Current News

/

ArcaMax

High court's immunity ruling may not save Trump in Georgia

Current News / News & Features /

ATLANTA — If the U.S. Supreme Court rules that Donald Trump cannot be prosecuted for acts he took as part of his official duties, his Atlanta lawyers are expected to argue that would strip away much of the Fulton County case against the former president.

But it is also possible such a decision won’t make much of a difference to the election...Read more

Georgia man pleads guilty to Jan. 6 charge

Current News / News & Features /

ATLANTA — On the afternoon of Jan. 6, 2021, William Frederick Beals II posted a video of himself in Washington, D.C., to the social media site TikTok.

“So we officially took the White House,” Beals announced in the video.

He wasn’t at the White House. He was at the U.S. Capitol, along with thousands of people who had migrated to the ...Read more

Zelenskyy says Russia is attempting a new offensive near Kharkiv

Current News / News & Features /

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia started a new offensive against territory around Ukraine’s second-biggest city as Kremlin forces moved to breach the border in the northeast.

Artillery has so far been able to repel the assault in the Kharkiv region, Zelenskyy said during a meeting with Slovak President Zuzana Caputova in ...Read more

California shifting to warmer, drier weather, but wildfire season still expected to be delayed

Current News / News & Features /

LOS ANGELES — After another rainy winter that dragged into springtime, California is finally moving toward a warmer and drier pattern, with temperatures expected to hit typical highs — or above — for this time of year.

"It's feeling kind of spring [or] summery," said Rose Schoenfeld, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Oxnard. "We...Read more

Israel's $16 billion war bill puts budget on alarming path

Current News / News & Features /

Israel has racked up a bill of 60 billion shekels ($16 billion) after seven months of war, leaving its budget deficit on a path to blow past this year’s target absent government action to stabilize finances.

Finance Ministry data published Thursday showed the 12-month trailing fiscal shortfall ballooned to 7% of gross domestic product as of ...Read more

Alleged violin thief also robbed a bank, prosecutors say, with note that said 'please' and 'thx'

Current News / News & Features /

LOS ANGELES — The violins were expensive — and very, very old.

They included a Caressa & Francais, dated 1913 and valued at $40,000. A $60,000 Gand & Bernardel, dated 1870. And a 200-year-old Lorenzo Ventapane violin, worth $175,000.

For more than two years, federal prosecutors allege, Mark Meng stole high-end violins across the country �...Read more

Partner talks in their sleep? Here's how to slumber soundly

Current News / News & Features /

Parasomnia — it’s a blanket term for pesky behaviors that wreak havoc on your sleep. A third of U.S. adults get less than the recommended amount of shut-eye, a nationwide struggle linked to chronic diseases ranging from depression to Type 2 diabetes. Some parasomnias, however, don’t affect just the sleeper; they can affect others within ...Read more

Jewish families say anti-Israel messaging in Bay Area classrooms is making schools unsafe

Current News / News & Features /

In the weeks after Hamas' deadly cross-border attacks on Israeli border towns and Israel's ensuing bombardment of Gaza, a seventh-grade Jewish student at Roosevelt Middle School in San Francisco grew accustomed to seeing her classmates display their support for Palestinians.

Students wore shirts that read "Free Palestine" and "All eyes on Gaza....Read more

Jerry Jackson/Baltimore Sun/TNS

Saturday's detonation should free the ship that hit the Key Bridge. What's next?

Current News / News & Features /

BALTIMORE — The Dali has sat, entangled with the remains of the Francis Scott Key Bridge that it knocked down, for the past six weeks, becoming a Baltimore landmark as crews work to clear the channel around it of debris.

But in the most dramatic step yet to free the ship, authorities plan to use explosive devices Saturday evening to slice up...Read more

Bird flu detected in Colorado dairy cattle − a vet explains the risks of the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus

Current News / News & Features /

Colorado has highly pathogenic avian influenza – also known as HPAI or bird flu – on a dairy farm, the ninth state with confirmed cases. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Veterinary Services Laboratories confirmed the virus on April 25, 2024, in a herd in northeast Colorado.

This farm is one of 35 dairy farms across ...Read more

Medicine doesn’t just have ‘conscientious objectors’ − there are ‘conscientious providers,’ too

Current News / News & Features /

When we think about harm, we typically think of physical or psychological suffering. But ethicists point out that we can also suffer “moral injury” when forced to do something at odds with our deeply held values.

