South Lake Tahoe residents can return as fire threat eases
SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. — Tens of thousands of people forced to flee South Lake Tahoe could begin returning to their homes after evacuation orders were downgraded to warnings Sunday afternoon as crews made progress against a massive wildfire. The orders that sent 22,000 people in and around the resort...
Hurricane Larry’s top winds reach 125 mph
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Hurricane Larry is expected to approach Bermuda at major hurricane strength, bringing the threat of winds, rain and coastal flooding to the island, as well as “dangerous and life-threatening” rip currents and swells to the U.S. East Coast, according to the National Hurricane Center. Larry’s top...
Search resumes for 2 missing after car swept away in storm
PASSAIC, N.J. — As residents and businesses across New Jersey spent the holiday weekend trying to clean up damage from last week’s storm, rescue workers resumed the search for two friends whose car was caught up in the floodwaters. Nidhi Rana, 18, and Ayush Rana, 21, were last seen Wednesday...
48 people shot over 37 hours in Chicago
CHICAGO — At least 10 children and teenagers were among the 48 shot in Chicago over the weekend through Sunday morning, according to information provided by police. The youngest child shot was a 4-year-old boy who was in critical condition after gunfire from outside went through the window of his...
A hurricane-hardened city coping ‘the New Orleans way’
NEW ORLEANS — Shrimp and grits served for breakfast on the sidewalk at El Pavo Real. “Super Secret” seasoned pork and braised greens handed out at the door of the Live Oak Café. Spicy jambalaya dished out under a canopy erected on the empty sun-scorched streetcar tracks by a couple...
Fauci says covid-19 boosters likely to start with Pfizer shot only
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser said U.S. booster shots against covid-19 are likely to start only with the vaccine by Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE, while the Moderna Inc. shot may be delayed. “The bottom line is very likely at least part of the plan will be...
Hospitals in crisis in least vaccinated state: Mississippi
JACKSON, Miss. — As patients stream into Mississippi hospitals one after another, doctors and nurses have become all too accustomed to the rampant denial and misinformation about covid-19 in the nation’s least vaccinated state. People in denial about the severity of their own illness or the virus itself, with visitors...
7 people hurt when gunman opens fire in near University of Georgia
ATHENS, Ga. — Seven people were injured in Georgia when a man with a gun opened fired into a crowd of people, police said. The shooting happened in downtown Athens at around 2 a.m. Sunday after a large fight broke out, Athens-Clarke County police said. “Seven individuals were injured as...
Florida gunman kills 4, including mom still holding baby
A man wearing full body armor fatally shot four people, including a mother and the 3-month-old baby she was cradling, and engaged in a massive gunfight with police and deputies before he was wounded and surrendered in Lakeland, Florida, a sheriff said Sunday. An 11-year-old girl who was shot seven...
2 anchors of covid safety net ending, affecting millions
WASHINGTON — Mary Taboniar went 15 months without a paycheck, thanks to the covid pandemic. A housekeeper at the Hilton Hawaiian Village resort in Honolulu, the single mother of two saw her income completely vanish as the virus devastated the hospitality industry. For more than a year, Taboniar depended entirely...
Taliban resume some flights, press assault on final holdout
KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers resumed some domestic passenger flights to and from Kabul on Sunday, as the religious militia’s fighters stepped up an assault on the last remaining pocket of resistance being led by fighters opposed to their rule. The anti-Taliban fighters in Panjshir province, north of the...
Army colonel on Guinean TV says government dissolved, borders shut
CONAKRY, Guinea — A Guinean army colonel seized control of state television Sunday and declared that President Alpha Conde’s government had been dissolved in the West African nation, an announcement that came after hours of heavy gunfire near the presidential palace. The dramatic developments Sunday bore all the hallmarks of...
Origin story of the Texas law that could upend Roe v. Wade
The road to a Texas law that bans most abortions in the state, sidestepping for now the Supreme Court’s landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, began in a town called Waskom, population 1,600. The Supreme Court’s decision this past week not to interfere with the state’s strict abortion law, provoked...
