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Miguel Martinez/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution/TNS

5 students died at 1 Georgia school. Now focus is on grieving, safe driving

Current News / News & Features /

ATLANTA — When three Lakeside High students died in a Labor Day crash, it was an unimaginable loss.

“At that time, you just couldn’t imagine that this would ever happen again,” said Tracy Queen, co-president of the Parent Teacher Student Association.

But then in February, a fourth student died in another car crash. Less than three ...Read more

Arvin Temkar/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution/TNS

Georgia House revives hope for new process to compensate people wrongfully convicted

Current News / News & Features /

ATLANTA — The clock is running out for six men who’ve been exonerated of crimes the courts now say they didn’t commit to receive compensation from the state for the decades they spent in prison, but an effort to stop this from happening in the future gained new life this week.

An effort that aims to standardize the compensation process ...Read more

Kevin Richardson/Baltimore Sun/TNS

Key Bridge collapse adds uncertainty to transportation-focused state budget divide

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Even before the collapse of an iconic piece of Maryland infrastructure Tuesday, finding the money needed to sustain the state’s critical transportation network was the largest hang-up left in the General Assembly session barreling toward its finish line.

The crash that took down the Francis Scott Key Bridge has only added to the complexity.

...Read more

HYOSUB SHIN / AJC/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution/TNS

Judge rules Georgia Republican Party vice chairman voted illegally

Current News / News & Features /

ATLANTA — A judge ruled Wednesday that the Georgia Republican Party’s first vice chairman, Brian K. Pritchard, violated state election laws when he voted nine times while serving probation for a felony check forgery sentence.

Pritchard, a conservative talk show host, must pay a $5,000 fine and receive a public reprimand from the State ...Read more

Key Bridge collapse minute-by-minute: Recordings, reports fill in timeline of Baltimore disaster

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Miguel Luna headed to his construction job around 6:30 p.m. Monday, where he and six other workers filled potholes overnight on the towering Francis Scott Key Bridge.

A 22-person Indian crew aboard the Dali, a hulking cargo ship involved in an accident in Belgian waters eight years earlier, prepared to set off on a 28-day voyage to Sri Lanka ...Read more

Philly canceled its Trans Day of Visibility event this year, but will still fly flag at City Hall

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PHILADELPHIA —While a transgender pride flag will be raised at City Hall on Thursday, it won't be accompanied by its usual fanfare.

Celena Morrison-McLean, the executive director of the Philadelphia Office of LGBT Affairs, announced earlier this month that the city's Annual Trans Day of Visibility flag-raising event will not be happening this...Read more

What the Supreme Court's abortion pill case could mean for California

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LOS ANGELES — Lee had just been dumped when she found out she was pregnant.

With no car, no job and no support, the 23-year-old — who asked that her last name be withheld for medical privacy — ended up at the virtual clinic Hey Jane, where she was quickly assessed and prescribed abortion medication.

Four months later, thousands of ...Read more

Cole considered early favorite to win House Appropriations gavel

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WASHINGTON — Texas Rep. Kay Granger’s decision to step down early as chair of the House Appropriations Committee opens one of the most powerful jobs in Congress.

But unlike the usual scramble to claim the powerful gavel, the race to fill Granger’s seat may not be much of a race at all, with Oklahoma’s Tom Cole emerging as a clear front-...Read more

Maduro tests limits of Biden administration's fair-election deal

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Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro has so brazenly disrespected his promise for free and fair elections that allies in Colombia and Brazil took to publicly condemning his crackdown on the opposition.

Barring the opposition’s primary winner, Maria Corina Machado, and her little-known substitute, Corina Yoris, from running in this year’s...Read more

Ukraine's No. 2 city hit by Russian guided bomb

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Ukrainian authorities said the northeastern city of Kharkiv was hit with a guided bomb on Wednesday, killing at least one person and injuring others in the first such strike on the city since the war began over two years ago.

