U.S./World category, Page 608

Elaine Powell set her alarm and jumped on her computer just after midnight so she could find the first time she appeared in the U.S. population count — information she had to wait more than seven decades to see. Powell, who was born in 1946, found her name recorded at...

WASHINGTON — Marijuana would be decriminalized at the federal level under legislation the House approved Friday as Democrats made the case for allowing states to set their own policies on pot. The bill is unlikely to become law since it is expected to die in the Senate. That would mirror...

WASHINGTON — The Senate acquitted former President Donald Trump last year of inciting the Capitol insurrection. But neither Trump nor any of his top advisers have faced charges over the attack in a court of law, and it’s uncertain if they ever will. But increasingly, lawmakers on the House committee...

Languages rise and fall with history, in nations and university language departments alike. In 1980, when Roman Koropeckyj stepped into his classroom at Harvard to teach Polish, he was “gobsmacked” by the dozens of students awaiting him. The Polish trade unionists of the Solidarity movement, who were defying Soviet oppression...

A snowy sidewalk strewn with bloodied bodies. A beleaguered president roaming the streets of a country under attack. Missiles streaming. Sirens wailing. Teens making homemade bombs. And dead soldiers, so many of them, lying crumpled in fields and slumped in smoldering tanks. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has spawned a constant...

KYIV, Ukraine — Talks to stop the fighting in Ukraine resumed Friday, as another attempt to rescue civilians from the shattered and encircled city of Mariupol broke down and Russia accused the Ukrainians of a cross-border helicopter attack on an oil depot. The governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov,...

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis on Friday made a historic apology to Indigenous Peoples for the “deplorable” abuses they suffered in Canada’s Catholic-run residential schools and said he hoped to visit Canada in late July to deliver the apology in person to survivors of the church’s misguided missionary zeal. Francis...

CITLUK, Serbia — An accident Friday in a mine in central Serbia killed eight people and wounded 18 others, authorities said. It happened when part of the mine pit collapsed, releasing the methane gas inside and trapping the miners, state RTS television and local media reported. The accident in the...

DALLAS — President Joe Biden is again dipping into the nation’s petroleum stockpile to try to corral rising energy prices. The White House announced Thursday that Biden ordered the daily release of 1 million barrels of oil from the strategic petroleum reserve for the next six months. Biden will also...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — As the United States prepares to accept up to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees following Russia’s invasion of their country, existing communities in cities like Sacramento and Seattle are already mobilizing to provide food, shelter and support to those fleeing the war. The federal government hasn’t said when the...

Scientists say they have finally assembled the full genetic blueprint for human life, adding the missing pieces to a puzzle nearly completed two decades ago. An international team described the first-ever sequencing of a complete human genome — the set of instructions to build and sustain a human being —...

KYIV, Ukraine — Russian troops began leaving the Chernobyl nuclear plant after soldiers got “significant doses” of radiation from digging trenches at the highly contaminated site, Ukraine’s state power company said Thursday as heavy fighting raged on the outskirts of Kyiv and other fronts. Energoatom, the operator, gave no immediate...

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is commemorating Transgender Day of Visibility by celebrating prominent transgender Americans and advocating against what his administration terms “dangerous anti-transgender legislative attacks” that have passed in statehouses across the country. Biden on Thursday is announcing new measures aimed at making the federal government more inclusive...

WASHINGTON — An inflation gauge closely monitored by the Federal Reserve jumped 6.4% in February compared with a year ago, with sharply higher prices for food, gasoline and other necessities squeezing Americans’ finances. The figure reported Thursday by the Commerce Department was the largest year-over-year rise since January 1982. Excluding...

WASHINGTON — More Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week, but layoffs remain at historic lows. Jobless claims rose by 14,000 to 202,000 for the week ending March 26, the Labor Department reported Thursday. The previous week’s tally of 188,000 claims was the fewest since 1969. First-time applications for jobless...

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is preparing to order the release of up to 1 million barrels of oil per day from the nation’s strategic petroleum reserve, according to two people familiar with the decision, in a bid to control energy prices that have spiked as the U.S. and allies...

WASHINGTON — Russian President Vladimir Putin has been misinformed by advisers about his military’s performance in Ukraine and the effect of sanctions on his country’s economy, a White House spokeswoman said, citing unspecified U.S. intelligence. “We have information that Putin felt misled by the Russian military, which has resulted in...

HARTFORD, Conn. — A Connecticut judge on Wednesday said Infowars host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones will be fined $25,000 to $50,000 per weekday until he appears for a deposition in a lawsuit brought by relatives of some victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Jones’ testimony is being...

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — A bodyboarder was attacked by a great white shark in central California on Christmas Eve and died within minutes, official reports have concluded. Tomas Abraham Butterfield, 42, was bitten in the head, chest and shoulder in the Morro Bay attack and died from “complications of...

A man accused of leading a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was “antigovernment” and believed officials were out to “line their own pockets,” his longtime companion testified Wednesday before prosecutors rested their case. Chastity Knight spoke to jurors on the 13th day of trial in federal court in...

KYIV, Ukraine — Russian forces bombarded areas around Kyiv and another city just hours after pledging to scale back operations in those zones to promote trust between the two sides, Ukrainian authorities said Wednesday. The shelling — and intensified Russian attacks on other parts of the country — tempered optimism...