U.S./World category, Page 651
Havana hotel death toll at 30 as dogs search for survivorsVideo
HAVANA — Search crews with dogs on Sunday hunted through the ruins of a luxury hotel in Cuba’s capital for survivors of a devastating explosion while officials raised the number of known dead to 30. The Hotel Saratoga, a five-star 96-room hotel in Old Havana, was preparing to reopen after...
Pandemic pushes public defender system to the brink
PORTLAND, Ore. — A post-pandemic glut of delayed cases has exposed shocking constitutional landmines impacting defendants and crime victims alike in Oregon, a state with a national reputation for progressive social justice. An acute shortage of public defenders means at any given time at least several hundred low-income criminal defendants...
3 Americans found dead at resort in Bahamas; fourth is hospitalized
Three Americans were discovered dead at a Bahamas resort and a fourth has been hospitalized, sparking a mystery for which officials, so far, have few answers. The bodies of two men and a woman were found on Friday at the Sandals Emerald Bay resort on Exuma, Bahamas Acting Prime Minister...
Workers grapple with new stresses as they return to office
NEW YORK — Last summer, Julio Carmona started the process of weaning himself off a fully remote work schedule by showing up to the office once a week. The new hybrid schedule at his job at a state agency in Stratford, Connecticut, still enabled him to spend time cooking dinner...
After leak, religious rift over legal abortion on display
America’s faithful are bracing — some with cautionary joy and others with looming dread — for the Supreme Court to potentially overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision and end the nationwide right to legal abortion. A reversal of the 49-year-old ruling has never felt more possible since a...
Oh, rats! As New Yorkers emerge from pandemic, so do rodents
NEW YORK — They crawled to the surface as the coronavirus pandemic roiled New York City, scurrying out of subterranean nests into the open air, feasting on a smorgasbord of scraps in streets, parks and mounds of curbside garbage. As diners shunned the indoors for outdoor dining, so did the...
More than 60 feared dead in bombing of Ukrainian school
ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine — More than 60 people were feared dead Sunday after a Russian bomb flattened a school being used as a shelter, Ukrainian officials said, while Moscow’s forces kept up their attack on defenders inside Mariupol’s steel plant in an apparent race to capture the city ahead of Russia’s...
N.C. officers kill man setting cars ablaze near police station
RALEIGH, N.C. — Officers shot and killed a man Saturday afternoon who was throwing Molotov cocktails and setting cars on fire near a police station in Raleigh, authorities said. The confrontation began after an officer observed a man lighting vehicles on fire in a parking lot near a district station...
Sinn Fein hails ‘new era’ as it wins Northern Ireland vote
The Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein, which seeks unification with Ireland, hailed a “new era” Saturday for Northern Ireland as it captured the largest number of seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly for the first time in a historic win. With almost all votes counted from Thursday’s local U.K. election,...
Amazon tribes turn the tables on intruders with social media
It was dusk on April 14 when Francisco Kuruaya heard a boat approaching along the river near his village in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest. He assumed it was the regular delivery boat bringing gasoline for generators and outboard motors to remote settlements like his. Instead, what Kuruaya found was a barge...
Goodwill find in Texas turns out to be ancient Roman bust
A marble bust that a Texas woman bought for about $35 from a Goodwill store is temporarily on display at a San Antonio museum after experts determined it was a centuries-old sculpture missing from Germany since World War II. The bust, which art collector Laura Young found at Goodwill in...
Afghanistan’s Taliban order women to cover up head to toe
Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers on Saturday ordered all Afghan women to wear head-to-toe clothing in public — a sharp, hard-line pivot that confirmed the worst fears of rights activists and was bound to further complicate Taliban dealings with an already distrustful international community. The decree says that women should leave the...
Ukraine braces for attacks, evacuates more from steel mill
Russian forces fired cruise missiles at the southern Ukrainian city of Odesa on Saturday and bombarded a steel mill in Mariupol housing Ukrainian civilians and fighters, hoping to complete their conquest of the port city in time for Victory Day celebrations. Ukraine announced that all women, children and elderly had...
