U.S./World category, Page 302
Melinda French Gates resigns as Gates Foundation co-chair, 3 years after her divorce from Bill Gates
NEW YORK — Melinda French Gates will step down as co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the nonprofit she and her ex-husband Bill Gates founded and built into one of the world’s largest philanthropic organizations over the past 20 years. “This is not a decision I came to...
Russian assault opens new front, diverting Ukraine forces as Western aid trickles in
KYIV, Ukraine — Russian troops were locked in intense battles with Ukrainian soldiers around the embattled town of Vovchansk in northeast Ukraine on Monday, pushing ahead with a ground offensive that opened a new front and put more pressure on overstretched Ukrainian forces. Moscow’s renewed northeast offensive, launched late last...
Misery deepens in Gaza’s Rafah as Israeli troops press operation
RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Aid workers struggled Monday to distribute dwindling food and other supplies to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced by what Israel says is a limited military operation in Rafah, as the two main crossings near the southern Gaza city remained closed. The United Nations’ agency for...
Vast coin collection of Danish magnate is going on sale a century after his death
COPENHAGEN, Denmark — The vast coin collection of a Danish butter magnate is set to finally go on sale a century after his death, and could fetch up to $72 million. Lars Emil Bruun, also known as L.E. Bruun, stipulated in his will that his 20,000-piece collection be safeguarded for...
U.S. museum curator detained in Turkey on claims of spider smuggling; he says he has permits
ISTANBUL — A curator at the American Museum of Natural History was detained in Istanbul on Monday while allegedly attempting to smuggle spider and scorpion samples, Turkish media reported. The curator said he had permits from the government to conduct his research. Lorenzo Prendini, an expert on arachnids at the...
Haitians demand the resignation and arrest of the country’s police chief after a new gang attack
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — A growing number of civilians and police officers are demanding the dismissal and arrest of Haiti’s police chief as heavily armed gangs launched a new attack in the capital of Port-au-Prince, seizing control of yet another police station early Saturday. Armed men raided the coastal community of...
3 dead, 18 hurt after shooting at Alabama May Day party
STOCKTON, Ala. — Authorities in south Alabama urged witnesses to come forward with videos that might show who was responsible for a shooting at an outdoor party that left three dead and 18 wounded over the weekend. Officials have released few details about the shooting Saturday night at a May...
Book review: Anonymous public servants are the heart of George Stephanopoulos’ ‘Situation Room’
The biggest challenge for an author tackling the history of the Situation Room, the basement room of the White House where some of the biggest intelligence crises have been handled in recent decades, is the room itself. As a setting, it’s pretty underwhelming. In “The Situation Room: The Inside Story...
Canadian wildfire smoke chokes upper Midwest for 2nd straight year
MADISON, Wis. — Smoke from Canadian wildfires has prompted health warnings across the upper Midwest for the second straight year. Fires raging in British Columbia and Alberta sent the haze over parts of Montana, the Dakotas, Minnesota and Wisconsin on Sunday, lingering into Monday morning. The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency...
Corruption trial for Sen. Bob Menendez underway with jury selection
NEW YORK — Sen Bob Menendez, a Democrat, went on trial in Manhattan federal court Monday, accused of accepting bribes of gold and cash to use his influence to deliver favors that would help three New Jersey businessmen. Menendez, 70, sat with his lawyers and listened as Judge Sidney H....
Violence is traumatizing Haitian kids. Now the country’s breaking a taboo on mental health services
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Students often throw up or wet themselves when gunfire erupts outside their school in northern Port-au-Prince. When they do, school director Roseline Ceragui Louis finds there’s only one way to try to calm the children and keep them safe: getting them to lie on the classroom floor...
Star witness Michael Cohen directly implicates Trump in testimony at hush money trialVideo
NEW YORK — Donald Trump was intimately involved with all aspects of a scheme to stifle stories about sex that threatened to torpedo his 2016 campaign, his former lawyer said Monday in matter-of-fact testimony that went to the heart of the former president’s hush money trial. “Everything required Mr. Trump’s...
Rescuers free 2 horses stuck in the mud in Connecticut
LEBANON, Conn. — Two horses stuck deep in mud for hours in Connecticut were pulled out by more than a dozen rescuers Saturday, emerging messy and tired, but safe. A trio of horses were walking from a pasture to a barn though swampy woods in Lebanon, Connecticut, about 25 miles...