Moral injury is often associated with military veterans. It can also occur in health care, however, when providers are ...Read more

Sudan’s descent into chaos sets stage for al-Qaida to make a return to historic stronghold

Current News / News & Features /

“Sudan’s moment has come; chaos is our chance to sow the seeds of jihad,” warned Abu Hudhaifa al-Sudani, a high-ranking al-Qaida leader, in an October 2022 manifesto.

His words may have seemed premature at the time, but a year of brutal civil war has now plunged Sudan into the kind of chaos in which terrorist groups thrive. The ...Read more

How cannabis and psilocybin might help some of the 50 million Americans who are experiencing chronic pain

Current News / News & Features /

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency announced in late April 2024 that it plans to ease federal restrictions on cannabis, reclassifying it from a Schedule I drug to the less restricted Schedule III, which includes drugs such as Tylenol with codeine, testosterone and other anabolic steroids. This historic shift signals an acknowledgment of the ...Read more

Energix Renewables/City of Philadelphia Office of Sustainability/TNS/TNS

Environmentalists battle to get Peco to increase its use of green energy, but the oil industry calls it a job killer

Current News / News & Features /

PHILADELPHIA —The nation is in the middle of a contentious transformation from fossil fuels to renewable energy.

It's a change either hailed by environmentalists for addressing climate change and public health or loathed by the oil and gas industry for killing jobs and being less reliable, efficient and affordable. And what the increase in ...Read more

Renée C. Byer/rbyer@sacbee.com/The Sacramento Bee/TNS

On a dangerous Sacramento road, one young man lost his leg. Another lost his life

Current News / News & Features /

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Dirk Couvson was still lying in the street — still bleeding — when he made his first phone call after the crash. He called his mother.

Lythia Bouie answered the phone at almost 11 p.m., and for a moment, she thought her wisecracking youngest boy was joking. But she heard something terrible in her son’s voice, ...Read more

Ryan C. Hermens/Lexington Herald-Leader/TNS

'Dysfunction': Teens' grievances reveal safety, hygiene problems in Kentucky juvenile justice facilities

Current News / News & Features /

LEXINGTON, Ky. — Inmates got spoiled milk and uncooked or burned food, served with dirty cups and utensils.

Bed sheets weren’t washed for weeks. Inmates were threatened with sexual violence by other inmates.

Guards, who sometimes failed to conduct safety checks, withheld showers. Prescription medicines weren’t handed out.

Some days ...Read more

Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times/TNS

'Are you a Zionist?' Checkpoints at UCLA encampment provoked fear, debate among Jews

Current News / News & Features /

LOS ANGELES — Eilon Presman was about 100 feet from the UCLA Palestinian solidarity encampment when he heard the screams: "Zionist! Zionist!"

The 20-year-old junior, who is Israeli, realized the activists were pointing at him.

"Human chain!" they cried.

A line of protesters linked arms and marched toward him, Presman said, blocking him ...Read more

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images North America/TNS

Section 8 seeks to help Sacramento residents find housing, but stigma causes barriers

Current News / News & Features /

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Despite programs to subsidize rental housing, low-income recipients often struggle to find a place as cost of living rises and landlords refuse Section 8 vouchers.

The Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency manages local housing voucher programs in Sacramento and the county and has 12 different wait lists for housing...Read more

Fireworks, drones, Travis Scott hats: USC hosts alternative graduation event. Feelings are mixed

Current News / News & Features /

No valedictorian speech. No celebrity speakers. No main-stage ceremony, and no massive graduate walk to “Pomp and Circumstance” before tens of thousands of guests.

Instead, the University of Southern California’s graduating seniors — whose traditional main graduation ceremony was canceled — were thrown an alternative party Thursday ...Read more

Amir Cohen/Pool/AFP/GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/TNS

Netanyahu vows Israel will fight alone even without US help

Current News / News & Features /

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu struck a defiant tone against President Joe Biden after the U.S. withheld a shipment of bombs as a warning to its top Middle East ally not to invade the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

In a first, punchy clip on the social media site X, Netanyahu said: “If we have to stand alone, we will stand alone” ...Read more