Author: Reporter

Have U.S. drug overdose deaths stopped rising? Preliminary government data suggests they may have, but many experts are urging caution, noting that past plateaus did not last. U.S. overdose death rates began steadily climbing in the 1990s driven by opioid painkillers, followed by waves of deaths led by other opioids like heroin and — most recently — illicit fentanyl. Last year, more than 107,000 Americans died of drug overdoses — the highest tally in U.S. history. On November 23, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released provisional data on what happened through the first six months of this...

One would have to go back hundreds of years to find a monarch who reigned longer than Queen Elizabeth II. In her 70 years on the throne, she helped modernize the monarchy across decades of enormous social change, royal marriages and births, and family scandals. For most Britons, she was the only monarch they had ever known. Her death in September was arguably the most high-profile death this year, prompting a collective outpouring of grief and respect for her steady leadership as well as some criticism of the monarchy’s role in colonialism. She likely met more people than anyone...

Wisconsin election officials are weighing whether changes to military absentee voting are needed after a top Milwaukee election official was charged with fraud in false requests for military absentee ballots just days before the November 8 election. Kimberly Zapata, former deputy director of the Milwaukee Election Commission, is accused of taking advantage of relaxed requirements intended to help service members vote. A criminal complaint says Zapata used fictitious voter information to send three military absentee ballots to the home of a state lawmaker in October. Investigators said Zapata told them she was trying to expose vulnerabilities in the election...

The city of Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy for most of the Civil War, removed its last city-owned Confederate statue December 12, more than two years after it began to purge itself of what many saw as painful symbols of racial oppression. It took just minutes to free the statue of Confederate General A.P. Hill from its base before a crane using yellow straps looped under the statue’s arms lifted it onto a bed of tires on a flatbed truck. After the statue was removed, the crew got to work removing the base. Several dozen people, including neighbors...

More than 2,000 experts wrapped up a week of negotiations regarding plastic pollution on December 1, at one of the largest global gatherings ever to address what even industry leaders in plastics say is a crisis. It was the first meeting of a United Nations committee set up to draft what is intended to be a landmark treaty to bring an end to plastic pollution globally. “The world needs this treaty because we are producing plastics by the billions,” said Jyoti Mathur-Filipp, executive secretary of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee for plastics in an interview with The Associated Press. “Billions...