U.S./World category, Page 522
Prosecutors file charges in set shooting by Alec Baldwin
SANTA FE, N.M. — Actor Alec Baldwin and a weapons specialist have been formally charged with involuntary manslaughter in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on a New Mexico movie set, according to court documents filed by prosecutors Tuesday. Santa Fe District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies filed the charging documents naming...
White House: Harris will attend Tyre Nichols’ funeral
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Vice President Kamala Harris plans to attend the funeral of Tyre Nichols, who died three days after he was beaten by Memphis police officers just minutes from his home, the White House said Tuesday. Harris was invited to attend the funeral services Wednesday by Nichols’ mother and...
Agent insists Alex Murdaugh suggested he killed his son
A state agent insisted Tuesday he heard a possible confession from Alex Murdaugh even after defense attorneys for the disgraced South Carolina lawyer slowed the audio down during Murdaugh’s double murder trial. At question is whether Murdaugh said “I did him so bad” or “They did him so bad” as...
Church of England sheds light on ‘shameful’ slave trade ties
LONDON — Three centuries ago, an enslaved person in Virginia wrote to a leader of the Church of England, begging to be released from “this cruel bondage.” There was no reply from the church, which at the time was accumulating a tidy profit from the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The handwritten...
Boxer Klitschko joins fight against Olympic path for RussiaVideo
GENEVA — Olympic gold medalist Wladimir Klitschko has joined Ukraine’s fight against IOC plans to let some Russians compete at the 2024 Paris Summer Games. The former heavyweight champion suggested in a video message published Monday that sports leaders will be accomplices to the war if athletes from Russia and...
Cheaters beware: ChatGPT maker releases AI detection tool
SAN FRANCISCO — The maker of ChatGPT is trying to curb its reputation as a freewheeling cheating machine with a new tool that can help teachers detect if a student or artificial intelligence wrote that homework. The new AI Text Classifier launched Tuesday by OpenAI follows a weeks-long discussion at...
Bring back dodo? Ambitious plan draws investors, critics
WASHINGTON — The dodo bird isn’t coming back anytime soon. Nor is the woolly mammoth. But a company working on technologies to bring back extinct species has attracted more investors, while other scientists are skeptical such feats are possible or a good idea. Colossal Biosciences first announced its ambitious plan...
Biden visits NYC to highlight grant for Hudson rail tunnel
NEW YORK — New day, new tunnel. President Joe Biden is ready to showcase a $292 million mega grant that will be used to help build a new rail tunnel beneath the Hudson River between New York and New Jersey, part of a broader effort to draw a contrast between...
Winter weather cancels flights, leads to death in Texas
DALLAS — Winter weather brought ice to a wide swath of the United States on Tuesday, causing the cancellation of more than 1,700 flights nationwide, bringing traffic to a standstill on an interstate through Arkansas and causing crashes that seriously injured two Texas law officers. As the ice storm advanced...
FDA revamping foods program to move past ‘constant turmoil’
The head of the Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday announced an overhaul of the agency’s food safety and nutrition division, vowing that a new structure will better protect consumers and the U.S. food supply. FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf said he would create a new human foods program led...
Italy on alert amid anarchist attacks on diplomatic missions
MILAN — Italy’s government has increased security around its diplomatic missions around the globe in response to “a crescendo of terroristic attacks” by an anarchist network that has been acting in solidarity with an imprisoned Italian militant, the foreign minister said Tuesday. Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani cited nearly a dozen...
Ukraine pushes for Western fighter jets after tank deals
KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine won support Tuesday from Baltic nations and Poland in its quest to obtain Western fighter jets, but there were no signs that larger nations like the U.S. and Britain have changed their stance of refusing to provide the warplanes to Kyiv after almost a year of...
Tyre Nichols’ parents to attend Biden State of Union speech
WASHINGTON — The parents of Tyre Nichols, the Black man who was severely beaten by a group of Memphis, Tennessee, police officers and died days later, will attend President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address next week at the U.S. Capitol. RowVaughn and Rodney Wells, the mother and stepfather...
