U.S./World category, Page 738
U.S. Homeland Security secretary tests positive for covid
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas tested positive Tuesday for covid-19 and is isolating at home, the agency said. The secretary has been fully vaccinated and is experiencing only “mild congestion,” DHS said in a statement. The agency said he will work from home under the protocols recommended by the U.S....
N. Korea confirms missile test designed for submarine launch
North Korea announced Wednesday that it had tested a newly developed missile designed to be launched from a submarine, the first such weapons test in two years and one it says will bolster its military’s underwater operational capability. The test Tuesday was the fifth missile launch since September and came...
Trump files lawsuit to block release of Jan. 6 documentsVideo
WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump on Monday sought to block the release of documents related to the Jan. 6 insurrection to the congressional committee investigating the attack, challenging the decision of President Joe Biden. In a federal lawsuit, Trump said the committee request was “almost limitless in scope,” and...
Lewes beach renamed to honor former Black business owner
LEWES, Del. — An eastern Delaware town has voted to change the name of one of its Delaware Bay beaches in honor of a former Black business owner. The beach in Lewes, formerly named Beach 2, will now be called Johnnie Walker Beach after the African American business owner who...
More than 5 tons of cocaine seized from yacht in Atlantic Ocean
LISBON, Portugal — An international police operation has seized 5.73 tons of cocaine with a street value estimated at around $232 million on a yacht in the Atlantic Ocean, authorities said Monday. Portuguese police said the shipment was one of the largest hauls in Europe in recent years and the...
College towns plan to challenge results of 2020 census
Some college towns plan to challenge the results of the 2020 census, claiming they were shortchanged because the pandemic forced students to leave campuses and complaining that the undercount could cost them federal money and prestige. College communities such as State College, Pa.; Bloomington, Ind.; and Tuscaloosa, Ala., are exploring...
Biden team asks Supreme Court to pause Texas abortion law
The Biden administration is asking the Supreme Court to block the Texas law banning most abortions, while the fight over the measure’s constitutionality plays out in the courts. The law has been in effect since September, aside from a district court-ordered pause that lasted just 48 hours, and bans abortions...
Removing the %&*@ from Maine’s vanity plates will take time
Removing the flipping obscenities from license plates on Maine’s roads and highways isn’t going to happen overnight, even though a law banning such profanities in a state where such regulation has been unusually lax goes into effect Monday. Currently, there are license plates with salty language including f-bombs, references to...
EPA unveils strategy to regulate toxic ‘forever chemicals’Video
The Biden administration is launching a broad strategy to regulate toxic industrial compounds associated with serious health conditions that are used in products ranging from cookware to carpets and firefighting foams. Michael Regan, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, said it is taking a series of actions to limit...
Colin Powell dies, exemplary general stained by Iraq claims
WASHINGTON — Colin Powell, who served Democratic and Republican presidents in war and peace but whose sterling reputation was forever stained by his faulty claims to justify the U.S. war in Iraq, died Monday of covid-19 complications. He was 84. A veteran of the Vietnam War, Powell rose to the...
Jury selection to start in trial over Ahmaud Arbery’s death
BRUNSWICK, Ga. — As jury selection got slowly underway Monday in the trial of three white men charged with fatally shooting Ahmaud Arbery as he was running in their Georgia neighborhood, potential jurors said they came in with negative feelings about the case and worried about the personal consequences of...
British Museum to display the world’s oldest map of stars
The British Museum will display what it says is the world’s oldest surviving map of the stars in a major upcoming exhibition on the Stonehenge stone circle. The 3,600-year-old “Nebra Sky Disc,” first discovered in Germany in 1999, is one of the oldest surviving representations of the cosmos in the...
Coast Guard: 1,200-foot ship dragged California oil pipeline
Investigators believe a 1,200-foot cargo ship dragging anchor in rough seas caught an underwater oil pipeline and pulled it across the seafloor, months before a leak from the line fouled the Southern California coastline with crude. A team of federal investigators trying to chase down the cause of the spill...
