U.S./World category, Page 649
Church apologies: Top leaders say sorry for historical sins
When Pope Francis apologizes to Indigenous groups on Canadian soil this week, he will make another effort toward healing harms inflicted at church-run residential schools — and add to the Catholic Church’s growing ledger of atonement for past transgressions. Like the papacy, top Protestant leaders also have gradually issued institutional...
Pope’s Indigenous tour signals a rethink of mission legacyVideo
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis’ trip to Canada to apologize for the horrors of church-run Indigenous residential schools marks a radical rethink of the Catholic Church’s missionary legacy, spurred by the first pope from the Americas and the discovery of hundreds of probable graves at the school sites. Francis has...
Joe Biden continues to improve after covid-19 diagnosisVideo
President Joe Biden continues to improve with mild symptoms as he isolates with covid-19 at the White House. White House physician Kevin O’Connor wrote in a memo Saturday that the president — who is being treated with Pfizer Inc.’s drug Paxlovid — is “responding to therapy as expected.” “His pulse,...
Greece battles 4 major wildfires; hotels, homes evacuatedVideo
ATHENS, Greece — Greece’s fire service was fighting four major fires across the country Saturday, including one where they had to evacuate more than 450 people at an island holiday resort. A fire that broke out Saturday morning on the island of Lesbos prompted authorities to call for the evacuation...
Supreme Court leak probe: So many questions, so few answers
WASHINGTON — Less than 24 hours after the unprecedented leak of the draft opinion that overturned Roe v. Wade, Chief Justice John Roberts ordered an investigation into the “egregious breach. “ Since then? Silence. The Supreme Court won’t say whether it’s still investigating. The court also won’t say whether the...
Parents, 6-year-old girl, fatally shot in tent at Iowa park
A Cedar Falls couple and their 6-year-old daughter were fatally shot while camping at an Iowa state park in an apparently random attack by a man from Nebraska, who later turned the gun on himself, authorities said. The couple leaves behind a 9-year-old son, according to the Cedar Falls mayor....
Military aviation crashes are again on the rise. Are ongoing safety and training issues to blame?
A spate of military aircraft crashes over recent months is again raising questions about the Pentagon’s approach to safety and training across military branches. In June, six service members died in two Southern California crashes — a Lemoore, California-based F/A-18E pilot on June 3 in San Bernardino County and five...
In Uvalde, closeness complicates accountability for shooting
UVALDE, Texas — After the massacre at Uvalde’s Robb Elementary School in May, Jesse Rizo was worried about his old friend, police chief Pete Arredondo. Blame for the botched police response was being directed heavily at Arredondo when Rizo texted him just days after the shooting: “Been thinking of and...
Russia hits Ukraine’s Black Sea port despite grain deal
KYIV, Ukraine — Russian missiles hit Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Odesa just hours after Moscow and Kyiv signed deals to allow grain exports to resume from there. Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry denounced Saturday’s airstrikes as a “spit in the face” to Turkey and the United Nations, which brokered the agreements....
UN health agency chief declares monkeypox a global emergency
LONDON — The chief of the World Health Organization said the expanding monkeypox outbreak in more than 70 countries is an “extraordinary” situation that now qualifies as a global emergency, a declaration Saturday that could spur further investment in treating the once-rare disease and worsen the scramble for scarce vaccines....
Mega Millions jackpot swells to $790M, nation’s 4th largest prize
DES MOINES, Iowa — Lottery officials on Friday raised the Mega Millions grand prize to $790 million, giving players a shot at what would be the nation’s fourth largest jackpot. The next drawing is on Tuesday. The jackpot has grown so large because there hasn’t been a winner in three...
West Virginia man charged after sister awakens from coma dies in custody
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A West Virginia man charged with trying to kill his sister, who recently awakened from a two-year coma and identified him as her attacker, has died less than a week after his arrest, authorities said Friday. Daniel J. Palmer III of Cottageville was pronounced dead Thursday at...
