Maryland Gov. Wes Moore signs order for over 175K pardons for marijuana convictions
ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Maryland Gov. Wes Moore ordered more than 175,000 pardons for marijuana convictions on Monday, saying the “most sweeping state-level pardon in any state” will help reverse harms from the past caused by the war on drugs. During a news conference, Moore said the executive order will affect...
Biden’s Title IX law expanding protections for LGBTQ+ students is dealt another setback
FRANKFORT, Ky. — The Biden administration’s effort to expand protections for LGBTQ+ students hit another roadblock Monday, when a federal judge in Kentucky temporarily blocked the new Title IX rule in six additional states. U.S. District Judge Danny C. Reeves referred to the regulation as “arbitrary in the truest sense...
Tobacco-like warning label for social media sought by surgeon general who asks Congress to act
The U.S. surgeon general has called on Congress to require warning labels on social media platforms and their effects on young people’s lives, similar to those now mandatory on cigarette boxes. In a Monday opinion piece in the The New York Times, Dr. Vivek Murthy said that social media is...
The trial of a U.S. reporter charged with espionage in Russia is to begin June 26
MOSCOW — The espionage trial in Russia of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich will begin on June 26 and will be held behind closed doors, a statement from the court that will hear the case said Monday. Gershkovich, a U.S. citizen, has been behind bars since his March 2023...
Severe weather forecast around U.S. with high Southwest temperatures, Gulf rain and Rockies snow
PHOENIX — Heat and cold extremes are expected this week in the U.S. Officials warned Southwest residents to take precautions as a heat wave moves east, while heavy rains and flooding could drench the Gulf states and snow threatens parts of the Rockies and Northwest. Extreme heat spread across Arizona,...
Biden’s campaign announces a $50 million advertising blitz highlighting Trump’s conviction
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign is spending $50 million through the end of June, a blitz that includes its first television ad trumpeting Donald Trump’s felony conviction and signals that the Democratic incumbent is seeking to make his Republican opponent’s legal woes a bigger issue heading into November....
The war in Gaza has wiped out entire Palestinian families. AP documents 60 who lost dozens or more
BEIRUT — He is among the very last survivors of his Gaza family, a clan so close they knew without thinking how blood and marriage bound them across generations and city blocks. Then, branch by branch, 173 of Youssef Salem’s relatives were killed in Israeli airstrikes in a matter of...
Israeli officials say Netanyahu has dissolved the War Cabinet after key partner bolted government
TEL AVIV, Israel — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dissolved the influential War Cabinet tasked with steering the war in Gaza, Israeli officials said Monday, a move that comes days after a key member of the body bolted the government over frustrations surrounding the Israeli leader’s handling of the war....
Remains in former home of man convicted of killing wife identified as those of missing ex-girlfriend
JOHNSTOWN — Authorities say human remains found in the former home of a man recently convicted in the slaying of his wife have been identified as those of his missing former girlfriend. Cambria County Coroner Jeff Lees told reporters last week that the remains of Jilly Todaro were identified through...
American tourist found dead on small Greek island west of Corfu. 3 other tourists are missing
ATHENS, Greece — A missing American tourist has been found dead on a beach on a small Greek island west of Corfu, local media reported. The body of the man was found Sunday on a rocky, fairly remote beach on the island of Mathraki by another tourist. He had been...
Police identify Michigan splash pad shooter but there’s still no word on a motiveVideo
ROCHESTER HILLS, Mich. — Authorities on Sunday identified the man who opened fire at a splash pad in suburban Detroit before taking his own life, but his motives remained unknown as investigators worked to determine if he left behind any hint of his plans. Oakland County Sheriff’s spokesperson Stephen Huber...
Clooney and Roberts help Biden raise $28 million at a fundraiser featuring dire warnings about Trump
LOS ANGELES — Some of Hollywood’s brightest stars headlined a glitzy fundraiser for President Joe Biden on Saturday night, helping raise what his reelection campaign said was $28 million and hoping to energize would-be supporters for a November election that they argued was among the most important in the nation’s...
The anti-abortion movement is making a big play to thwart citizen initiatives on reproductive rights
CHICAGO — Reeling from a string of defeats, anti-abortion groups and their Republican allies in state governments are using an array of strategies to counter proposed ballot initiatives intended to protect reproductive rights or prevent voters from having a say in the fall elections. The tactics include attempts to get...
