Новости за 01.08.2023

Officials says eight people have been charged with federal crimes in connection with the March kidnapping of a group of migrants that ended with FBI agents fatally shooting a suspect. Federal officials say the abductions began as a human smuggling effort in a South Texas border city but morphed into a kidnapping during a shootout on a rural stretch of interstate east of Houston. They say three migrants were wounded by gunfire and three others were taken captive, beaten and held for ransom.

Prosecutors in Michigan have filed criminal charges against individuals they say took and tampered with voting machines. Prosecutors say those charged worked to illegally take five vote tabulators from various Michigan counties. Some of those accused had argued that local clerks gave them permission to take the machines. Investigators say they broke into the voting machines and performed so-called “tests.” The defendants include Matthew DePerno, who Trump endorsed in the Republican attorney general candidate race last year. Читать дальше...

Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver, who rose to become one of New Jersey’s most prominent Black leaders and passionately advocated for revitalizing cities and against gun violence, died Tuesday after a sudden illness. She was 71. Oliver served as Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy’s top deputy, stepping in for him while the governor was out of state. She also overseeing the Department of Community Affairs, which coordinates state aid to towns and cities and supervises code enforcement. No cause of death was given,... Читать дальше...

Amazon is adding video telemedicine visits in all 50 states to a virtual clinic it launched last fall, as the retail giant takes a deeper step into care delivery. Amazon said Tuesday that customers can visit its virtual clinic around the clock through Amazon’s website or app. There, they can compare prices and response times before picking a telemedicine provider from several options. The clinic, which doesn’t accept insurance, launched last fall with a focus on text message-based consultations. Those remain available in 34 states. Читать дальше...

An estimated $1.1 billion Mega Millions jackpot will be up for grabs, giving lottery players a chance to snap an unlucky streak that has stretched on for months. No one has won the Mega Millions jackpot since April 18. That has enabled it to grow for months, and it is now the sixth-largest in U.S. history. Tuesday night’s drawing will be the 30th since someone last won the jackpot. The odds of winning the Mega Millions jackpot are 1 in 302.6 million. The $1.1 billion jackpot is for a sole winner... Читать дальше...

Wisconsin wildlife officials have revised their new wolf management plan to recommend maintaining the statewide population at around 1,000 animals. The Department of Natural Resources adopted a wolf management plan in 1999 that called for capping the population at 350. Hunters have used the cap to argue for generous kill quotas. The DNR last year released a draft of a new management plan that didn't set a specific goal. The agency released revisions Tuesday that suggest between 1,000 and 1,999 would be a stable number for the state. Читать дальше...

The architect accused of murdering at least three women and leaving their bodies along a remote stretch of coastline near Long Island’s Gilgo Beach is due back in court. Tuesday's appearance will be Rex Heuermann's first court appearance since his arraignment. Heuermann is charged with killing three sex workers who disappeared in 2009 and 2010. Prosecutors also say he’s also suspected in the death of a fourth woman who vanished in 2007. Heuermann has pleaded not guilty to the charges. Investigators... Читать дальше...

Donald Trump’s political operation enters the second half of the year in a strained financial position. Its bank account is drained by tens of millions of dollars that were directed toward defending the former president from mounting legal challenges as he seeks the White House again. Trump took in over $53 million since the start of 2023. But during that period he was indicted twice on criminal charges in Florida and New York — and faces the prospect of two more. The Republican presidential front-runner... Читать дальше...

A longtime Mar-a-Lago staffer who spent years fetching luxury cars for club members is the latest person ensnared in Donald Trump’s ballooning legal troubles. Carlos De Oliveira appeared in court in Florida on Monday to face charges connected to what prosecutors allege was a scheme directed by the ex-president and current GOP front-runner to try to erase security footage after it was subpoenaed by a grand jury. De Oliveira is also charged with lying to investigators. De Oliveira is the second little-known... Читать дальше...

The family of Henrietta Lacks is settling a lawsuit against a biotechnology company it accuses of improperly profiting from her cells. Their federal lawsuit in Baltimore claimed Thermo Fisher Scientific has made billions from tissue taken without the Black woman’s consent from her cervical cancer tumor. They were the the first human cells to be successfully cloned and have been reproduced infinitely ever since, becoming a cornerstone of modern medicine. The settlement came after closed-door negotiations all day Monday. Читать дальше...

U.S. employers posted fewer jobs in June, a sign that the red-hot demand for workers that has been a key feature of the post-pandemic economy is cooling a bit. Job openings dropped to 9.6 million in June, the Labor Department said Tuesday, down slightly from the previous month but much lower than the 10.3 million in April and the fewest in more than two years. The government’s report also showed that the number of people who quit their jobs in June fell sharply to 3.8 million from 4.1 million, another sign the job market is slowing.

