U.S./World category, Page 782

NEW YORK — You didn’t have to like or even listen to Rush Limbaugh to be affected by what he did. Conservative talk radio wasn’t a genre before him. Without Limbaugh, it’s hard to imagine a Fox News Channel, or a President Donald Trump, or a media landscape defined by...

Life expectancy in the United States dropped a staggering one year during the first half of 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic caused its first wave of deaths, health officials are reporting. Minorities suffered the biggest impact, with Black Americans losing nearly three years and Hispanics, nearly two years, according to...

AUSTIN, Texas — Power was restored to more homes and businesses in Texas on Thursday after a deadly blast of winter this week overwhelmed the electrical grid and left millions shivering in the cold. But the crisis was far from over, with many people still in need of safe drinking...

KYIV, Ukraine — A court in Belarus on Thursday sent two female journalists to prison on charges of violating public order after they covered a protest against the nation’s authoritarian president. The court in the Belarusian capital of Minsk handed two-year sentences to Katsiaryna Bakhvalava, 27, who goes by the...

MADRID — More than 50 people were arrested and dozens injured during a second night of protests that turned violent in several Spanish cities. The protests were sparked by the imprisonment of a rapper who had insulted the monarchy and praised terrorism. The protests began peacefully late Wednesday in dozens...

INDIANAPOLIS — The president of the The Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields resigned on Wednesday, days after the institution apologized for posting a job listing seeking a new director who would maintain the museum’s “traditional, core, white art audience.” The museum’s board of trustees and board of governors said...

LOS ANGELES — A Los Angeles college student and self-described fascist was arrested after he sat in former Vice President Mike Pence’s chair in the Senate chambers during the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, authorities said. Officials say Christian Secor — a 22-year-old student at the University of California, Los...

DEERFIELD BEACH, Fla. — Two men are accused of pretending to be federal marshals and flashing phony credentials to get out of wearing facial coverings at a South Florida resort hotel. When the staff at the Wyndham Deerfield Beach Resort asked Walter Wayne Brown Jr., 53, and Gary Brummett, 81,...

DALLAS — The now former mayor of a West Texas town says he had already turned in his resignation when he wrote a Facebook post saying it was not the local government’s responsibility to help those suffering in the cold without power. In his typo-ridden post made Tuesday morning, Tim...

BELLE PLAINE, Kan. — An Arizona woman charged in the Jan. 6 onslaught of the U.S. Capitol bragged in a Snapchat video that she was recently recruited by a Kansas City chapter of the Proud Boys, a neofascist organization that describes itself as “Western chauvinists” and has long forbidden female...

By the thousands, U.S. service members are refusing or putting off the covid-19 vaccine as frustrated commanders scramble to knock down internet rumors and find the right pitch that will persuade troops to get the shot. Some Army units are seeing as few as one-third agree to the vaccine. Military...

SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, Texas — Residents, some of whom lack heat or basic amenities in their own homes due to the unusually chilly weather, have been rescuing cold-stunned sea turtles and taking them to a convention center in a South Texas resort town. “Every 15 minutes or less there’s another...

PEDARA, Sicily — Residents and municipal teams worked Wednesday to clean up a Sicilian village near Mount Etna after Europe’s most active volcano spewed lava, ashes and volcanic stones. The eruption, which featured spectacular displays of gushing lava, forced the temporary closure of Sicily’s Catania Airport, a frequent occurrence when...

WASHINGTON — Federal agents have seized more than 10 million fake 3M brand N95 masks in recent weeks, the result of an ongoing investigation into counterfeits sold in at least five states to hospitals, medical facilities and government agencies. The most recent seizures occurred Wednesday when Homeland Security agents intercepted...

COLUMBIA, S.C. — The South Carolina House on Wednesday passed a bill banning nearly all abortions, following the lead of other states with similar measures that would go into effect if the U.S. Supreme Court were to overturn Roe v. Wade. The proposal passed the Senate on Jan. 28. It...

MOSCOW — Europe’s top human rights court has ordered Russia to release jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny, a ruling quickly rejected Wednesday by Russian authorities who are bent on isolating the Kremlin’s most prominent foe. The decision by the European Court of Human Rights had demanded that Russia free Navalny...

Executioners who put 13 inmates to death in the last months of the Trump administration likened the process of dying by lethal injection to falling asleep and called gurneys “beds” and final breaths “snores.” But those tranquil accounts are at odds with reports by The Associated Press and other media...

PALM BEACH, Fla. — Rush Limbaugh, the talk radio host who ripped into liberals, foretold the rise of Donald Trump and laid waste to political correctness with a merry brand of malice that made him one of the most powerful voices on the American right, died Wednesday. He was 70....

Heeding the call of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a state senator introduced legislation Wednesday that would ban all fracking in the nation’s most populated state by 2027 and halt the oil and gas extraction method around schools and homes by Jan. 1. Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is a technique used...

Spacecraft aiming to land on Mars have skipped past the planet, burned up on entry, smashed into the surface, and made it down amid a fierce dust storm only to spit out a single fuzzy gray picture before dying. Almost 50 years after the first casualty at Mars, NASA is...

Speaking in her first sit-down network television interview since taking office, Vice President Kamala Harris stressed the importance of getting educators vaccinated since their work is so important and they work in an environment where protective measures are tough to implement. “Teachers should be a priority,” said Harris on Wednesday....

LONDON — Britain’s 99-year-old Prince Philip has been admitted to a London hospital after feeling unwell, Buckingham Palace said Wednesday. The palace said the husband of Queen Elizabeth II was admitted to the private King Edward VII Hospital on Tuesday evening. It called the admission “a precautionary measure” taken on...

NEW YORK — The $600 stimulus checks got Americans shopping again. After three months of declines, retail sales soared a seasonally adjusted 5.3% in January from the month before, the U.S. Commerce Department said Wednesday. It was the biggest increase since June and much larger than the 1% rise Wall...