Bitcoin-mining power plant raises ire of environmentalists
An obstacle to large-scale bitcoin mining is finding enough cheap energy to run the huge, power-gobbling computer arrays that create and transact cryptocurrency. One mining operation in central New York came up with a novel solution that has alarmed environmentalists. It uses its own power plant. Greenidge Generation runs a...
In quiet debut, Alzheimer’s drug finds questions, skepticism
The first new Alzheimer’s treatment in more than 20 years was hailed as a breakthrough when regulators approved it more than four months ago, but its rollout has been slowed by questions about its price and how well it works. Several major medical centers remain undecided on whether to use...
Gang with past abductions blamed for kidnapping missionaries
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — A notorious Haitian gang known for brazen kidnappings and killings was accused by police Sunday of abducting 17 missionaries from a U.S.-based organization. Five children were believed to be among those kidnapped, including a 2-year-old. The 400 Mawozo gang kidnapped the group in Ganthier, a community that...
Risky business: Some Capitol riot defendants forgo lawyers
Some of the defendants charged in the storming of the U.S. Capitol are turning away defense lawyers and electing to represent themselves, undeterred by their lack of legal training or repeated warnings from judges. That choice already has led to some curious legal maneuvers and awkward exchanges in court. A...
Bill Clinton released from Southern California hospital
ORANGE, Calif. — Bill Clinton was released Sunday from the Southern California hospital where he had been treated for an infection. The former president was released around 8 a.m. from the University of California Irvine Medical Center. Clinton, 75, was admitted Tuesday to the hospital southeast of Los Angeles with...
Strike dodged with deal between film and TV crews, studios
LOS ANGELES — An 11th-hour deal was reached Saturday, averting a strike of film and television crews that would have seen some 60,000 behind-the-scenes workers walk off their jobs and would have frozen productions in Hollywood and across the U.S. After days of marathon negotiations, representatives from the International Alliance...
NASA’s asteroid hunter Lucy soars into sky
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A NASA spacecraft named Lucy rocketed into the sky with diamonds Saturday morning on a 12-year quest to explore eight asteroids. Seven of the mysterious space rocks are among swarms of asteroids sharing Jupiter’s orbit, thought to be the pristine leftovers of planetary formation. An Atlas...
Now 41, man who killed 4-year-old at age 13 granted parole
ALBANY, N.Y. — Eric M. Smith, who was 13 when he killed a 4-year-old boy with a rock in western New York, has been granted parole, corrections officials said on Saturday. Smith, now 41, appeared for the 11th time before the Board of Parole on Oct. 5 and was granted...
AP review: At least 13 auto safety rules are years overdue
WASHINGTON — After their 16-year-old daughter died in a car crash, David and Wendy Mills wondered whether she would be alive if federal rules on rear seat belt warnings had been issued on time. Four years later, with no rule and traffic fatalities spiking, they’re still at a loss over...
Bill Clinton expected to be released from hospital soon
ORANGE, Calif. — Bill Clinton is doing fine and will be released soon from a Southern California hospital where he’s being treated for an infection, President Joe Biden said. Biden said Friday during remarks at the University of Connecticut that he had spoken to Clinton and the former president “sends...
Van Gogh artwork looted by Nazis to be auctioned in New York
NEW YORK — A watercolor by Vincent van Gogh that was seized by the Nazis during World War II will be sold next month at auction in New York, where it is expected to fetch a price of $20 million or more, the auction house Christie’s announced. Christie’s is auctioning...
Jan. 6 panel moving swiftly as it sets Bannon contempt vote
WASHINGTON — A congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection has moved aggressively against close Trump adviser Steve Bannon, swiftly scheduling a vote to recommend criminal contempt charges against the former White House aide after he defied a subpoena. The chairman of the special committee, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss.,...
