News

By LISA RATHKE Associated Press Vermont’s agriculture secretary says 89 organic dairy farms in the Northeast will lose their contracts with an organic dairy company when it stops buying milk in the region by the end of August of next year. Agriculture Secretary Anson Tebbetts says Danone, the parent company of Horizon Organic, notified farms

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Maryland’s highest court will reconsider the punishment of Lee Boyd Malvo. He’s serving life without parole for sniper attacks that terrorized the Washington, D.C., region in 2002. At issue is whether Maryland’s new law abolishing life without parole for crimes by youths should be extended to people already serving such sentences.

By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER AP Economics Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve will start dialing back its ultra-low-interest rate policies this year as long as hiring continues to improve, Chair Jerome Powell said Friday, signaling the beginning of the end of the Fed’s extraordinary response to the pandemic recession. Such a move could lead to

By MARI YAMAGUCHI Associated Press TOKYO (AP) — The head of a U.N. team reviewing progress in the cleanup of the wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant says too little is known about melted fuel inside the damaged reactors, even a decade after the disaster, to be able to tell if its decommissioning can be finished

WAVERLY, Tenn. (AP) — A funeral home manager says 20 people who died in a Tennessee flood have had their funerals paid for by an anonymous donor. Humphreys County Funeral Home manager William Brown told the Tennessean that a man who wished to remain unnamed walked in on Thursday and paid for nine funerals being

By MOGOMOTSI MAGOME Associated Press JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South Africa will this weekend receive 2.2 million Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine doses donated by the United States to add to the 5.6 million doses it received from the U.S. in July. The new doses come as South Africa continues to battle a resurgence of COVID-19 infections and is

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER AP Economics Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — Growth in U.S. consumer spending slowed in July to a modest increase of 0.3% while inflation over the past 12 months rose to the fastest pace in three decades. The July increase in spending was down sharply from a 1.1% rise in June, the Commerce Department

BERLIN (AP) — The Swiss government has approved the extradition of a key figure sought by Germany in a massive tax evasion case. The Federal Office of Justice said Friday that it had given the green light on Aug. 20 for the extradition of German lawyer Hanno Berger. The lawyer, who was arrested in Switzerland

LONDON (AP) — A huge fire at an industrial park in the central England town of Leamington Spa is sending up dramatic plumes of dark smoke that can be seen for miles. The emergency services have evacuated nearby properties and told people living in the surrounding area to close their windows and doors. Local lawmaker

By MIKE CORDER Associated Press THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The Amsterdam municipality says it will return a valuable painting by Wassily Kandinsky to the heirs of a Jewish family that originally owned it. The decision ends years of legal wrangling over the work that was sold at auction in 1940. A lawyer who has