4 Florida officers indicted for 2019 shootout with robbers that killed a UPS driver and passerby
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Four Florida police officers have been indicted for manslaughter in connection with a 2019 shootout on a busy rush-hour street that left a hijacked UPS driver and a passerby in a nearby car dead. A grand jury indicted Miami-Dade County officer Rodolfo Mirabal, 39, with two...
80 countries at Swiss conference agree territorial integrity of Ukraine must be basis of any peace
OBBÜRGEN, Switzerland — Eighty countries jointly called Sunday for the “territorial integrity” of Ukraine to be the basis for any peace agreement to end Russia’s two-year war, though some key developing nations at a Swiss conference did not join in. The joint communique capped a two-day conference at the Bürgenstock...
Are Penn State cuts a preview of higher education divide?
The gap between Penn State University’s sprawling main campus and its 20 branches can be measured these days in ways more personal and profound than highway miles. Stung by double-digit enrollment losses, the branch campuses and their students are about to lose 10% of their faculty and staff to buyouts...
Maine police kill armed man after a night of gunfire, burned homes
AUBURN, Maine — A Maine State Police tactical team fatally shot a man on a rooftop early Saturday after an hourslong standoff in which authorities said he opened fire at officers, two homes burned down, and a person who fought with him apparently died. Police issued a shelter-in-place order, evacuated...
Shooting at splash pad in Detroit suburb injures 8, including 2 children
ROCHESTER HILLS, Mich. — Eight people were injured after a shooter opened fire at a splash pad in a Detroit suburb where families gathered to escape the summer heat Saturday, authorities said. Law enforcement tracked a suspect to a home, where the person died by suicide. At least two of...
U.K. royals unite on palace balcony, with Kate back at her 1st public event since cancer diagnosis
LONDON — Britain put on a display of birthday pageantry Saturday for King Charles III, a military parade that marked the Princess of Wales ’ first appearance at a public event since her cancer diagnosis early this year. The annual event was also a show of stability by the monarchy...
U.S. supports ‘a just and lasting peace’ for Ukraine, Harris tells Zelenskyy at Swiss summit
OBBÜRGEN, Switzerland — Vice President Kamala Harris on Saturday pledged America’s full support in backing Ukraine and global efforts to achieve “a just and lasting peace” in the face of Russia’s invasion, representing the United States at an international gathering on the war and meeting with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy to...
Biden goes straight from G7 to Hollywood fundraiser, balancing geopolitics with his reelection bid
LOS ANGELES — After flying through the night across nine time zones, from southern Italy to Southern California, President Joe Biden is shifting his focus from Russia’s challenge of Western unity to raking in big money for his reelection campaign at a Hollywood fundraiser featuring George Clooney and Julia Roberts....
Trump’s Michigan trip will include stops at a Black church and a gathering of far-right activists
DETROIT — Donald Trump will use back-to-back stops Saturday to court Black voters and a conservative group that has been accused of attracting white supremacists as the Republican presidential candidate works to stitch together a coalition of historically divergent interests in battleground Michigan. Trump is scheduled to host an afternoon...
Haitian leaders oust police chief and appoint a new one as gang violence claims officers’ lives
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Haitian leaders on Saturday ousted Frantz Elbé, the beleaguered director of Haiti’s National Police, following months of criticism that he wasn’t doing enough to protect officers under assault by gangs. Former Haitian police chief Normil Rameau, who also was dismissed from the post nearly four years ago...
U.S. military targets Houthi radar sites in Yemen after a merchant sailor goes missing
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The U.S. military unleashed a wave of attacks targeting radar sites operated by Yemen’s Houthi rebels after one merchant sailor went missing and the vessel he was on caught fire in the latest Houthi strike on shipping in the crucial Red Sea corridor, authorities said...
Divers find remains of Finnish WWII plane that was shot down by Moscow with a U.S. diplomat aboard
HELSINKI — The World War II mystery of what happened to a Finnish passenger plane after it was shot down over the Baltic Sea by Soviet bombers appears to finally be solved more than eight decades later. The plane was carrying American and French diplomatic couriers in June 1940 when...
