U.S./World category, Page 631
Synagogue challenges Florida abortion law over religion
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — A new Florida law prohibiting abortion after 15 weeks with some exceptions violates religious freedom rights of Jews in addition to the state constitution’s privacy protections, a synagogue claims in a lawsuit. The lawsuit filed by the Congregation L’Dor Va-Dor of Boynton Beach contends the law...
FDA advisers back Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine for older kids
NEW YORK — A government advisory panel Tuesday endorsed a second brand of covid-19 vaccine for school-age children and teens. The Food and Drug Administration’s outside experts voted unanimously that Moderna’s vaccine is safe and effective enough to give kids ages 6 to 17. If the FDA agrees, it would...
Dangerous heat wave descends on parts of Midwest and South
CHICAGO — Much of the Midwest and a swath of the South braced for a potentially dangerous and deadly heat wave on Tuesday, with temperatures that could reach record highs in some places and combine with humidity to make it feel like it’s 100 degrees or hotter in spots. More...
Russia lowers gas flows to Europe with part stuck in Canada
Russian natural gas deliveries through a key pipeline to Europe will drop by around 40% this year, state-controlled energy giant Gazprom said Tuesday, after Canadian sanctions over the war in Ukraine prevented German partner Siemens Energy from delivering overhauled equipment. Germany’s utility network agency said it did not see gas...
WHO convenes experts to decide if monkeypox is an emergency
GENEVA — The World Health Organization will convene an emergency committee of experts to determine if the expanding monkeypox outbreak that has mysteriously spread outside Africa should be considered a global health emergency. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Tuesday he decided to convene the emergency committee on June 23...
Nebraska’s capital city rescinds LGBTQ fairness ordinance
LINCOLN, Neb. — The City Council in Nebraska’s capital city has rescinded an anti-discrimination measure that extended protections to sexual orientation and gender identity, just four months after unanimously approving it. The Lincoln City Council voted 4-3 Monday to rescind the February revision to the city’s fairness ordinance in the...
Police: House Republican’s tour of Capitol wasn’t suspicious
WASHINGTON — Police have determined that there is nothing suspicious about a tour of U.S. Capitol office buildings that a House Republican gave about 15 people the day before the Jan. 6 attack by rioting supporters of then-President Donald Trump. The House committee investigating the 2021 insurrection examined whether rioters...
Nude woman steals police car, runs over officer’s leg, then crashes car, cops say
CHICAGO — A nude woman lying in the street stole a Chicago police squad car, ran over an officer with it and then crashed it Monday morning, Superintendent David Brown said at a news conference. Police received a call of a woman in the street unclothed, Brown said. When police...
‘How to Murder Your Husband’ author gets life in prison for killing her husband
PORTLAND, Ore. — A self-published romance novelist who once wrote an online essay called “How to Murder Your Husband” was sentenced Monday to life in prison with the possibility of parole for murdering her husband at his workplace in Portland four years ago. Nancy Crampton Brophy, 71, was convicted of...
Abortion foes, accustomed to small wins, ready for a big one
COLUMBIA, S.C. — For tens of millions of Americans who see abortion as wrong, it’s gone this way for a half-century: One woman swayed to reconsider as dozens of others follow through. One clinic’s doors closed only to see desperate patients go elsewhere. One law passed, another overturned. A movement...
Mexican government prodding its farmers to grow more food
MEXICO CITY — The corn has begun to sprout on the hillsides south of Mexico’s capital, though it’s unclear whether these shoots will have enough water to grow or whether the farmer will be able to afford the increasingly expensive fertilizer. What is known is that the government of President...
2 dead, 4 critically hurt when intoxicated driver crashes into golf cart, N.C. cops say
Two people — including a 5-year-old — were killed and four others were critically injured when an intoxicated driver collided with a golf cart near Statesville, N.C., according to the N.C. State Highway Patrol. Among the injured are three children, ages 2, 13 and 16, the highway patrol said in...
