U.S./World category, Page 796

CHICAGO — The brother of Chicago Bears Hall of Fame linebacker Brian Urlacher, who faced federal charges that he recruited for a multi-million dollar illegal offshore gambling ring, has been pardoned by President Donald Trump. Casey Urlacher, the mayor of the tiny Chicago suburb of Mettawa, was among those pardoned...

BERLIN — The German government plans to ban the practice of killing male chicks after they hatch, which results in the death of around 45 million birds per year in the country. The Cabinet on Wednesday approved legislation that will prohibit the practice from Jan. 1 next year. Government spokeswoman...

BRUSSELS — The European Union’s top officials breathed a sigh of relief on Wednesday that Joe Biden will be taking over as president of the United States, but they warned that the world has changed after four years of Donald Trump and that trans-Atlantic ties will be different in the...

WASHINGTON — Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th president of the United States on Wednesday, declaring that “democracy has prevailed” and summoning American resilience and unity to confront the deeply divided nation’s historic confluence of crises. Biden took the oath at a U.S. Capitol that had been battered...

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump, in one of his final acts of office, released current and former members of his administration from the terms of their ethics pledge, which included a five-year ban on lobbying their former agencies. The ethics pledge was outlined in one of Trump’s first executive orders,...

NEW YORK — A retired New York City firefighter and a state court employee were swept up Tuesday in the federal investigation of the storming of the U.S. Capitol. Former firefighter Thomas Fee surrendered to face charges in Washington of disorderly conduct and entering a restricted building without permission during...

CINCINNATI — Federal authorities said Tuesday that they’ve charged a leader in a paramilitary group with conspiracy and related counts after he and some of the group’s members helped storm the U.S. Capitol. Thomas Edward Caldwell, 65, of Virginia, was the first person to be charged with conspiracy as a...

SAN FRANCISCO — The number of western monarch butterflies wintering along the California coast has plummeted precipitously to a record low, putting the orange-and-black insects closer to extinction, researchers announced Tuesday. An annual winter count by the Xerces Society recorded fewer than 2,000 butterflies, a massive decline from the tens...

A U.S. Army soldier was arrested Tuesday in Georgia on terrorism charges after he spoke online about plots to blow up New York City’s 9/11 Memorial and other landmarks and attack U.S. soldiers in the Middle East, authorities said Tuesday. Cole James Bridges of Stow, Ohio, was in custody on...

CARACAS, Venezuela — The Trump administration issued a parting shot to Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro on Tuesday, announcing a sweeping round of stiff financial sanctions that target a network accused of moving oil on behalf of the president’s alleged frontman. The U.S. Treasury Department hit three individuals, 14 business entities...

ATLANTA — Georgia’s secretary of state has certified the results of the two U.S. Senate runoff elections, paving the way for Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff to be sworn in and for Democrats to take control of the chamber. They’ll take office just as the Senate considers whether to convict...

NEW YORK — The College Board said Tuesday it will eliminate the optional essay from the SAT and do away with subject tests amid a changing college admissions landscape. “The pandemic has highlighted the importance of being innovative and adaptive to what lies ahead,” according to a statement from the...

MUSKOGEE, Okla. — A federal judge in Oklahoma has ordered the new owners of an Oklahoma zoo featured in Netflix’s “Tiger King” documentary to turn over all the lion and tiger cubs in their possession, along with the animals’ mothers, to the federal government. U.S. District Judge John F. Heil...

Janet Yellen, President-elect Joe Biden’s choice as Treasury secretary, said Tuesday that the incoming administration would focus on winning quick passage of its $1.9 trillion pandemic relief plan, rejecting Republican arguments that the measure is too big given the size of U.S. budget deficits. “More must be done,” Yellen told...

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday explicitly placed blame on President Donald Trump for the deadly riot at the Capitol, saying the mob was “fed lies” and that the president and others “provoked” those intent on overturning Democrat Joe Biden’s election. McConnell’s remarks as he opened the Senate were...

Twelve U.S. Army National Guard members have been removed from the presidential inauguration security mission after they were found to have ties with right-wing militia groups or posted extremist views online, according to two U.S. officials. There was no threat to President-elect Joe Biden, they said. The officials, a senior...

DES MOINES, Iowa — Lottery players will have another shot Tuesday night at the third-largest jackpot in U.S. history. The Mega Millions top prize climbed to an estimated $865 million, the biggest jackpot in more than two years. Powerball, the other lottery game offered in most of the U.S., isn’t...

TOKYO — One person was killed and at least 17 injured Tuesday in a massive pileup of at least 134 vehicles in blizzard conditions on a highway in northern Japan, officials said. About 200 people were stranded in the pileup, which forced the closure of the Tohoku Expressway in Miyagi...

INDIANAPOLIS — A heavy metal guitarist who was photographed with the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol and is accused of spraying police officers with a pepper-based bear spray irritant has been arrested, the FBI said. Jon Ryan Schaffer turned himself in Sunday after he was featured on an FBI...

WASHINGTON — Containing the coronavirus outbreak and repairing the economic damage it has inflicted are the top priorities for Americans as Joe Biden prepares to become the 46th president of the United States, according to a new poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Overall, 53% of...

LONDON — Lawyers for the Duchess of Sussex asked a British judge on Tuesday to settle her lawsuit against a newspaper before it goes to trial by ruling that its publication of a “deeply personal” letter to her estranged father was “a plain and a serious breach of her rights...

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — An auction house trying to raise money for a youth charity by soliciting bids to blow up a former casino once owned by President Donald Trump called off the effort Monday after receiving a cease-and-desist letter from conservative billionaire Carl Icahn. Icahn told The Associated Press...

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A West Virginia woman took a “Members Only” sign near the Senate chambers as she accompanied supporters of President Donald Trump in illegally storming the U.S. Capitol, according to federal court documents. Gracyn Dawn Courtright, 23, was charged in a criminal complaint with theft of government property...