New York — Manhattan’s famed luxury store row Fifth Avenue is in line for a major makeover. New York City officials unveiled a plan last week to transform a central portion of the thoroughfare between Bryant Park and Central Park into a more pedestrian-centered boulevard. They propose doubling the size of sidewalks, reducing traffic lanes from…
read moremiami, florida — Hurricane Oscar made landfall early Sunday in the southeastern Bahamas and was heading toward Cuba, an island recently beleaguered by a massive power outage. The National Hurricane Center in Miami said the storm’s center arrived on Great Inagua island. It is expected to produce a dangerous storm surge that could produce significant…
read moreThe artificial intelligence boom has benefited chatbot makers, computer scientists and Nvidia investors. It’s also providing an unusual windfall for Anguilla, a tiny island in the Caribbean. ChatGPT’s debut nearly two years ago heralded the dawn of the AI age and kicked off a digital gold rush as companies scrambled to stake their own claims…
read moreMILWAUKEE — Whooping cough is at its highest level in a decade for this time of year, U.S. health officials reported Thursday. There have been 18,506 cases of whooping cough reported so far, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. That’s the most at this point in the year since 2014, when cases topped 21,800.…
read moreTens of thousands of students in the Southeast are dealing with school disruptions after Hurricane Helene wreaked havoc so severe — on homes, campuses and municipal power and water systems — that some districts have no idea when they will reopen. While virtual learning helped during the COVID-19 school closures, that has not been an…
read moreNEW YORK — Cher, Mary J. Blige and Ozzy Osbourne were among this year’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees, an elite group formally introduced into the music pantheon Saturday at a star-studded concert gala. Kool & the Gang, Dave Matthews Band, Foreigner, A Tribe Called Quest, and Peter Frampton round out the 2024 class…
read moreWASHINGTON — The U.S. is investigating an unauthorized release of classified documents that assess Israel’s plans to attack Iran, three U.S. officials told The Associated Press. A fourth U.S. official said the documents appear to be legitimate. The documents are attributed to the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency and note that Israel continues…
read moreISLAMABAD — Pakistan said Saturday that two children in its southern Sindh province had been paralyzed by poliovirus, bringing the total number of cases nationwide to 39 for the year since March, when officials confirmed the first case. The South Asian nation of around 240 million people reported six cases of paralytic poliovirus infections in 2023,…
read moreSAVANNAH, Georgia — At least seven people were killed Saturday after part of a ferry dock collapsed on Georgia’s Sapelo Island, authorities said. Multiple people were taken to hospitals, and crews from the U.S. Coast Guard, the McIntosh County Fire Department, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and others were searching the water, according to spokesperson…
read moreSome 200,000 mail carriers have reached a tentative contract deal with the U.S. Postal Service that includes backdated pay raises and a promise to provide workers with air-conditioned trucks. The new agreement, which still needs to be ratified by union members, runs through November 2026. Letter deliverers have been working without a contract since May…
read moreANCHORAGE, ALASKA — On a desolate slab of island tundra in western Alaska, a resident of Adak will again become the last American to cast an in-person ballot for president, continuing a 12-year tradition for the nation’s westernmost community. The honor of having the last voter in the nation fell to Adak when they did away…
read moreWASHINGTON — Over the past four years, judges at Washington’s federal courthouse have punished hundreds of rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol in an unprecedented assault on the nation’s democracy. On the cusp of the next presidential election, some of those judges fear another burst of political violence could be coming. Before recently sentencing a rioter…
read moreBANGKOK — Southeast Asia is bearing the mounting brunt of U.S. trade curbs aimed at stemming the forced labor of ethnic minority Uyghurs in China, with billions of dollars in blocked exports, the latest U.S. trade figures show. Economists and human rights experts ascribe the heavy hit the region is taking to global supply chains shifting…
read moreABUJA, NIGERIA — Nigeria officially launched its malaria vaccination campaign this week to protect millions of children from the deadly disease, focusing heavily on high-risk states. The first 846,000 doses of the R21 malaria vaccine arrived in Abuja, Nigeria, on Thursday, marking a milestone in efforts to eliminate malaria. According to the World Health Organization, the…
read moreKAMIMOMI, Japan — In the remote village of Kamimomi in Japan’s western Okayama prefecture, a small group of rice farmers began their most recent harvest in sweltering heat, two weeks sooner than usual. The prefecture is called “the Land of Sunshine” because of its pleasant climate, but farmers working among the paddy fields and ancient rice…
read moreTwo years after reaching a historic biodiversity agreement, countries will gather next week to determine whether they are making progress on efforts to save Earth’s plant and animal life. The agreement signed by 196 countries at the United Nations Biodiversity Conference calls for protecting 30% of land and water by 2030, known as 30 by…
read moreBRADENTON BEACH, Florida — When a hurricane sets its sights on Florida, storm-weary residents may think of catastrophic wind, hammering rain and dangerous storm surge. Mounds of sand swallowing their homes? Not so much. That’s the reality for some after Hurricanes Helene and Milton clobbered Florida’s Gulf Coast with back-to-back hits in less than two weeks.…
read moreAsheville, north carolina — A rare copy of the U.S. Constitution printed 237 years ago and sent to the states to be ratified has been sold for $9 million at an auction in North Carolina. Brunk Auctions sold the document, the only copy of its type thought to be privately owned, at the private auction Thursday.…
read moreWhen a woman has a mammogram, the most important finding is whether there’s any sign of breast cancer. The second most important finding is whether her breasts are dense. Since early September, a new U.S. rule requires mammography centers to inform women about their breast density — information that isn’t entirely new for some women…
read moreWASHINGTON — China-based DJI sued the U.S. Defense Department on Friday for adding the drone maker to a list of companies allegedly working with Beijing’s military, saying the designation is wrong and has caused the company significant financial harm. DJI, the world’s largest drone manufacturer that sells more than half of all U.S. commercial drones, asked…
read moreA union representing striking machinists at Boeing said Friday that it was “actively engaged in indirect discussions” with the plane maker that were being facilitated by Acting U.S. Labor Secretary Julie Su. “We are fully committed to these talks. It is our responsibility to attempt to reach a resolution,” the International Association of Machinists and…
read moreWASHINGTON — As the United States prepares for a presidential election next month, the idyllic New York suburb of Teaneck, New Jersey, is gearing up for elections that reflect a broader trend in U.S. politics. Two Muslim women are running for local office in Teaneck, a town of 41,000 residents with a significant Muslim population. They…
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