A Michigan judge is expected to hear the third and final day of testimony Tuesday at a unique sentencing hearing for the Oxford High School shooter. Ethan Crumbley has pleaded guilty to murder, terrorism and other charges in a shooting that killed four students and wounded others in 2021. An automatic life sentence would be unconstitutional because he is a teenager. Judge Kwame Rowe first must consider the shooter’s mental health, unstable family life and other factors before deciding whether a life term would fit. Читать дальше...

The United States is imposing travel restrictions on citizens of Hungary over concerns that the identities of nearly 1 million foreigners granted Hungarian passports over nine years were not sufficiently verified. That's according to the U.S. Embassy and a government official. The restrictions apply to the U.S. Visa Waiver Program, which allows passport holders from 40 countries to enter the United States for business or tourism without a visa for up to 90 days. The changes that started Tuesday are... Читать дальше...

U.S. auto safety regulators have opened another investigation into safety problems with Tesla vehicles. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is looking into a dozen complaints about loss of steering control or loss of power steering in the 2023 Models 3 and Y electric vehicles. The probe covers an estimated 280,000 vehicles. Five drivers alleged in complaints they couldn’t steer the vehicles at all. Seven more cited a loss of power steering assist. There was one report of a crash but no injuries. Читать дальше...

Spend enough time with ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence chatbots and it doesn’t take long for them to spout falsehoods. Described as hallucination, confabulation or just plain making things up, it’s now a problem for every business, organization and high school student trying to get a “generative AI” system to compose documents and get work done. Builders of AI systems known as large language models say they're working to make them more truthful. But some experts say the problem isn't fixable. Читать дальше...

Global shares are trading mixed as market optimism set off by a Wall Street rally got balanced by lingering worries about regional growth. Investors were also watching for the policy decision by the Reserve Bank of Australia, which kept its rates steady. Benchmarks fell slightly in France and Germany in early trading, while inching up in Britain. Shares finished higher in Tokyo, Seoul and Sydney, but slipped in Hong Kong. U.S. futures fell. Japan said its unemployment rate for June inched down 0.1... Читать дальше...

The fate of an American nurse and her daughter kidnapped in Haiti last week remains unknown as the State Department refused to say whether the abductors made demands. Hundreds of Haitians marched in the capital Monday to protest an abduction that's another example of the worsening gang violence that has overtaken much of Port-au-Prince. Alix Dorsainvil was working for El Roi Haiti, a nonprofit Christian ministry, when she and her daughter were seized by gunmen who burst into the clinic. Some community... Читать дальше...

Two military-ruled West African nations vowed Monday to prevent military intervention in Niger as a military junta attempts to consolidate power after a coup. The West African regional body known as ECOWAS announced travel and economic sanctions against Niger on Sunday over the coup, and said it would use force if the coup leaders don’t reinstate Bazoum within one week. In a joint statement from the military governments of Mali and Burkina Faso, the two countries wrote that “any military intervention... Читать дальше...

Texas A&M University marked its hiring of Kathleen McElroy with great fanfare — balloons, a banner and a signing ceremony. But the celebration around McElroy, a Black journalist who spent decades at The New York Times and was known for promoting diversity in the workplace, did not last. Backlash from diversity opponents unraveled her tenure offer in a matter of days and ultimately led to the resignation of the school’s president. While a looming ban on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts... Читать дальше...

Thousands of Marines backed by advanced U.S. fighter jets and warships are slowly building up a presence in the Persian Gulf. It’s a sign that while America’s wars in the region may be finished, its conflict with Iran over its advancing nuclear program only continues to worsen with no solutions in sight. The deployment of the troop-and-aircraft-carrying USS Bataan, alongside stealth F-35 fighters and other warplanes, comes as America wants to focus on China and Russia. But Washington has started... Читать дальше...

The National Institutes of Health is starting some studies to test possible treatments for long COVID. Millions of people are estimated to have the mysterious condition. The studies are small but each will tackle multiple possible therapies for things like brain fog, sleep disturbances and the theory that lingering virus may be at least partly to blame. The studies are part of the RECOVER project, which had to unravel what the most common and burdensome symptoms of long COVID are before doing studies.

The Michigan Supreme Court is out with a decision that provides critical relief for thousands of people who were badly injured in car wrecks. The court says people getting care for catastrophic crashes before summer 2019 won't lose their lifetime insurance benefits. For decades, people injured in crashes were entitled to lifetime payment for “all reasonable charges” related to care and rehabilitation. But a new state law that kicked in in 2019 set a fee schedule and a cap on reimbursements. Suddenly, 18,000 people were in at risk. Читать дальше...