The Columbian

Nation & World

This photo taken from a drone video provided by Ukraine Patrol Police, shows devastation in Chasiv Yar, an eastern Ukrainian city Russia is assaulting, Ukraine, Monday, April 29, 2024. The footage shows the community of Chasiv Yar - which is set amid green fields and woodland - reduced to a skeletal ghost town with few residents left. The apocalyptic scene is reminiscent of the cities of Bakhmut and Avdiivka, which Ukraine yielded after months of bombardment and huge losses for the Kremlin’s forces.

Drone footage shows devastation in Ukraine’s strategic eastern city of Chasiv Yar as Russians near

May 1, 2024, 7:42am Nation & World

Months of relentless Russian artillery pounding have devastated a strategic city in eastern Ukraine, new drone footage obtained by The Associated Press shows, with barely a building left intact, homes and municipal offices charred and a town that once had a population of 12,000 now all but deserted. Read story

In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, an aerial photo shows rescuers work at the site of a collapsed road section of the Meizhou-Dabu Expressway in Meizhou, south China’s Guangdong Province, Wednesday, May 1, 2024. A section of a highway collapsed early Wednesday in southern China leaving more than a dozen of people dead, local officials said, after the area had experienced heavy rain in recent days.

Highway collapse in China’s southern Guangdong province leaves at least 24 dead

May 1, 2024, 7:42am Nation & World

A section of a highway collapsed early Wednesday in southern China, sending cars tumbling and leaving at least 24 people dead, according to state media. Read story

Metro train collides with bus in downtown Los Angeles, injuring more than 50

April 30, 2024, 4:59pm Nation & World

At least 55 people were hurt, two seriously, when a Metro light rail train and a University of Southern California shuttle bus collided Tuesday along a busy thoroughfare in downtown Los Angeles, officials said. Read story

Edgard Leblanc Fils speaks after the transitional council named him president of the council in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Tuesday, April 30, 2024. The transitional council will act as the country’s presidency until it can arrange presidential elections sometime before it disbands, which must be by February 2026.

Haiti’s transitional council names a new prime minister in the hopes of quelling stifling violence

April 30, 2024, 3:29pm Nation & World

Haiti’s newly installed transitional council chose a little known former sports minister as the Caribbean country’s prime minister Tuesday as part of its monumental task of trying to establish a stable new government amid stifling violence. Read story

Michigan Bishop David Bard presides at a session of the General Conference of the United Methodist Church on Tuesday, April 30, 2024, in Charlotte, N.C.

United Methodists begin to reverse long-standing anti-LGBTQ policies

April 30, 2024, 3:25pm Churches & Religion

United Methodist delegates began making historic changes in their policies on sexuality on Tuesday — voting without debate to reverse a series of anti-LGBTQ policies. Read story

FEMA, state officials survey Oklahoma tornado damage in deadly storm

April 30, 2024, 2:56pm Nation & World

A Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator said Tuesday that “our heart aches for the loss of life” in tornadoes that left four dead and about 100 injured in Oklahoma. Read story

Activists protest before a trial for a mass environmental injury case outside the federal courthouse on Monday, April 29, 2024, in Honolulu. The trial is set to begin Monday more than two years after a U.S. military fuel tank facility under ground poisoned thousands of people when it leaked jet fuel into Pearl Harbor’s drinking water.

A Hawaii military family avoids tap water at home. They’re among those suing over 2021 jet fuel leak

April 30, 2024, 1:51pm Nation & World

JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, Hawaii (AP) — Richelle Dietz, a mother of two and wife of a U.S. Navy chief petty officer, often thinks about water. Read story

This undated photo released early Tuesday, April 30, 2024, by the U.S. military’s Central Command shows construction off a floating pier in the Mediterranean Sea off the Gaza Strip. A U.S. Navy ship involved in the American-led effort to bring more aid into the besieged Gaza Strip is off shore from the enclave, slowly building out a floating platform for the operation, satellite photos analyzed Monday, April 29, 2024, by The Associated Press show. (U.S.

The US is building a pier off Gaza to bring in humanitarian aid. Here’s how it would work

April 30, 2024, 12:40pm Nation & World

The U.S. and allies are scrambling to pull together a complex system that will move tons of humanitarian aid into Gaza by sea. Nearly two months after President Joe Biden gave the order, U.S. Army and Navy troops are assembling a large floating platform several miles off the Gaza coast that will… Read story

Multiple law enforcement vehicles respond in the neighborhood where several officers on a task force trying to serve a warrant were shot in Charlotte, N.C., Monday, April 29, 2024.

4 officers killed in North Carolina were at disadvantage as shots rained from above, police say

April 30, 2024, 11:50am Nation & World

A shootout that killed four law enforcement officers and wounded four others in North Carolina began as officers approached a home to serve a warrant for a felon wanted for possessing a firearm, police said. Read story