Alaska gold, copper mine blocked over environmental worries
JUNEAU, Alaska — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency took an unusually strong step Tuesday and blocked a proposed mine heralded by backers as the most significant undeveloped copper and gold resource in the world because of concerns about its environmental impact on a rich Alaska aquatic ecosystem that supports the...
‘Hands off Africa!’: Pope blasts foreign plundering of Congo
KINSHASA, Congo — Pope Francis demanded Tuesday that foreign powers stop plundering Africa’s natural resources for the “poison of their own greed” as he arrived in Congo to a raucous welcome by Congolese grateful he was focusing the world’s attention on their forgotten plight. Tens of thousands of people lined...
Tyre Nichols case shows officers still fail to intervene
As five Memphis police officers attacked Tyre Nichols with their feet, fists and a baton, others milled around at the scene, even as the 29-year-old cried out in pain and then slumped limply against the side of a car. Just like the attack on George Floyd in Minneapolis nearly three...
Shooters in central California killings of 6 still at large
VISALIA, Calif. — Two weeks after shooters brazenly killed a teen mother, her 10-month-old baby and four other members of her household, the suspects remain at large. Authorities on Monday provided no motive for the attack in a central California farming community. Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux has yet to...
Feds expect to collect $4.7B in insurance fraud penalties
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration estimated Monday that it could collect as much as $4.7 billion from insurance companies with newer and tougher penalties for submitting improper charges on the taxpayers’ tab for Medicare Advantage care. Federal watchdogs have been sounding the alarm for years about questionable charges on the...
Reports: New grand jury in New York examining Trump hush money
NEW YORK — Manhattan prosecutors investigating Donald Trump have convened a new grand jury to hear evidence in a years-old probe into payments made to keep the porn star Stormy Daniels quiet about an alleged sexual encounter with the former president, according to multiple news reports. The news outlets, citing...
Police: 10 wounded in drive-by shooting in FloridaVideo
LAKELAND, Fla. — Ten people were injured Monday afternoon during a drive-by shooting in a central Florida neighborhood, police said. Lakeland Police Chief Sam Taylor said during a news conference that two of the victims were critically injured, while the wounds of the other eight victims weren’t considered life-threatening. Lakeland...
Brazil’s Bolsonaro applies for 6-month U.S. visitor visa
RIO DE JANEIRO — Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has filed a request for a six-month visitor visa to stay in the United States, indicating he may have no immediate intention of returning home, where legal issues await. The application was first reported by The Financial Times, citing Bolsonaro’s immigration...
Explainer: What’s behind the Pakistani Taliban’s insurgency?
ISLAMABAD — When a suicide bomber struck a mosque inside a police compound in the northwestern city of Peshawar on Monday, suspicion immediately fell on the Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP. In a post on Twitter, a commander for the group, Sarbakaf Mohmand, claimed responsibility for...
Ex-Twitter execs to testify on block of Hunter Biden story
WASHINGTON — Former Twitter employees are expected to testify next week before the House Oversight Committee about the social media platform’s handling of reporting on President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden. The scheduled testimony, confirmed by the committee Monday, will be the first time the three former executives will appear...
Florida sheriff sued for ‘Wheel of Fugitive’ defamation
TITUSVILLE, Fla. — A man has filed a defamation lawsuit against a Florida sheriff who posts weekly “Wheel of Fugitive” videos on social media, saying that he wasn’t a fugitive when his name and image appeared several times in 2021 in the sheriff’s posts inspired by the long-running TV game...
7th Memphis officer disciplined, EMTs fired in Tyre Nichols death
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Two more Memphis police officers have been disciplined and three emergency responders fired in connection with the death of Tyre Nichols, officials said Monday, widening the circle of punishment for the shocking display of police brutality after video showed many more people failed to help him beyond...
