Author: Reporter

Mass shootings have commanded public attention on a disturbingly frequent basis across the U.S., from a supermarket slaying in Buffalo, New York, to an elementary school tragedy in Uvalde, Texas, to a recent shooting at a California dance hall. Rather than provoking a unified response from elected officials, each additional shooting seems to be widening the political divide among states on who should be allowed to have guns and what types are OK. “It’s wash, rinse and repeat with these mass shootings,” said Michael Anderson, a bartender who survived a mass shooting at a Colorado nightclub. “They happen, and...

Ohio’s restrictive new election law significantly shortens the window for mailed ballots to be received, despite no evidence that the extended timeline has led to fraud or any other problems, and that change is angering active-duty members of the military and their families because of its potential to disenfranchise them. The pace of ballot counting after Election Day has become a target of conservatives egged on by former President Donald Trump. He has promoted a false narrative since losing the 2020 election that fluctuating results as late-arriving mail-in ballots are tallied is a sign of fraud. Republican lawmakers said...

Exxon Mobil’s scientists were remarkably accurate in their predictions about global warming, even as the company made public statements that contradicted its own scientists’ conclusions, a recent study said. The study in the journal Science in January looked at research that Exxon funded that did not just confirm what climate scientists were saying, but used more than a dozen different computer models that forecast the coming warming with precision equal to or better than government and academic scientists. This was during the same time that the oil giant publicly doubted that warming was real and dismissed climate models’ accuracy....

Widespread opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine demonstrates the strength of a unified response against human rights abuses, and there are signs that power is shifting as people take to the streets to demonstrate their dissatisfaction in Iran, China and elsewhere, a leading rights group said in late January. A “litany of human rights crises” emerged in 2022, but the year also presented new opportunities to strengthen protections against violations, Human Rights Watch said in its annual world report on human rights conditions in more than 100 countries and territories. “After years of piecemeal and often half-hearted efforts on...

The discovery in central Poland of hundreds of objects that were most likely hidden by their Jewish owners during World War II provided a rare and precious find, officials said on January 11. Around 400 items, including silver-plated menorahs, hanukkiahs, tableware and daily use items were uncovered in the city of Lodz last month during the renovation of a house and yard. “Those residents who buried these items did so most likely thinking that they would one day return for them, that they would be able to retrieve them,” Lodz Deputy Mayor Adam Pustelnik said. “Most likely, these people...