For a second time, Sen. Bob Menendez faces a corruption trial. This time, it involves gold bars
NEW YORK — For the second time in a decade, U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez faces a corruption trial Monday with his political career and freedom on the line in a criminal case that already has forced him out of one of the most powerful posts in Congress. The 70-year-old New...
Michael Cohen: A challenging star witness in Donald Trump’s hush money trialVideo
NEW YORK — He once said he would take a bullet for Donald Trump. Now Michael Cohen is prosecutors’ biggest piece of legal ammunition in the former president’s hush money trial. But if Trump’s fixer-turned-foe is poised to offer jurors this week an insider’s view of the dealings at the...
Pro-Palestinian protests dwindle to tiny numbers and subtle defiant acts at U.S. college graduationsVideo
A tiny contingent of Duke University graduates opposed pro-Israel comedian Jerry Seinfeld speaking at their commencement Sunday in North Carolina, with about 30 of the 7,000 students leaving their seats and chanting “free Palestine” amid a mix of boos and cheers. Some waved the red, green, black and white Palestinian...
Putin in cabinet shakeup moves to replace defense minister as he starts his 5th term in officeVideo
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday replaced Sergei Shoigu as defense minister in a cabinet shakeup that comes as he begins his fifth term in office. In line with Russian law, the entire Russian Cabinet resigned Tuesday following Putin’s glittering inauguration in the Kremlin, and most members have been widely...
Suspect is being sought in shooting death of an Ohio police officer, officials say
EUCLID, Ohio — An Ohio police officer was shot and killed after being “ambushed” while answering a disturbance call over the weekend, and a suspect was being sought, authorities said Sunday. Police in the Cleveland suburb of Euclid said officers were dispatched just before 10 p.m. Saturday to a home...
Federal agency says a second, if weaker, solar storm surge is likely SundayVideo
A U.S. government agency said a weaker repeat of Saturday’s powerful solar storm was likely on Sunday. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said that “coronal mass ejections” — clouds of ejected solar plasma that can cause power grid irregularities and issues with high-frequency communications and global positioning systems...
Israel pushes deeper into Rafah and battles a regrouping Hamas in northern Gaza
RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Israeli forces pushed deeper into Gaza’s southern city of Rafah on Sunday and battled Hamas in parts of the devastated north that the military said it had cleared months ago but where militants have regrouped. Warnings continued against the growing offensive in Rafah, considered the last...
Israel orders new evacuations in Gaza’s last refuge of Rafah as it expands military offensive
RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Israel ordered new evacuations in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah on Saturday, forcing tens of thousands more people to move as it prepares to expand its military operation closer to the heavily populated central area, in defiance of growing pressure amid the war from close ally...
Panama’s next president says he’ll try to shut down one of the world’s busiest migration routes
PANAMA CITY — Panama is on the verge of a dramatic change to its immigration policy that could reverberate from the dense Darien jungle to the U.S. border. President-elect José Raúl Mulino says he will shut down a migration route used by more than 500,000 people last year. Until now,...
Russia claims capture of villages in northeast Ukraine as more than 1,700 civilians flee
VOVCHANSK, Ukraine — Moscow’s forces have captured five villages as part of a renewed ground assault in Ukraine’s northeast, the Russian Defense Ministry said Saturday. Ukrainian journalists reported Friday that Russian troops took the villages of Borysivka, Ohirtseve, Pylna and Strilecha, all of which lie in a militarily contested “gray...
Flash floods kill more than 300 people in northern Afghanistan after heavy rains, UN says
ISLAMABAD — Flash floods from unusually heavy seasonal rains in Afghanistan have killed more than 300 people and destroyed more than 1,000 houses, the U.N. food agency said Saturday. The World Food Program said it was distributing fortified biscuits to the survivors of one of the many floods that hit...
Billy Graham statue for U.S. Capitol to be unveiled next week
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A statue of the late Rev. Billy Graham set to stand inside the U.S. Capitol to represent North Carolina will be unveiled next week in a ceremony. House Speaker Mike Johnson, other congressional members and the family of the Charlotte-born evangelist are expected to attend unveiling of...
