U.S./World category, Page 858

ROME — Cardinal George Pell, the former Vatican finance czar who left in 2017 to face child sexual abuse charges in his native Australia, returned to Rome on Wednesday after his acquittal to find a Vatican mired in a corruption scandal. The 79-year-old Pell arrived at Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci...

It didn’t take long for tempers to flare during the first head-to-head debate for the 2020 debate of the general election between President Donald Trump and Joe Biden. From the opening moments of the debate, Trump pounced on Biden — whether it was his turn or not — as the...

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Drownings in Lake Michigan have reached record levels with at least 53 people dead so far this year, according to a water safety advocacy group. The Great Lakes Surf Rescue Project, a nonprofit that tracks Great Lakes drownings, said that compares with 48 drownings in 2019...

WASHINGTON — A lawyer for former Trump administration national security adviser Michael Flynn told a judge Tuesday that she recently updated President Donald Trump on the case and asked him not to issue a pardon for her client. The attorney, Sidney Powell, was initially reluctant to discuss her conversations with...

AUSTIN, Texas — Prosecutors in Texas have rejected a drunken driving charge against conspiracy theorist and radio host Alex Jones, who was arrested earlier this year in Austin. The Travis County attorney’s office rejected the misdemeanor charge of driving while intoxicated against Jones on Sept. 18, records show. A Travis...

BANGKOK — Labor activists, journalists and whistleblowers in Thailand have been targets in recent years of criminal defamation lawsuits for exposing alleged corporate wrongdoing, but now a disgruntled hotel guest has joined their ranks and could face prison time for his online comments disparaging a hotel. American expat Wesley Barnes,...

BAGHDAD — The U.S. State Department said Tuesday it was outraged by a rocket attack a day earlier that killed Iraqi civilians and called on the government to take action amid an impending diplomatic crisis between Baghdad and Washington. The condemnation comes after the U.S. threatened to close its embassy...

HINESBURG, Vt. — A fire chief suffered a minor injury when ammunition inside a burning home shot out and hit him, officials said. Firefighters responded to the fire in Hinesburg, Vt., shortly after 3:30 p.m. Saturday. No one was home at the time, WCAX-TV reported. The ammunition that caught fire...

NEW YORK — Mail-in voting has gotten off to a rocky start in New York City, where election officials sent out a large number of absentee ballots with the wrong names and addresses on the return envelopes. The faulty ballots were sent to an unknown number of voters in Brooklyn...

LONDON — Britain has imposed sanctions on Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, his son and six other senior government officials following the disputed presidential election and a crackdown on protesters in Belarus. U.K. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said Tuesday that the sanctions were introduced as part of a coordinated approach with...

LOS ANGELES — A woman who drove into counter-protesters after organizing a Southern California rally against racism had asked police for help from a hostile crowd but was ignored, her lawyer said Monday. Tatiana Turner was fearing for her life and never intended to harm anyone when she drove through...

BRUSSELS — Child poverty has reached an “unacceptable” level across the European Union, the world’s largest trading bloc, a situation likely to worsen during the coronavirus pandemic, the EU’s external auditor said Tuesday. According to EU data, almost 23 million people under 18 — about one in four children —...

LAKE JACKSON, Texas — A Houston-area official said Monday it will take 60 days to ensure a city drinking water system is purged of a deadly, microscopic parasite that doctors believed killed a boy and that led to warnings for others not to drink tap water. Lake Jackson City Manager...

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The lone Kentucky detective charged in connection with the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor pleaded not guilty Monday. Brett Hankison’s plea comes five days after a grand jury indicted him on three counts of wanton endangerment for firing into the home of Taylor’s neighbors. The grand jury...

AUSTIN, Texas — A grand jury on Monday indicted a Texas sheriff on an evidence-tampering charge amid investigations into the death of a Black man in police custody. Williamson County records show Sheriff Robert Chody is facing the third-degree felony charge that is punishable by up to 10 years in...

BUCHAREST, Romania — After handing Ion Aliman victory in the election for their local mayor, residents of a small village in southern Romania went to his grave to light candles for him. Aliman was reelected in a landslide for an unprecedented third term as mayor of the village of Deveselu...

FORT BRAGG, N.C. — If there were any signs that Staff Sgt. Jason Lowe was struggling, the soldiers he served alongside didn’t see them. The 27-year-old paratrooper was a top performer. He was on the Commandant’s List and had just finished second in his class in the Army’s Advanced Leader...

COLLEGE PARK, Md. — A Maryland county has agreed to a $20 million settlement with the family of a man who was handcuffed in a patrol car when a police officer shot and killed him, a county official said Monday. The Prince George’s County police officer who killed William Green...

SEATTLE — Democrats in the Washington state Legislature thought they had passed a routine sex education requirement for public schools earlier this year. But a coalition of Republicans and religious conservatives launched a swift, historic backlash that’s led to a bitter partisan fight and an effort to overturn the measure...

CONCORD, N.H — A federal jury on Monday found a self-proclaimed white nationalist who rose to prominence during a deadly 2017 rally in Charlottesville, Va., guilty of threatening to rape the wife of a man who was part of a racist group he felt was harassing and bullying him. Christopher...