U.S./World category, Page 715

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department is halting federal executions after a historic use of capital punishment by the Trump administration, which carried out 13 executions in six months. Attorney General Merrick Garland made the announcement Thursday night, saying he was imposing a moratorium on federal executions while the Justice Department...

WASHINGTON — For more than two months, Mitch McConnell has excoriated President Joe Biden’s decision to leave Afghanistan as a “hasty abandonment” that will “threaten the U.S. homeland” and lead to a “likely catastrophe.” An accelerated exit that will now pull a significant number of U.S. troops out by this...

SPRINGDALE, Utah — Zion National Park officials and business owners in a nearby tourist town were still cleaning up and assessing the damage Thursday from a massive flash flood that ripped through the popular red rock park, sending mud and debris onto streets. No injuries were reported. Tuesday’s flash flood...

NEW YORK — Donald Trump’s company and its longtime finance chief were charged Thursday in what prosecutors called a “sweeping and audacious” tax fraud scheme in which the executive collected more than $1.7 million in off-the-books compensation, including apartment rent, car payments and school tuition. Trump himself was not charged,...

SURFSIDE, Fla. — Rescue efforts at the site of a partially collapsed Florida condominium building resumed Thursday evening, about 15 hours after the work was halted out of concern about the stability of the remaining structure, the mayor said. Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said he did not know why officials...

AMESBURY, Mass. — A mixed-media painting attributed to Pablo Picasso has been sold after spending 50 years in a closet in a house in Maine. John McInnis Auctioneers, based in Massachusetts, confirmed that the painting entitled “Le Tricorne” sold on Saturday, the Boston Globe reported. The 16 x 16 inch...

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld voting restrictions in Arizona in a decision that could make it harder to challenge other voting limits put in place by Republican lawmakers following last year’s elections. The court, by a conservative-majority 6-3 vote, reversed a lower court ruling in deciding that...

WASHINGTON — The number of Americans applying for unemployment aid fell again last week to the lowest level since the pandemic struck last year, further evidence that the job market and the broader economy are rebounding rapidly from the coronavirus recession. The Labor Department reported Thursday that jobless claims dropped...

CHICAGO — A monument to journalist and civil rights activist Ida B. Wells-Barnett was unveiled Wednesday in Chicago. Officially called The Light of Truth Ida B. Wells National Monument, the commemoration created by sculptor Richard Hunt was dedicated in the South Side neighborhood where Wells lived out her life. The...

JERUSALEM — Israel’s president warmly welcomed his German counterpart on Thursday, praising him as an ally in combatting antisemitism. German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier is set to meet with Israel’s new Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, and is expected to reiterate Germany’s strong support for Israel. Israeli President Reuven Rivlin said that...

BERLIN — The number of people registered as sex workers with German authorities declined sharply last year as coronavirus restrictions shut brothels for months, official data showed Thursday. Legislation in 2002 legalized and regulated prostitution in Germany, giving sex workers social benefits, and they are now obliged to register. But...

WASHINGTON — A Texas congressman who has been an outspoken critic of covid-19 mask mandates went without a mask for at least a portion of a commercial airline flight Tuesday evening, an apparent violation of federal law. Republican Rep. Chip Roy flew from Washington back to his home district in...

PHARR, Texas — Republican lawmakers traveled to Texas to cheer former President Donald Trump as he paid a visit to the southern border Wednesday and hammered the Biden administration for its immigration policies amid a decades-high spike in border crossings. Trump, who was joined by more than two dozen House...

A lawsuit filed Wednesday accuses a St. Louis police SWAT team of killing an innocent man during a “no knock” raid at his home four years ago. The civil rights law firm ArchCity Defenders filed the federal lawsuit on behalf of the children of Don Clark Sr. It names the...

CHEYENNE, Wyo. — A Wyoming man accused of burning a toddler with a butane torch, killing him and disposing of his body in an apartment complex dumpster in February has had his bail set at $1 million. The bail was set for Wyatt Dean Lamb, the boyfriend of the boy’s...

NEW YORK — Revised vote counts in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary show Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams maintaining a thin lead, a day after a first attempt to report the results of a ranked choice voting analysis went disastrously wrong. The mayor’s race, part of the first city...

SALEM, Ore. — The grim toll of the historic heat wave in the Pacific Northwest became more apparent as authorities in Canada, Washington state and Oregon said Wednesday that they were investigating more than 100 deaths likely caused by scorching temperatures that shattered all-time records. Oregon health officials said more...

SURFSIDE, Fla. — Search crews going through the ruins of a Florida condo tower pulled six more bodies from the rubble Wednesday, bringing the number of confirmed dead to 18. It was the highest one-day toll since the building collapsed almost a week ago into a heap of broken concrete....

MADISON, Wis. — The Associated Press and three other Wisconsin media outlets won a lawsuit Wednesday seeking records related to sexual harassment allegations against a former legislator. The AP, the Wisconsin State Journal, The Capital Times and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel sued in March 2020 after then-Assembly Chief Clerk Pat...

ATLANTA — Two police officers responding to reports of gunfire in one of Atlanta’s busiest commercial districts were ambushed Wednesday, leaving one of them shot and wounded, the city’s mayor said. A bystander reported hearing a barrage of shots and said he later saw an officer, bleeding badly and, being...

An Alabama man who stormed the U.S. Capitol with other members of the Oath Keepers extremist group pleaded guilty Wednesday to conspiracy and is cooperating with prosecutors in another major boost for the Justice Department in its sweeping Jan. 6 investigation. Mark Grods, 54, is the second member of the...

WASHINGTON — Donald Rumsfeld, the two-time defense secretary and one-time presidential candidate whose reputation as a skilled bureaucrat and visionary of a modern U.S. military was unraveled by the long and costly Iraq war, died Tuesday. He was 88. In a statement Wednesday, Rumsfeld’s family said he “was surrounded by...