U.S./World category, Page 785

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — It’s been more than 1,000 days since a gunman with an AR-15 rifle burst into a Florida high school, killed 17 people and wounded 17 others. Yet, with Valentine’s Day on Sunday marking the three-year milestone, the trial of 22-year-old Nikolas Cruz is in limbo. One...

RICHMOND, Va. — An acknowledged member of the Ku Klux Klan was sentenced Tuesday to three years and eight months in prison on charges he drove his pickup truck through a crowd of Black Lives Matter protesters near Virginia’s capital city. Harry Rogers, 37, of Hanover County, was convicted of...

COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Norwegian authorities deported a truck driver who was stopped by police twice within an hour for driving without mandatory snow chains near a city north of the Arctic Circle. The man, who has been banned from returning to Norway for two years, was “careless of the conditions,...

One of Saudi Arabia’s most prominent political activists was released from prison Wednesday, her family said, after serving nearly three years on charges that sparked an international uproar over the kingdom’s human rights record. Loujain al-Hathloul, who pushed to end a ban on women driving in Saudi Arabia, was arrested...

WASHINGTON — Senior U.S. Navy commanders met this week with sailors on ships on the West Coast after two recent racist incidents triggered one of the first military stand-downs to address extremism in the ranks. The meetings came after a noose was found on one ship, and hate speech was...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Republican Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee on Wednesday advocated for banning transgender girls from playing on middle and high school sports teams, saying transgender athletes will “destroy women’s sports.” “I do believe that transgenders participating in women’s sports will destroy women’s sports,” Lee, who is up for reelection...

Federal authorities are investigating a massive counterfeit N95 mask operation in which fake 3M masks were sold in at least five states to hospitals, medical facilities and government agencies. The foreign-made knockoffs are becoming increasingly difficult to spot and could put health care workers at grave risk for the coronavirus....

The Biden administration has “indefinitely” shelved a proposed U.S. takeover of the popular video app TikTok, according to a Wall Street Journal report. Last year, the Trump administration brokered a deal that would have had U.S. corporations Oracle and Walmart take a large stake in the Chinese-owned app on national-security...

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Wednesday ordered new sanctions against the military regime in Myanmar, taking action after the military this month staged a coup in the Southeast Asian country and arrested de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other senior politicians. Biden said he was issuing an...

MOSCOW — The Jehovah’s Witnesses say a member of the religious denomination that is banned in Russia has been sentenced to 7½ years in prison, the harshest punishment in scores of cases. The denomination’s European office said 63-year-old Alexander Ivashin was sentenced on Wednesday in the Krasnodar region of southern...

A Chinese spacecraft went into orbit around Mars on Wednesday on an expedition to land a rover on the surface and scout for signs of ancient life, authorities announced in a landmark step in the country’s most ambitious deep-space mission yet. The arrival of Tianwen-1 after a journey of seven...

BUFFALO, Minn. — A man who opened fire at a Minnesota health clinic, killing one staff member and wounding four others, previously threatened to carry out a mass shooting at the facility, according to a police report. Gregory Paul Ulrich, 67, was arrested in Tuesday’s attack at an Allina clinic...

An ephemeral artwork made with thousands of footsteps in the snow has captured attention near Finland’s capital of Helsinki. Under the guidance of local resident and amateur artist Janne Pyykko, 11 snowshoe-clad volunteers stamped a series of complex geometric patterns on a golf course. Together, the designs resemble a huge...

MOSCOW — A Moscow court on Wednesday ordered the arrest of an exiled ally of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, but Lithuania, where the associate lives, bluntly rejected the demand to take him into custody. The action against Leonid Volkov by the Basmanny District Court was seen as part of...

MADISON, Wis. — A new legal challenge to Gov. Tony Evers’ latest mask mandate is before the Wisconsin Supreme Court, filed less than a week after the Legislature struck down a previous order and the governor quickly issued a new one. Prominent Republican donor Jere Fabick asked the court late...

DENVER — Three suburban Denver officers fired over photos reenacting a neckhold like the one police used on Elijah McClain before the Black man died in 2019 won’t get their jobs back, officials said Tuesday. The Aurora Civil Service Commission issued a decision Tuesday upholding the firings of Officers Erica...

WASHINGTON — Jill Biden is promising free access to community college and training programs, saying the schools will be an important part of Biden administration efforts to rebuild the economy. A longtime community college professor and advocate, the first lady said people struggling to get by during the coronavirus-induced economic...

SALT LAKE CITY — A skier caught in an avalanche that killed four people in Utah survived by clinging to a tree through the onslaught of rushing snow and later helped save two people, a forecaster investigating the slide said Tuesday. The avalanche on Saturday initially buried six skiers from...

WUHAN, China — The coronavirus most likely first appeared in humans after jumping from an animal, a team of international and Chinese scientists looking for the origins of covid-19 said Tuesday, saying an alternate theory that the virus leaked from a Chinese lab was unlikely. A closely watched visit by...

BUFFALO, Minn. — A 67-year-old man unhappy with the health care he’d received opened fire at a clinic Tuesday, killing one person and wounding four others, and bomb technicians were investigating a suspicious device left there and others at a motel where he was staying, authorities said. All five victims...