Relatives of Laquan McDonald and activists in Chicago made clear Thursday that they will continue to fight for federal civil rights charges against Jason Van Dyke, who murdered the Black teenager while working as a police officer. McDonald’s family and supporters held a press conference at the city’s Federal Plaza in response to an...
A leading U.S. drug policy reform advocate on Thursday welcomed the inclusion of harm reduction policies in President Joe Biden’s inaugural National Drug Control Strategy, a plan that comes amid a record surge in fentanyl-driven overdose deaths. “We applaud the Biden-Harris administration for taking the historic step—to support acc...
U.S. President Joe Biden’s reported plan to protect old-growth forests—which help combat global temperature rise by storing planet-heating carbon—is “grossly inadequate,” one climate advocacy group stated Thursday. Biden will mark Earth Day in Seattle on Friday with an executive order on the issue, according to The Washington...
WASHINGTON (AA) – US Capitol Police said Wednesday there was no threat to the Capitol grounds shortly after they ordered an evacuation. “The Capitol was evacuated out of an abundance of caution this evening. There is no threat at the Capitol,” they said on Twitter. Earlier, the Capitol Police said they were “tracking an...
BOGOTA, Colombia (AA) – US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has called for more regional cooperation in the Western Hemisphere as record numbers of people are being displaced around the world. Blinken was speaking on the second day of a two-day conference on migration in Panama City, where he joined regional counterparts from 20 other [...
MOSCOW (AA) – The Russian army has taken control of Ukraine’s besieged port city of Mariupol, Russia’s defense minister said Thursday. “Mariupol has been liberated by the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and the forces of the People’s Militia of the Donetsk People’s Republic,” Sergey Shoygu said ...
GAZA STRIP (AA): Israeli warplanes bombarded two sites in the Gaza Strip early Thursday belonging to the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Palestinian organization Hamas. Warplanes targeted two sites in central and southern Gaza, according to an Anadolu Agency correspondent. No casualties or injuries were reported by the Pa...
JERUSALEM (AA) – Several Israeli websites came under a cyberattack by an Iraqi hacker group, local media reported Wednesday. The Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth reported that they included one belonging to Israel’s Aviation Authority, Channel 9’s website and the website of the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation (KAN). The cyberattack...
TEHRAN, Iran (AA) – Iran’s Intelligence Ministry claimed Wednesday to have arrested three people working for the Israeli spy agency Mossad in the southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan. In a statement, the ministry’s local branch in the border province said the three “Mossad agents” were involved in transferr...
ISTANBUL (AA) – A long battle of Palestinians with Syrian backgrounds has concluded, with those coming from the war-torn Middle Eastern nation winning protection rights under the UN Convention in a European country. Ghada al-Rayan, a Palestinian-Syrian human rights defender, told Anadolu Agency that the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerla...
