News category, Page 652

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden’s administration on Thursday laid the blame on his predecessor, President Donald Trump, for the deadly and chaotic 2021 withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan that brought about some of the darkest moments of Biden’s presidency. The White House publicly released a 12-page summary of the...

In what could prove a significant move for communities facing air pollution, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed on Thursday that chemical plants nationwide measure certain hazardous compounds that cross beyond their property lines and reduce them when they are too high. The proposed rules would reduce cancer risk and other...

Donald Trump’s lawyer Joe Tacopina may have a conflict of interest because Stormy Daniels shared “confidences” with him about her sexual encounter with the former president, a lawyer for the adult-film star said. Daniels is at the center of a hush-money case against Trump, who pleaded not guilty to 34...

WASHINGTON — House Republicans on Thursday subpoenaed one of the former Manhattan prosecutors who had been leading a criminal investigation into Donald Trump before quitting last year in a clash over the direction of the probe. Rep. Jim Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, ordered Mark Pomerantz to testify...

WASHINGTON — Schools and colleges across the U.S. would be forbidden from enacting outright bans on transgender athletes under a proposal released Thursday from the Biden administration, but teams could create some limits in certain cases — for example, to ensure fairness. The proposed rule sends a political counterpunch toward...

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed a 12-year-old transgender girl in West Virginia to continue competing on her middle school’s girls sports teams while a lawsuit over a state ban continues. The justices refused to disturb an appeals court order that made it possible for the girl, Becky...

The former head of a Michigan medical marijuana licensing board has agreed to plead guilty to accepting $110,000 in bribes when he led the panel over a two-year period, authorities said Thursday. Rick Johnson acknowledged in a signed court filing that he acted “corruptly” when he accepted cash and other...

WASHINGTON — Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has for more than two decades accepted luxury trips nearly every year from Republican megadonor Harlan Crow without reporting them on financial disclosure forms, ProPublica reports. In a lengthy story published Thursday the nonprofit investigative journalism organization catalogs various trips Thomas has taken...

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Arkansas’ Republican-led House has rejected and effectively killed legislation aimed at banning affirmative action by state and local governments after critics said it would have gone much further than its architects said it would and threatened a host of programs around the state. The bill rejected...

CHESTERLAND, Ohio — A student who brought a gun and ammunition to a high school in northeastern Ohio and planned to shoot others there was arrested after a bullet was found in a bathroom and surveillance footage helped identify him, authorities said. The 18-year-old student was charged with attempted murder,...

BELFAST, Northern Ireland — Peter Olphert was 14 when Irish Republican Army gunmen killed his father. Forty years later, he says it’s time to set aside the past. Mark Thompson lost his brother to British Army bullets, another victim of “the Troubles” that wracked Northern Ireland for three decades. He...

WASHINGTON — The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday ordered the immediate market withdrawal of a drug intended to prevent premature births, which has remained available for years despite data showing it doesn’t help pregnant women. The decision follows repeated efforts by Swiss drugmaker Covis Pharma to keep Makena on...

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A federal appeals panel has affirmed $2.5 million in penalties against Appalachian coal mines owned by West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice over claims they violated a settlement meant to prevent pollution. A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, made the...

Gov. Josh Shapiro has been in office for three months and so far, more than half of Pennsylvanians approve of the job he is doing although a majority believe overall the state is heading in the wrong direction, according to a statewide poll released on Thursday. The “Common Ground in...

TAIPEI, Taiwan — China vowed reprisals against Taiwan after a meeting between the United States House speaker and the island’s president, saying Thursday that the U.S. was on a “wrong and dangerous road.” Speaker Kevin McCarthy hosted Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen on Wednesday in a show of U.S. support for...

BEIJING — Chinese leader Xi Jinping called Thursday for peace talks over Ukraine after French President Emmanuel Macron appealed to him to “bring Russia to its senses,” but Xi gave no indication Beijing would use its leverage as Vladimir Putin’s diplomatic partner to press for a settlement. Xi gave no...

TOKYO — Japan’s coast guard says it is searching for an army helicopter carrying 10 crew members that went missing off a southern Japanese island. The coast guard said it received information that a Ground Self-Defense Force UH-60JA Black Hawk helicopter disappeared from radar on a mission Thursday evening in...

CAPE TOWN, South Africa — A pilot in South Africa made a hasty emergency landing after discovering a highly venomous cobra hiding under his seat. Rudolf Erasmus had four passengers on board the light aircraft during Monday’s flight when he felt “something cold” slide across his lower back. He glanced...

BOISE — Helping a minor travel to another state for an abortion, without parental consent, will be a felony in Idaho next month, barring a successful court challenge. Republican Idaho Gov. Brad Little on Wednesday signed House Bill 242. It prohibits traveling with a minor to another state for an...

NEW YORK — Democrat Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an anti-vaccine activist and scion of one of the country’s most famous political families, is running for president. Kennedy filed a statement of candidacy Wednesday with the Federal Election Commission. The 69-year-old’s campaign to challenge incumbent President Joe Biden for the Democratic...

DOVER, Del. — The upcoming trial in a voting machine company’s defamation lawsuit against Fox News for airing false allegations of vote fraud in the 2020 presidential election will not include testimony about the Jan. 6 uprising at the U.S. Capitol, a judge ruled Wednesday. Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems claims...

Back in 2018, David Falcheck of Scranton got the notification he was waiting for — he was among a small group of winners chosen from thousands of lottery entries for the chance to buy a 12-year-old bottle of Van Winkle Special Reserve Straight Bourbon. “It was excellent,” Falcheck said of...