News category, Page 916

WASHINGTON — The term Russian oligarch conjures images of posh London mansions, gold-plated Bentleys and sleek superyachts in the Mediterranean, their decks draped with partiers dripping in jewels. But the raft of sanctions on oligarchs announced by President Joe Biden this week in response to the invasion of Ukraine may...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The juror at the heart of convicted murderer Scott Peterson’s retrial bid swore Friday that she had no animosity toward him until after she heard evidence that he had killed his pregnant wife in a case that grabbed worldwide attention in 2004. “Before the trial, I didn’t...

SAN DIEGO — A 20-year-old sailor will face a military trial on charges he deliberately set the fire that destroyed a $1.2 billion warship on the San Diego waterfront in 2020, the Navy announced Friday. Seaman Recruit Ryan Sawyer Mays, a former deck seaman on the amphibious assault ship Bonhomme...

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The “stand your ground” self-defense law had been in effect in Florida for more than six years when it became part of the national vocabulary with the death of Trayvon Martin in 2012. When the 17-year-old was fatally shot, Florida was still one of the few...

SCRANTON — Dr. Mehmet Oz leans in to ask a little girl, “Do you remember when your parents thought you were a boy?” The question was but a few seconds of a full 2010 episode of “The Dr. Oz Show” that focused on the experience of raising transgender children. But...

A Florida prosecutor told jurors Friday that a retired police SWAT commander fatally shot a fellow moviegoer because he threw popcorn in his face during an argument over cellphone use, angering him because it violated his self-image as an “alpha male.” Prosecutor Scott Rosenwasser told jurors during closing arguments that...

Most Americans live in places where healthy people, including students in schools, can safely stop wearing masks under new U.S. guidelines released Friday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention outlined the new set of measures for communities where covid-19 is easing its grip, with less of a focus on...

OKLAHOMA CITY — Oklahoma’s U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, says he will step down before his six-year term is up and that he is “absolutely” at peace with the decision. In an interview published Friday by The Oklahoman, the 87-year-old Inhofe said...

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Friday nominated federal appeals court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court, making her the first Black woman selected to serve on a court that once declared her race unworthy of citizenship and endorsed segregation. Introducing Jackson, Biden called her a “proven...

BRUSSELS — U.S. President Joe Biden and his NATO counterparts will seek Friday to reassure member countries on the alliance’s eastern flank that their security is guaranteed as Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine closes in on the capital Kyiv. With Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appealing for help, NATO members ranging...

BERLIN — A German court on Friday convicted a Catholic priest of sexual abuse of children in cases that spanned many years and sentenced him to 12 years in prison. The Cologne state court also ordered the 70-year-old to pay three co-plaintiffs in the cases damages totaling $56,000, news agency...

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis went to the Russian embassy in Rome on Friday to personally express his concern about the war in Ukraine, in an extraordinary papal gesture that has no recent precedent. Popes usually receive ambassadors and heads of state in the Vatican. For Francis to travel a...

KYIV, Ukraine — Russian troops bore down on Ukraine’s capital Friday while the president grimly predicted that the conflict would soon intensify, and fears of wider war in Europe triggered new international efforts to make Moscow stop, including direct sanctions on President Vladimir Putin. Amid reports of hundreds of casualties...

LAS VEGAS — A defense attorney said Thursday he wants a mental health evaluation for a Las Vegas man now jailed in protective custody after being accused of keeping a widow and her daughter captive at his home, killing the woman’s 4-year-old son and storing the boy’s body in a...

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration will significantly loosen federal mask-wearing guidelines to protect against covid-19 transmission on Friday, according to two people familiar with the matter, meaning most Americans will no longer be advised to wear masks in indoor public settings. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday...

State health officials on Thursday said there should not be concern over the veracity of federal data they used to tout the state’s covid-19 vaccination rate among adults as 95%. In a release from Gov. Tom Wolf’s office Wednesday, officials celebrated the milestone that a spokesperson said was based on...

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden knows a thing or two about contentious Supreme Court hearings, having presided over a pair of the most heated confirmations that still reverberate in U.S politics. That experience is shaping the process of naming the first Black female justice in a bitterly divided Washington. Biden...

A judge on Thursday ordered the parents of a 15-year-old boy charged with killing four students at his Michigan high school to stand trial on involuntary manslaughter charges. Rochester Hills District Court Judge Julie Nicholson said following the preliminary examination for Jennifer and James Crumbley that she found enough evidence...

TALLAHASSEE — Republicans in the Florida House of Representatives on Thursday approved a bill to limit discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity in schools, advancing a measure that has drawn widespread condemnation from LGBTQ activists and the White House. The House passed the bill on a party-line vote, with...

Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan newsroom powered by The Philadelphia Inquirer in partnership with PennLive/The Patriot-News, TribLIVE/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and WITF Public Media. Sign up for our free newsletters. HARRISBURG — Independent investigations of deaths or injuries caused by Pennsylvania State Police would require a change to state law, the...

DALLAS — Freezing rain and drizzle is disrupting travel from Central Texas to the Great Lakes, with ice-glazed roads leading to hundreds of traffic accidents, including one in Kentucky that killed a toddler. Hundreds of flights were canceled Wednesday at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport as Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Arkansas...