Category: Blog

Nearly 45,000 animals have died as a result of a toxic train crash this month in an Ohio town, environmental officials have said. The figure from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources updates the initial estimate of 3,500 animals dead after the 3 February derailment. The toll was all recorded within a 5-mile (8km) radius of the crash site, officials said. Clean-up efforts continue in East Palestine amid a federal inquiry. A total of 38 cars derailed in the crash, 11 of which were carrying hazardous materials. Residents later reported…

A Florida reporter who was fatally shot on the job after the suspect in an earlier shooting returned to the crime scene, authorities say, has been identified as Dylan Lyons of Spectrum News 13 in Orlando. Lyons, a 24-year-old Philadelphia native, and another Spectrum News 13 employee, photojournalist Jesse Walden, were shot around 4 p.m. Wednesday while covering the homicide of a woman in Pine Hills, just outside Orlando. Walden was critically injured but survived, Orange County Sheriff John Mina said. “You know Dylan was a reporter I work with…

After four days of gruelling ballots, Kevin McCarthy flipped more than a dozen conservative holdouts to become supporters Republican leader Kevin McCarthy was elected as U.S. House speaker on a historic post-midnight 15th ballot early on January 7 overcoming holdouts from his own ranks and floor tensions that boiled over after a chaotic week that tested the new GOP majority’s ability to govern. My father always told me, it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish,” Mr. McCarthy told cheering fellow Republicans. Eager to confront President Joe Biden and…

Russia has freed Brittney Griner in exchange for the release of Viktor Bout. An excerpt of Today, Explained’s episode about the swap, originally published on August 9, follows. “I never meant to hurt anybody,” Brittney Griner told a Russian judge during her sentencing hearing last week. “I made an honest mistake. And I hope that, in your ruling, that it doesn’t end my life here.” Griner’s been in the custody of Russian authorities since February 17 when she was detained at a Moscow airport by customs officials who say she…

The suspected gunman accused of killing five people in a mass shooting at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado, last month has been formally charged with 305 counts, including charges of first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, assault and bias-motivated crimes causing bodily injury. Aldrich – whose attorneys say identifies as nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns – faces up to life in prison without parole if convicted on the first-degree murder charges, Allen said in a news conference after Tuesday’s hearing. “When you file 305 counts in a case, that…