WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer swiftly set in motion a pair of background-check bills for gun buyers Wednesday in response to the school massacre in Texas. But the Democrat acknowledged Congress’ unyielding rejection of previous legislation to curb the national epidemic of gun violence. Schumer implored his Republican colleagues to cast aside the […]

UVALDE, Texas — The gunman who massacred 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Texas had warned in online messages minutes before the attack that he had shot his grandmother and was going to shoot up a school, the governor said Wednesday. Salvador Ramos, 18, used an AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle in the […]

UVALDE, Texas — Desperation turned to heart-wrenching sorrow for families of grade schoolers killed after an 18-year-old gunman barricaded himself in their Texas classroom and began shooting, killing at least 19 children and their two teachers. By Wednesday morning, many were facing the grim reality of an unimaginable horror as the names of the young […]

KYIV, Ukraine — President Vladimir Putin issued an order Wednesday to fast track Russian citizenship for residents in parts of southern Ukraine largely held by his forces, while lawmakers in Moscow passed a bill to strengthen the stretched Russian army. Putin’s decree applying to the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions could allow Russia to strengthen its […]

KRAMATORSK, Ukraine — Piano music wafted from an apartment block on a recent spring evening in Kramatorsk, blending with distant artillery fire for a surreal soundtrack to a bomb-scarred neighborhood in the eastern Ukrainian city. Everywhere in Ukraine, the 3-month-old war never seems to be far away. Those in towns and villages near the front […]

WASHINGTON — The head of the Food and Drug Administration faced bipartisan fury from House lawmakers Wednesday over months of delays investigating problems at the nation’s largest baby formula plant that prompted an ongoing shortage. FDA Commissioner Robert Califf laid out a series of setbacks in congressional testimony that slowed his agency’s response, including a […]

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea test-launched a suspected intercontinental ballistic missile and two shorter-range weapons toward its eastern waters Wednesday, South Korea said, hours after President Joe Biden ended a trip to Asia where he reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to defend its allies in the face of the North’s nuclear threat. The suspected ICBM […]

KYIV, Ukraine — As she lay buried under the rubble, her legs broken and eyes blinded by blood and thick clouds of dust, all Inna Levchenko could hear was screams. It was 12:15 p.m. on March 3, and moments earlier a blast had pulverized the school where she’d taught for 30 years. Amid relentless bombing, […]

AUSTIN, Texas — Once again, one of America’s deadliest mass shootings happened in Texas. Past shootings targeted worshippers during a Sunday sermon, shoppers at a Walmart, students on a high school campus and drivers on a highway. Among the latest victims were 19 children and two teachers in the small town of Uvalde, west of […]

ISLAMABAD — In Afghanistan, 1.1 million children under the age of 5 will likely face the most severe form of malnutrition this year, according to the U.N., as increasing numbers of hungry, wasting-away children are brought into hospital wards. U.N. and other aid agencies were able to stave off outright famine after the Taliban takeover […]