Author: Reporter

This past year has seen a horrific flood that submerged one-third of Pakistan, one of the three costliest U.S. hurricanes on record, devastating droughts in Europe and China, a drought-triggered famine in Africa and deadly heat waves all over. Yet this was not climate change at its worst. With all that death and destruction in 2022, climate-related disaster damages are down from 2021, according to insurance and catastrophe giant Swiss Re. That was the state of climate change in the 2020s that $268 billion in global disaster costs is a 12% drop from the previous year, where damage passed...

Annual tributes and commemorations of the life and legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., begin nationwide for 2023 on January 13, with a typical mix of politics, faith, and community service. For this year’s celebration, the 37th since its federal recognition in 1986, a descendant of King hoped to spur progress by helping more Americans personalize the ongoing struggle for racial equity and harmony. Bernice King, daughter of the late civil rights icon, said people must move beyond platitudes and deepen their own commitments to the needed progress. “We need to change our thinking,” said King, who...

The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation launched a new relief fund December 12 aimed at Black college students, alumni and dropouts overburdened by mounting education costs and the student loan debt crisis. The foundation said it set aside $500,000 for the fund and plans to award more than 500 recipients with relief payments ranging from $750 to $4,500. A public application process for the fund opened on December 12, and recipients will receive their money in January if selected. Details about the fund were shared with The Associated Press ahead of the launch. The BLM foundation’s Student Solidarity...

The death toll from a Russian missile strike on an apartment building in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro rose to 29 on January 15, the regional governor reported as rescue workers scrambled to pull survivors from the rubble. Emergency crews worked through the frigid night at the wrecked multi-story residential building, the site of the worst casualties from a widespread Russian barrage on January 14. The deaths reported in Dnipro were the most civilians killed in one place since a September 30 strike in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, according to The Associated Press-Frontline War Crimes Watch project. Russia also...

In a Ukrainian hospital ward for wounded soldiers, where daylight barely penetrates, a father talks to his injured son for hours. Serhii Shumei, 64, never scolded Vitalii for choosing to go to war. Even now, despite the damage done to his son’s brain by an exploding artillery shell, Serhii feels pride, not pity. “I’ve been constantly with him in the last five months, beside him, beside him, beside him,” said Serhii, a retired former soldier himself. “I’m not going anywhere. … except for a smoke.” Vitalii, a 34-year-old long-range anti-aircraft missile commander, was wounded in the Donbas region of...