U.S./World category

A federal vaccine advisory committee on Thursday voted to delay a decision on whether newborns should still get the hepatitis B vaccine on the day they’re born. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, meeting in Atlanta, voted to delay the decision until Friday after committee members voiced confusion about voting...

WASHINGTON — The White House is expected to submit plans for its new ballroom to a planning commission this month, the presidentially appointed head of the panel said Thursday. “Once plans are submitted, that’s really when the role of this commission, and its professional staff, will begin,” Will Scharf, chair...

JERUSALEM — Remains that militants in Gaza handed to Israel as part of the first phase of the ceasefire deal were those of a Thai agricultural worker, Israeli and Thai officials said Thursday. The return of Sudthisak Rinthalak’s remains leaves just one more hostage to be returned under the agreement....

PADANG, Indonesia — Deaths from last week’s catastrophic floods and landslides in parts of Asia surged past 1,500 Thursday as rescue teams raced to reach survivors isolated by the disaster with hundreds of people still unaccounted for across the region. The tragedy of so much death and destruction was compounded...

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is hosting the leaders of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda on Thursday for a deal-signing aimed at ending the conflict in eastern Congo and opening access to the region’s critical minerals for the U.S. government and American companies. The moment provides Trump —...

EVANSTON, Ill. — Mother Mary wearing a respirator mask to protect herself from tear gas. Baby Jesus with zip-tied hands, wrapped in a thin blanket that looks like aluminum foil. Masked centurions with sunglasses and green vests labeled “ICE.” This is how the Lake Street Church of Evanston chose to...

WASHINGTON — The FBI made an arrest Thursday in its nearly 5-year-old investigation into pipe bombs placed outside the headquarters of the Republican and Democratic national parties in Washington on the eve of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol. He was charged with an explosives offense, prosecutors said....

Russian President Vladimir Putin says some proposals in a U.S. plan to end the war in Ukraine are unacceptable to the Kremlin, indicating in comments published Thursday that any deal is still some ways off. President Donald Trump has set in motion the most intense diplomatic push to stop the...

NEW YORK — A high-stakes hearing in the New York murder case against Luigi Mangione continues Thursday, a year to the day after prosecutors say he gunned down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Mangione, 27, has pleaded not guilty to both state and federal charges. Before any trials get scheduled, his...

NEW YORK — One of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell ‘s most vocal accusers urged judges on Wednesday to grant the Justice Department’s request to unseal records from their federal sex trafficking cases, saying “only transparency is likely to lead to justice.” Annie Farmer weighed in through her lawyer, Sigrid...

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon knew there were survivors after a September attack on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean Sea and the U.S. military still carried out a follow-up strike, according to two people familiar with the matter. The rationale for the second strike was that it was needed...

WASHINGTON — A dozen prior leaders of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration — appointed by Republicans and Democrats alike — issued a scathing denunciation of new FDA assertions casting doubt on vaccine safety. The former officials say the agency’s plans to revamp how life-saving vaccines for flu, covid-19 and...

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced a proposal to weaken vehicle mileage rules for the auto industry, loosening regulatory pressure on automakers to control pollution from gasoline-powered cars and trucks. The plan, if finalized next year, would significantly reduce fuel economy requirements, which set rules on how far...

RIO DE JANEIRO — Towering talipot palms in a Rio de Janeiro park are flowering for the first and only time in their lives, decades after famed Brazilian landscape architect Roberto Burle Marx introduced them in the 1960s. Towards the end of its life — which can span between 40...

LOS ANGELES — A doctor who pleaded guilty to selling ketamine to Matthew Perry in the weeks before the “Friends” star’s overdose death was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison on Wednesday. Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett handed down the sentence plus two years of probation to 44-year-old Dr. Salvador...

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon’s watchdog found that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth put U.S. personnel and their mission at risk when he used the Signal messaging app to convey sensitive information about a military strike against Yemen’s Houthi militants, two people familiar with the findings said Wednesday. Hegseth, however, has the...

NEW YORK — A federal vaccine advisory committee this week is expected to discuss whether newborns should still get the hepatitis B vaccine — the first shot found to prevent cancer. Federal health recommendations now suggest that all babies be vaccinated against the liver infection in their first day of...

JERUSALEM — Israel received remains of what could be one of the last hostages in Gaza on Wednesday and said it will begin allowing Palestinians to leave the war-torn territory through a border crossing with Egypt. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said an attack by militants earlier in the day...

HAVANA — A blackout hit Havana and the rest of the western half of Cuba on Wednesday, leaving millions of people without power on an island struggling with chronic outages blamed on a crumbling electric grid. Lázaro Guerra, general director of the Ministry of Energy and Mines, said the massive...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Billionaire spacewalker Jared Isaacman urged senators on Wednesday to take swift action on his bid to lead NASA, after being yanked and then renominated by President Donald Trump. Isaacman appeared before the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee in Washington eight months after his first nomination hearing....

A federal judge late Tuesday blocked the Trump administration from making widespread immigration arrests in the nation’s capital without warrants or probable cause that the person is an imminent flight risk. U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell in Washington granted a preliminary injunction sought by civil liberties and immigrants rights groups...

HONG KONG — The death toll of Hong Kong’s high-rise apartment blaze rose to 159 on Wednesday, as authorities arrested six people on suspicion of deactivating some fire alarms during maintenance work at the housing complex. The youngest person who died in the fire was a 1-year-old, police said. The...

The city of San Francisco filed a lawsuit against some of the nation’s top food manufacturers on Tuesday, arguing that ultraprocessed food from the likes of Coca-Cola and Nestle are responsible for a public health crisis. City Attorney David Chiu named 10 companies in the lawsuit, including the makers of...

BOSTON — Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers was banned for life Tuesday from an academic society in the latest fallout over recently released emails showing he maintained a friendly relationship with Jeffrey Epstein after the disgraced financier pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from a minor. The American Economic Association,...