Senate votes to repeal 2 Iraq military authorizations
WASHINGTON — The Senate on Wednesday passed a bill that would repeal two decades-old authorizations to use military force against Iraq after supporters of the legislation had fended off floor efforts to amend it, including proposals that would have singled out Iran as a threat in the Middle East. Sens....
Mel King, who helped ease Boston’s racial strife, dies at 94
BOSTON — Longtime Boston civil rights activist Mel King, whose 1983 campaign for mayor helped the city begin to repair some of the racial divisions sparked during the school busing crisis, has died. He was 94. King served in the state Legislature for nearly a decade before becoming the first...
Elián González, elected to office in Cuba, says he wants to help improve relations with U.S.
More than two decades after he was returned to Cuba from the United States following a diplomatic crisis and a custody battle between his father and his Miami relatives, Elián González says his election on Sunday to Cuba’s National Assembly puts him in a position to help improve the strained...
Trump grand jury poised to take pre-planned hiatus from case
NEW YORK — The Manhattan grand jury investigating hush money paid on Donald Trump’s behalf is scheduled to consider other matters next week before taking a previously scheduled two-week hiatus, a person familiar with the matter said Wednesday. That means a vote on whether or not to indict the former...
Pope to be hospitalized for days with respiratory infection
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis was hospitalized with a respiratory infection Wednesday after experiencing difficulty breathing in recent days and will remain in the Rome hospital for several days of treatment, the Vatican said. The 86-year-old pope, who had part of one lung removed as a young man, doesn’t have...
China threatens to retaliate if McCarthy meets Taiwan leader
BEIJING — China threatened retaliation on Wednesday if U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy meets with Taiwan’s president during her upcoming trip through Los Angeles. President Tsai Ing-wen left Taiwan on Wednesday afternoon on a tour of the island’s diplomatic allies in the Americas which she framed as a chance to...
Harris out to reframe U.S. views on Africa, foster partnership
ACCRA, Ghana — If U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris has a favorite number on her trip to Africa, it’s undoubtedly 19. That’s the median age on this continent, and she repeats the fact at every opportunity. For Harris, it’s not a piece of trivia but the driving force behind the...
Probe of Pa. chocolate factory blast focuses on gas pipeline
Federal safety officials are investigating the role of a natural gas pipeline in a fatal blast at a Pennsylvania chocolate factory, the National Transportation Safety Board announced Tuesday. Friday’s powerful explosion at R.M. Palmer Co. killed seven people, sent 10 to the hospital and damaged several other buildings in West...
FDA approves over-the-counter Narcan; here’s what it means
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday approved selling naloxone without a prescription, setting the overdose-reversing drug on course to become the first opioid treatment drug to be sold over the counter. It’s a move that some advocates have long sought as a way to improve access to a...
Russia stops sharing missile test info with U.S., opens drills
MOSCOW — A senior Russian diplomat said Wednesday that Moscow will no longer inform the U.S. about its missile tests, an announcement that came as the Russian military deployed mobile launchers in Siberia in a show of the country’s massive nuclear capability amid the fighting in Ukraine. Russian Deputy Foreign...
Senate: Credit Suisse still helps rich Americans evade taxes
GENEVA — U.S. lawmakers said Wednesday that Credit Suisse has kept allowing wealthy Americans to dodge tax payments, finding after a two-year investigation that the embattled Swiss bank violated a 2014 plea agreement over allowing tax evasion by its clients. The U.S. Senate Finance Committee pointed to an ongoing, possibly...
Nashville shooting highlights security at private schools
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — An alarm blared and lights flashed as a heavily armed assailant stalked the hallways of The Covenant School. Surveillance footage of the shooting Monday at the private Christian school in Nashville showed many familiar security measures, including the double set of locked glass doors the killer shot...
Hawaii authorities say 33 swimmers were harassing dolphins
HONOLULU — Hawaii authorities on Tuesday say they have referred 33 people to U.S. law enforcement after the group allegedly harassed a pod of wild dolphins in waters off the Big Island. It’s against federal law to swim within 50 yards (45 meters) of spinner dolphins in Hawaii’s nearshore waters....
