U.S./World category, Page 671

WASHINGTON — Thanks to a coronavirus pandemic-fueled mortgage boom, states will get nearly $700 million in federal grants from a special program for low-income housing, more than double the amount distributed last year. It’s a boost that the Department of Housing and Urban Development says should produce a tangible leap...

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Engineers and dam safety specialists evaluating the danger of a catastrophic flood from a leaking Florida wastewater reservoir determined that the threat of a possible second breach was “unsubstantiated,” the Florida Department of Environmental Protection said. Officials had said Monday that a drone discovered a possible...

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea, citing the coronavirus, has become the world’s first country to drop out of the Tokyo Olympics. It’s true that the North is extremely sensitive about COVID-19, knowing that a widespread outbreak in a country with an already battered health system could be disaster. But...

JERUSALEM — Israel’s president on Tuesday handed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the difficult task of trying to form a government from the country’s splintered parliament, giving the embattled leader a chance to prolong his lengthy term in office while on trial for corruption charges. In his announcement, President Reuven Rivlin...

DHAKA, Bangladesh — The death toll from a weekend ferry capsize in Bangladesh rose to 34 on Tuesday after rescuers and villagers recovered nine more bodies from waters outside the nation’s capital, an official said. Local chief government administrator Nahida Barik said the additional bodies were found from Sunday’s capsize...

MARIETTA, Ga. — A global company has stepped in to solve quite a “coinundrum” for a Georgia man. Andreas Flaten’s former employer dumped at least 90,000 pennies on his driveway last month as a form of final payment for his work at an auto shop, he said. When Bellevue, Wash.-based...

U.S. regulators have approved the first new drug in over a decade for children with ADHD, which causes inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity. The Food and Drug Administration late Friday OK’d Qelbree for treating attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in children ages 6 to 17. It comes as a capsule that’s taken...

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A Florida school district fired a teacher shortly after a law enforcement report was released Monday saying he offered to pay for a father’s motel room if he could sexually molest the man’s 2-year-old daughter. Xavier Alexander, a fourth-grade teacher at Grove Park Elementary School in...

CHICAGO — Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Monday that she has directed the Chicago Police Department to capture and bring to justice whoever gave a 13-year-old boy the handgun he was carrying last week when he was fatally shot by a police officer. Adam Toledo was shot in the chest after...

A drone discovered a possible second breach in a large Florida wastewater reservoir as more pumps were headed to the site to prevent a catastrophic flood, officials said Monday. U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan, a Republican, toured the area by helicopter Monday and said federal resources were committed to assisting the...

BODEGA BAY, Calif. — Dozens of people at a popular Northern California coastal overlook watched as an SUV drove through a parking lot without braking and then plunged off a cliff into the rocks below, killing the two women inside, investigators said Monday. The cause of the weekend crash was...

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson on Monday vetoed legislation that would have made his state the first to ban gender confirming treatments or surgery for transgender youth. The Republican governor rejected legislation that would have prohibited doctors from providing gender confirming hormone treatment, puberty blockers or surgery...

The president of the Southern Baptist Convention, America’s largest evangelical denomination, posted a photo on Facebook last week of him getting the covid-19 vaccine. It drew more than 1,100 comments — many of them voicing admiration for the Rev. J.D. Greear, and many others assailing him. Some of the critics...

JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption trial resumed Monday, with a key witness painting a picture of an image-obsessed Israeli leader forcing a prominent news site to flatter his family and smear his opponents. The testimony came as Netanyahu’s chances of securing another term in office following last month’s...

DALLAS — Federal authorities have charged a former Southwest Airlines pilot with indecent exposure for an incident they say occurred during a flight last August. Michael Haak was the pilot in command of the plane during a flight from Philadelphia to Orlando, Fla., according to a one-page filing in federal...

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday signed a law allowing him to potentially hold onto power until 2036, a move that formalizes constitutional changes endorsed in last year’s popular vote. The July 1 constitutional vote included a provision that reset Putin’s previous terms, allowing him to run for president two...

HARTFORD, Conn. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal by Infowars host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who was fighting a Connecticut court sanction in a defamation lawsuit brought by relatives of some of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Jones was...

WASHINGTON — A Capitol Police officer killed last week when a man armed with a knife rammed his car into two officers at a barricade outside the Capitol does not appear to have been stabbed, slashed or shot, a police official told the Associated Press on Monday. Officer William “Billy”...

Jailed Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny has a cough and fever with his hunger strike now in its sixth day, his Instagram account said. Three cellmates of Navalny, 44, have been hospitalized with tuberculosis, a statement posted on his account Monday said. The chief opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin...

LOS ANGELES — A 4.0 magnitude earthquake gave the Los Angeles area a jolt before dawn Monday. The 4:44 a.m. quake was centered in the Inglewood area east of Los Angeles International Airport, the U.S. Geological Survey said. It also was relatively deep, at 12 miles. The USGS said light...

NEW YORK — The closing of physical libraries because of the pandemic has slowed but not stopped patrons and others from calling for books to be banned or restricted. On Monday, the American Library Association reported more than 270 challenges to books in 2020, from Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye”...

A woman in a Memphis Burger King drive-thru line no longer wanted to wait for her food, so she took matters into her own hands. Fox 13 Memphis reported that on Tuesday, Memphis Police said a woman exited her car at a Burger King on Winchester Road, walked up to...

Steam and lava spurted Monday from a new fissure at an Icelandic volcano that began erupting last month, prompting the evacuation of hundreds of hikers who had come to see the spectacle. The new fissure, first spotted by a sightseeing helicopter, was about 550 yards long and about a half-mile...

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court sided Monday with Google in an $8 billion copyright dispute with Oracle over the internet company’s creation of the Android operating system used on most smartphones worldwide. To create Android, which was released in 2007, Google wrote millions of lines of new computer code. But...