The attack on a block of apartment buildings in Ukraine’s second-largest city injured at least 19 people, regional ...Read more

California legislators push law change after ruling against family in Nazi looted art case

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LOS ANGELES — California legislators plan to introduce a bill Thursday that would bolster efforts by Holocaust survivors, their heirs and other victims to recover artwork and other property stolen from them as a result of political persecution.

Assemblyman Jesse Gabriel, D-Encino, co-chair of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus and lead ...Read more

Lula-Milei clash embodies the world's competing economic views

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There are few presidents in the world today with more radically different economic models than Argentina’s Javier Milei and Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Milei is desperate to gut public spending, sell off state-run companies and slash regulations. Lula, meanwhile, hounds his aides to ramp up spending, revitalize state companies to ...Read more

Key Bridge collapse minute-by-minute: Recordings, reports fill in timeline of Baltimore disaster

Current News / News & Features /

Miguel Luna headed to his construction job around 6:30 p.m. Monday, where he and six other workers filled potholes overnight on the towering Francis Scott Key Bridge.

A 22-person Indian crew aboard the Dali, a hulking cargo ship involved in an accident in Belgian waters eight years earlier, prepared to set off on a 28-day voyage to Sri Lanka ...Read more

As climate change and pollution imperil coral reefs, scientists are deep-freezing corals to repopulate future oceans

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Coral reefs are some of the oldest, most diverse ecosystems on Earth, and among the most valuable. They nurture 25% of all ocean life, protect coasts from storms and add billions of dollars yearly to the global economy through their influences on fisheries, new pharmaceuticals, tourism and recreation.

Today, the world’s coral reefs ...Read more

One year ago, Pope Francis disavowed the ‘Doctrine of Discovery’ – but Indigenous Catholics’ work for respect and recognition goes back decades

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It has been more than 500 years since Vatican decrees gave European colonizers permission to carve up the “New World” – and just one since Pope Francis disavowed them.

On March 30, 2023, Francis repudiated the “Doctrine of Discovery”: a set of ideas the Spanish and Portuguese, in particular, used to justify seizing land they...Read more

69% of US Muslims always give to charities during Ramadan, fulfilling a religious obligation

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Nearly 70% of Muslim Americans say they always give zakat, a yearly donation of 2.5% of one’s wealth that Islam encourages, during Ramadan according to a new study I worked on.

Ramadan is a month-long period of fasting and spiritual growth during which Muslims refrain from all food, beverages and sexual activity from dawn to dusk....Read more

The amazing story of the man who created the latest narco-state in the Americas, and how the United States helped him every step of the way − until now

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When Juan Orlando Hernández was convicted by a federal jury in Manhattan in early March 2024, it marked a spectacular fall from grace: from being courted in the U.S. as a friendly head of state to facing the rest of his life behind bars, convicted of cocaine importation and weapons offenses.

“Juan Orlando Hernández abused his ...Read more

Moscow terror attack showed growing reach of ISIS-K – could the US be next?

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A deadly attack in Moscow on March 22, 2024, exposed the vulnerability of the Russian capital to the threat of the Islamic State group and its affiliate ISIS-K. But it also displayed the reach of the network, leading some terror experts to ponder: Could a U.S. city be next?

There has not been a mass casualty assault in the U.S. ...Read more

Dreamstime/Dreamstime/TNS

Deaths are down in NC jails. But in the latest toll, records show a pattern

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Editor’s note: This story contains reporting about suicides, a topic that will be disturbing to some readers.

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When detention officers at the Wilson County jail found Reggie Monroe, he was already cold to the touch.

He had gone unchecked for at least two hours and died from a fentanyl overdose, according to a state investigative report...Read more

NASA/JPL-Caltech/TNS

NASA's attempt to bring home part of Mars is unprecedented. The mission's problems are not

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Massive cost overruns. Key deadlines slipping out of reach. Problems of unprecedented complexity, and a generation's worth of scientific progress contingent upon solving them.

That's the current state of Mars Sample Return, the ambitious yet imperiled NASA mission whose rapidly ballooning budget has cost jobs at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory...Read more