Israeli PM, Biden exchange frosty words over legal overhaul
JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday rebuffed President Joe Biden’s suggestion that the premier “walks away” from a contentious plan to overhaul the legal system, saying the country makes its own decisions. The exchange was a rare bout of public disagreement between the two close allies and...
Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity among potential witnesses at Fox News trial
NEW YORK — Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Bret Baier are among the stars who both Fox News and the voting machine company suing it for defamation have signaled could testify if the case heads to trial next month. They are among the names submitted this week as potential witnesses...
Elephant in the dining room: Startup makes mammoth meatballVideo
AMSTERDAM — Throw another mammoth on the barbie? An Australian company on Tuesday lifted the glass cloche on a meatball made of lab-grown cultured meat using the genetic sequence from the long-extinct pachyderm, saying it was meant to fire up public debate about the hi-tech treat. The launch in an...
Debt ceiling impasse: Kevin McCarthy presses Biden to negotiate
WASHINGTON — House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said Tuesday he’s increasingly concerned about President Joe Biden’s unwillingness to negotiate on lifting the nation’s borrowing authority, saying in a letter to the president that the White House position could “hold dire ramifications for the entire nation.” Rather than open direct talks...
Man charged with firebombing Wisconsin anti-abortion office
MADISON, Wis. — After nearly a year of searching, investigators used DNA pulled from a half-eaten burrito to capture the man they believe firebombed a prominent Wisconsin anti-abortion lobbying group’s office. The U.S. attorney’s office in Madison announced that police arrested 29-year-old Hridindu Sankar Roychowdhury at Boston’s Logan International Airport...
Nashville shooter, who was ‘under doctor’s care for emotional disorder,’ used 3 guns, police sayVideo
New details have emerged from the shootings Monday in Nashville that left three children and three adults dead when an assailant targeted a Christian school, making it the latest American community to be rocked by the despair and trauma of gun violence, as police search for a motive. At a...
Election Day ballot problems in Pennsylvania county examined
Election Day shortages of the paper needed to run voting machinery caused significant problems in a northeastern Pennsylvania county in November, but the extent of the problem or what caused it are still unclear, witnesses told a congressional committee Tuesday. The three-hour hearing of the U.S. House Administration Committee into...
Court backs victim’s family in Adnan Syed’s ‘Serial’ case
ANNAPOLIS, Md. — A Maryland appellate court on Tuesday reinstated Adnan Syed’s murder conviction and ordered a new hearing in the case, marking the latest development in the protracted legal odyssey chronicled in the hit podcast “Serial.” Though Syed’s conviction has been reinstated, he will not immediately be taken back...
Boy Scouts’ $2.4 billion bankruptcy plan upheld by judge
DOVER, Del. — A federal district court judge has upheld the approval of a $2.4 billion bankruptcy reorganization plan aimed at resolving tens of thousands of child sexual abuse claims against the Boy Scouts of America. The ruling docketed Tuesday rejects arguments by non-settling insurance companies and attorneys representing dissenting...
Judge rules Mike Pence must testify before grand jury
WASHINGTON — A federal judge has ruled that former Vice President Mike Pence will have to testify before a grand jury in the Justice Department’s investigation into efforts by former President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election. That’s according to two people familiar...
Mayor: Philadelphia water will not be tainted by spillVideo
PHILADELPHIA — Philadelphia officials say the city’s water system will not be affected by a chemical spill into the Delaware River upstream last week. “We can all confidentially say the threat has passed — I repeat: All the city’s drinking water is safe to drink and will not be impacted...
Video shows Nashville police search school, fire at shooterVideo
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Nashville police released video Tuesday from a body-worn camera that shows a team of officers entering and searching an elementary school, then confronting and opening fire on an assailant who had murdered three children and three adults in the latest school shooting to roil the nation. The...
