U.S. News

SAN DIEGO (AP) — More storms, rising seas and huge waves are taking their toll on California’s iconic piers that have dotted the Pacific coast since the Gold Rush, posing the biggest threat yet to the beach landmarks that have become a quintessential part of the landscape. At least a half dozen public piers are closed after being damaged repeatedly …

DENVER (AP) — An American founder of a Haitian orphanage who is accused of forcing four boys who lived in the institution to engage in sexual acts more than a decade ago will remain behind bars for now even though a magistrate judge in Colorado ruled Thursday that he should be sent to live in a halfway house. Federal prosecutors …

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Ellen Gilchrist, a National Book Award winner whose short stories and novels drew on the complexities of people and places in the American South, has died. She was 88. An obituary from her family said Gilchrist died Tuesday in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, where she had lived in her final years. Gilchrist published more than two dozen …

Residents of eastern Ohio can now get an up-close view in newly released videos of the twin toxic towers of fire that forced them from their homes last February after officials decided to blow open five tank cars filled with vinyl chloride they worried might explode days after a Norfolk Southern train derailed. The National Transportation Safety Board released more …

Georgia senators passed a bill to allow sports gambling Thursday, but not before deciding that the measure also requires a state constitutional amendment, throwing ultimate passage into doubt. The Senate voted 35-15 to pass Senate Bill 386, sending it to the House for more debate. But 34 senators went against the sponsor’s wishes by attaching the requirement for the amendment …

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — The Oregon Supreme Court said Thursday that 10 Republican state senators who staged a record-long walkout last year to stall bills on abortion, transgender health care and gun rights cannot run for reelection. The decision upholds the secretary of state’s decision to disqualify the senators from the ballot under a voter-approved measure aimed at stopping such …

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — The Florida Senate spent much of Thursday passing measures to tell Washington what to do on the budget, term limits and foreign policy — issues Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis continues to push now that he’s stopped his presidential campaign. The Senate passed bills calling for changes to the U.S. Constitution to create congressional term limits and …