Do we need humans for that job? Automation booms after covid
Ask for a roast beef sandwich at an Arby’s drive-thru east of Los Angeles and you may be talking to Tori — an artificially intelligent voice assistant that will take your order and send it to the line cooks. “It doesn’t call sick,” says Amir Siddiqi, whose family installed the...
Biden to mark 20th anniversary of 9/11 at 3 memorial sites
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden will visit all three 9/11 memorial sites to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks and pay his respects to the nearly 3,000 people killed that day. Biden will visit ground zero in New York City, the Pentagon and the memorial outside Shanksville,...
Trafford man dies in motorcycle crash
The Westmoreland County Coroner’s office has released the identity of a man killed early Saturday in a motorcycle crash on Mt. Pleasant Road in Hempfield Township. The coroner’s office said Tanner B. Van Woundenberg, 19, of Trafford was headed north on Mt. Pleasant Road on a 2008 Yamaha motorcycle when,...
‘Hallowed ground’: Families of those on United jetliner, Shanksville community and others forged resolve to see Flight 93 National Memorial come to lifeVideo
Fate threw them together. Two decades later, the unlikely coalition of Flight 93 family members, residents of Somerset County and the National Park Service that worked for years to preserve the story of what happened aboard that United Airlines jetliner will meet this week at the Flight 93 National Memorial,...
Navy declares 5 missing sailors dead after helicopter crash
SAN DIEGO — The U.S. Navy declared five missing sailors dead nearly a week after a helicopter crashed in the Pacific Ocean, shifting the search for them to a recovery operation on Saturday. The move followed more than 72 hours of coordinated rescue efforts and nearly three dozen search and...
German man attacks health workers giving covid shots
BERLIN — A man has injured two members of a vaccination team in eastern Germany after he demanded a vaccination certificate without wanting to get vaccinated and was denied it. German news agency dpa reported that the man, whose identity was not given because of national privacy rules, attacked and...
Northeast deals with muck, waterlogged homes in Ida cleanup
CRANFORD, N.J. — Flood-stricken families and business owners across the Northeast were hauling waterlogged belongings to the curb Saturday and scraping away noxious mud as cleanup from the deadly remnants of Hurricane Ida moves into high gear. The White House said President Joe Biden will survey storm damage in New...
Biden tells storm-ravaged Louisiana: ‘I know you’re hurting’
LAPLACE, La. — Giant trees knocked sideways. Homes boarded up with plywood. Off-kilter street signs. Less than a week after Hurricane Ida battered the Gulf Coast, President Joe Biden walked the streets of a hardhit Louisiana neighborhood and told local residents, “I know you’re hurting, I know you’re hurting.” Such...
Russians rally against government pressure on independent media
MOSCOW — Several dozen Russians gathered in the center of Moscow on Saturday to protest Russian authorities’ recent crackdown on independent media. The small rally was organized by several opposition candidates in Russia’s Sept. 19 parliamentary election and officially billed as a meeting between candidates and voters in order to...
Police: Driver, 45, critical, 4 Akron officers injured in crash
AKRON, Ohio — A driver was critically injured and four Akron officers were hurt when a car crashed into two police cruisers that had responded to a disabled vehicle over the weekend, authorities said. Akron police said the officers were in the process of towing the disabled vehicle when the...
Collision between train, minibus leaves 6 dead in Turkey
ISTANBUL — A collision between a freight train and a minibus in northwest Turkey killed six people and injured seven others Saturday, the Turkish news agency Demiroren reported. The crash at a railroad crossing in Ergene, Tekirdag province, involved a minibus carrying textile factory workers returning from a night shift...
Surviving 9/11 was ‘just the first piece of the journey’
NEW YORK — Trapped deep in the wreckage of the World Trade Center, Will Jimeno lived through the unthinkable. Twenty years later, he’s still living with it. A brace and a quarter-sized divot on his left leg reflect the injuries that ended his police career, a lifetime dream. He has...