1/6 panel postpones hearing with ex-Justice Dept. officials
WASHINGTON — The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol has postponed a hearing that was to feature Trump-era Justice Department officials. The hearing had been set for Wednesday, but the committee on Tuesday morning said that it had been postponed. It did not give...
U.S. producer prices soar 10.8% in May as energy costs spike
WASHINGTON — U.S. producer prices surged 10.8% in May from a year earlier, underscoring the ongoing threat to the economy from inflation that shows no sign of slowing. Tuesday’s report from the Labor Department showed that the producer price index — which measures inflation before it reaches consumers — rose...
Russians control 80% of contested city in eastern Ukraine
LVIV, Ukraine — Sievierodonetsk, the main focus of the fighting in eastern Ukraine in recent weeks, isn’t yet blocked off by Russian troops even though they control about 80% of the city and have destroyed all three bridges leading out of it, an official said Tuesday. “There is still an...
Biden to visit Israel and ‘pariah’ Saudi Arabia next month
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden will make his first trip to the Middle East next month with visits to Israel, the West Bank and Saudi Arabia, the White House announced Tuesday. The decision to pay a call on Saudi leaders during the July 13-16 trip comes after Biden as a...
Musk to address Twitter employees for 1st time this week
Elon Musk will address Twitter employees Thursday for the first time since the billionaire and Tesla CEO offered $44 billion to buy the social media platform, the company said Tuesday. Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal announced an all-hands meeting to employees in an email on Monday, saying they’d be able to...
Yellowstone floods wipe out roads, bridges, strand visitorsVideo
HELENA, Mont. — A torrent of rain combined with a rapidly melting snowpack caused a deluge of flooding that forced the evacuation of some parts of Yellowstone National Park, cutting off electricity and forcing park officials to close all entrances indefinitely, just as the summer tourist season was ramping up....
Former Philly elections official tells Jan. 6 panel that Trump tweet led to ‘graphic’ threatsVideo
Al Schmidt, the only Republican official in Philadelphia to oversee voting during the 2020 presidential election, on Monday told the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol that with a single tweet, then-President Donald Trump unleashed a barrage of death threats against him and his family...
Right-wing extremists amp up anti-LGBTQ rhetoric online
BOISE, Idaho — A few weeks before 31 members of a white supremacist group were arrested for allegedly planning to riot at a northern Idaho LGBTQ pride event, a fundamentalist Idaho pastor told his Boise congregation that gay, lesbian and transgender people should be executed by the government. Around the...
Ohio governor signs bill allowing armed school employees
COLUMBUS — Ohio school districts could begin arming employees as soon as this fall under a bill signed into law Monday by GOP Gov. Mike DeWine. The law, as enacted, requires up to 24 hours of training before an employee can go armed, and up to eight hours of annual...
Autopsy: Teen died of blunt trauma in Florida ride death
ORLANDO, Fla. — A Missouri teenager died of blunt force trauma after falling from a 430-foot Florida drop-tower amusement park ride, according to an autopsy released Monday. The report by the Orange County Medical Examiner’s Office also ruled that 14-year-old Tyre Sampson’s death in March was an accident. Sampson slipped...
Justices rule against detained immigrants seeking release
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court has ruled against immigrants who are seeking their release from long periods of detention while they fight deportation orders. In two cases decided Monday, the court said that the immigrants, who fear persecution if sent back to their native countries, have no right under a...
Search continues for missing men in Brazilian Amazon
The search for an Indigenous expert and a journalist who disappeared in a remote area of Brazil’s Amazon continued on Monday following the discovery of a backpack, laptop and other personal belongings submerged in a river. The items were taken by Federal Police officers by boat to Atalaia do Norte,...
North Korea plans crackdown as Kim pushes for internal unity
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his top deputies have pushed for a crackdown on officials who abuse their power and commit other “unsound and non-revolutionary acts,” state media reported Monday, as Kim seeks greater internal unity to overcome a covid-19 outbreak and economic difficulties. It wasn’t clear what...