Less immigrant labor in U.S. contributing to price hikes
Just 10 miles from the Rio Grande, Mike Helle’s farm is so short of immigrant workers that he’s replaced 450 acres of labor-intensive leafy greens with crops that can be harvested by machinery. In Houston, Al Flores increased the price of his BBQ restaurant’s brisket plate because the cost of...
Sheriff: Car linked to Alabama escapee, jail worker found
FRANKLIN, Tenn. — Authorities in Tennessee say they have located an abandoned vehicle used by a man wanted in Alabama for murder and the jail official who disappeared with him. Williamson County Sheriff said via Twitter on Friday that a vehicle used by escaped Alabama inmate Casey White and former...
Desperate search for survivors in Cuba hotel blast; 26 dead
Relatives of the missing in Cuba’s capital desperately searched Saturday for victims of an explosion at one of Havana’s most luxurious hotels that killed at least 26 people. They checked the morgue, hospitals and if unsuccessful, they returned to the partially collapsed Hotel Saratoga, where rescuers used dogs to hunt...
Tesla covers travel costs for workers seeking abortions
Tesla is covering travel costs for employees seeking out-of-state abortions, joining the ranks of major companies who’ve introduced a similar policy to benefit workers affected by new restrictions in the past few months. The company said in its 2021 ” Impact Report ” released Friday that it expanded its Safety...
New effort races to rescue civilians from Mariupol plant
ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine — A new international effort raced Friday to rescue more civilians from the tunnels under a besieged steel plant in Mariupol and the city at large, even as fighters holed up at the sprawling complex made their last stand to prevent Moscow’s complete takeover of the strategic port....
Russia says it has no nuclear intentions for Ukraine
MOSCOW — Russia has no intention of deploying tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine, a foreign ministry spokesman said on Friday, a day after Moscow’s top diplomat in the U.S. chided Western officials for targeting it with “baseless” accusations. “Russia firmly abides by the principle that there can be no victors...
Jill Biden to meet Ukrainian refugees during border visit
MIHAIL KOGALNICEANU AIR BASE, Romania — For weeks, first lady Jill Biden has been transfixed by the news coming out of Ukraine, by the bombings and scenes of “parents weeping over their children’s broken bodies in the streets,” as she said in a recent speech. Now Biden is using her...
Pelosi sets $45,000 minimum yearly salary for House aides
WASHINGTON — Addressing concerns about the working conditions for some Capitol Hill aides, Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced on Friday a $45,000 minimum annual salary for House staff and teed up for a vote next week a resolution that would pave the way for aides to join a union. While jobs...
U.S. added 428,000 jobs in April despite surging inflation
WASHINGTON — America’s employers added 428,000 jobs in April, extending a streak of solid hiring that has defied punishing inflation, chronic supply shortages, the Russian war against Ukraine and much higher borrowing costs. Friday’s jobs report from the Labor Department showed that last month’s hiring kept the unemployment rate at...
Daunte Wright’s mother detained after recording traffic stop
BROOKLYN CENTER, Minn. — The mother of Daunte Wright, who was fatally shot by a suburban Minneapolis police officer, said she was injured while she was briefly detained by one of the same department’s officers after she stopped to record an arrest of a person during a traffic stop. Katie...
Morning jolt? Swiss find cocaine stash amid coffee bean bags
GENEVA — Swiss police say an investigation is underway after workers at a Nespresso factory in western Switzerland found over 1,100 pounds of cocaine, with a street value of $50 million, as they unloaded coffee beans that had arrived by train. Regional police in Fribourg said late Thursday they were...
Florida deputy runs over beachgoer lying on sand
ST. PETE BEACH, Fla. — A sheriff deputy ran over a beachgoer who was lying on the sand in a Florida beach as he was trying to drive away to check on a 911 hangup call. The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office says the call came as Deputy Todd Brien was...