New California gun control law mimics Texas abortion measure
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California punched back Friday against two recent landmark U.S. Supreme Court decisions as Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a controversial, first-in-the-nation gun control law patterned after a Texas anti-abortion law and urged other states to follow suit. He acted one month after conservative justices overturned the constitutional right...
Officers describe horror they saw after Parkland shooting
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Law enforcement officers who charged into Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School minutes after Nikolas Cruz fatally shot 17 in one of its buildings described for jurors Friday the horrific scene they encountered. Two Coral Springs police officers and a Broward County sheriff’s deputy told of...
East Africa bloc says 50 million face acute food insecurity
KAMPALA, Uganda — More than 50 million people across the East African region are expected to face acute food insecurity this year, a regional bloc said Friday, warning that some 300,000 in Somalia and South Sudan are projected to be under full-blown famine conditions. The assessment by Intergovernmental Authority on...
Airstrikes kill more Ukrainians despite grain export deal
KYIV, Ukraine — Emergency workers recovered three bodies from a school hit by a Russian strike in eastern Ukraine, officials said Friday, one of a string of attacks on the nation. The casualties in the city of Kramatorsk followed a barrage Thursday on a densely populated area of Ukraine’s second-largest...
Steve Bannon convicted of contempt charges in Jan. 6 case
WASHINGTON — Steve Bannon, a longtime ally of former President Donald Trump, was convicted on Friday of contempt charges for defying a congressional subpoena from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Bannon, 68, was convicted after a four-day trial in federal court on two...
Jan. 6 probes: What’s next for Congress, criminal cases
WASHINGTON — This isn’t the end of the Capitol riot story. The House committee investigating the deadly events of a fateful, chilly January day — now a year and a half in the past — has wrapped up its hot summer series of televised hearings, each featuring revelatory details about...
Wall Street opens higher; Twitter, Snap in focus on results
NEW YORK — Stocks are opening slightly higher on Wall Street Friday ahead of data that’s expected to show the manufacturing industry slowed again last month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 0.4% just after the opening bell while the S&P 500 is barely positive and the Nasdaq is...
Jan. 6 hearing dominates top TV networks — except one
NEW YORK — America’s top television networks on Thursday turned prime time over to a gripping account of former President Donald Trump’s actions during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol — with one prominent exception. The top-rated news network, Fox News Channel, stuck with its own lineup...
Lee Zeldin, GOP nominee for NY governor, assaulted at rally
NEW YORK — U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin, the Republican candidate for New York governor, was assaulted by a man who apparently tried to stab him at an upstate event Thursday but the congressman escaped serious injury. “I’m OK,” Zeldin said in a statement. “Fortunately, I was able to grab his...
FBI: No sign of Jimmy Hoffa under New Jersey bridge
DETROIT — The FBI found no evidence of missing Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa during a search of land under a New Jersey bridge, a spokeswoman said Thursday. The Pulaski Skyway now becomes another dead end in the decadeslong mystery that has stretched from a Michigan horse farm to the East...
DHS watchdog takes over inquiry into lost secret service texts from Capitol riotVideo
The Homeland Security Department’s watchdog has opened an investigation into the loss of Secret Service text messages from the days surrounding the attack on the U.S. Capitol last year. The Inspector General of Homeland Security is conducting the probe and has instructed the Secret Service to stop its own internal...
Jan. 6: Trump spurned aides’ pleas to call off Capitol mobVideo
WASHINGTON — Despite desperate pleas from aides, allies, Republican congressional leaders and even his family, Donald Trump refused to call off the Jan. 6 mob attack on the Capitol, instead “pouring gasoline on the fire” by aggressively tweeting his false claims of a stolen election and telling the crowd of...
Steve Bannon’s defense seeks acquittal then rests case
WASHINGTON — Trump ally Steve Bannon declined to testify and his lawyers did not call any witnesses in his contempt of Congress trial on Thursday, instead arguing the judge should just acquit him, saying prosecutors hadn’t proven their case. The decision to forego calling any witnesses in Bannon’s defense cleared...
