the Soysambu Conservancy in western Kenya. Trizer Mwakinya, head of communications at the Kenya Wildlife Service, said Monday that workers from the Kenya Power and Lighting...
