National-World

Thursday brought havoc to the roads in Iowa and left dozens of people stranded by ice floes in Wisconsin, with a powerful winter storm showing no signs of abating in the Midwest. Whiteout conditions along Interstate 80 west of Newton, Iowa, led to a 40-vehicle pileup there, the state patrol said Thursday afternoon. Troopers, who

African nations are being left behind in obtaining Covid-19 vaccines as richer countries stockpile vaccines and prioritize their own populations — despite a surge in cases and a new variant affecting the continent. On Monday, South Africa took delivery of its first million doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, with another 500,000 expected later this

A top doctor at the Russian hospital where opposition leader Alexey Navalny was treated immediately after his poisoning last summer has died, the hospital said on Thursday. Sergey Maximishin, who was the deputy chief physician of the Omsk emergency hospital, “suddenly” died at the age of 55, according to a statement released by the hospital.

Hong Kong has introduced sweeping new restrictions for how schools operate, months after the Beijing government imposed a new national security law giving authorities wide-ranging powers to crack down on vaguely defined political crimes. For years, parents and students in the semi-autonomous city have feared a shift toward China-style “patriotic education,” with a previous attempt

The global food system is the primary driver of biodiversity loss and species extinction, and a shift to plant based diets is needed to curb the damage being done to nature, according to a new report. Biodiversity, which is crucial to both human well-being and a healthy planet, is declining faster than at any time

Dr. Alfonso Velandia starts each hospital shift by counting his troops in the battle against coronavirus. The 46-year-old emergency specialist manages intensive care units (ICUs) at the Cardiovascular Hospital in Soacha, a working-class suburb of Colombia’s capital Bogotá. Since the pandemic began, he says he has seen the number of healthcare workers under his watch

The fatal shooting of a New Mexico State Police officer Thursday led to a high-speed chase that ended in a shootout with the suspect. State Police said Officer Darian Jarrott was killed on Interstate 10 near the town of Akela in Luna County, about 70 miles northwest of El Paso, Texas. Jarrott, 28, initiated a

San Quentin State Prison, where a deadly coronavirus outbreak was reported last summer, has been fined more than $400,000 by the California Department of Industrial Relation’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health for workplace safety violations. According to the notification of penalty issued Monday, the prison, California’s oldest, failed to report coronavirus illnesses or deaths

Teachers at a Wisconsin middle school have been placed on administrative leave after an unapproved lesson about slavery upset families. Sixth graders at Patrick Marsh Middle School in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, received an assignment about ancient Mesopotamia that asked a question about how a slave should be treated, the school’s principals said in a letter

An audit by Florida’s Palm Beach County Health Care District revealed that 1,160 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine were spoiled last month when someone unintentionally shut off the refrigerator in which they were stored, the district said Thursday. The audit came a day after the Florida Department of Health asked the district to perform