Scott Neuman

A federal judge has dismissed claims that former White House officials conspired to forcibly remove peaceful protesters last year from Washington, D.C.'s Lafayette Square so that then-President Donald Trump could pose for a photo holding a Bible at a nearby church.

Ethiopians are deciding Monday whether to return Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to office as a growing conflict in Tigray has threatened to engulf the region, unraveling the international goodwill that helped win Abiy a Nobel Peace Prize just two years ago.

The vote, originally planned for last year but delayed by the pandemic, has been described by Abiy as the first attempt at free and fair elections in the country's history.

Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar's ousted leader, is facing a familiar prospect: years after her release from house arrest, she looks likely to be heading back into a prolonged detention at the hands of a ruling council of generals.

Earth-orbiting satellites usually end their lives in a fiery reentry — but a tiny CubeSat scheduled for launch by the European Space Agency later this year might put off a warmer glow than most in its final moments.

That's because WISA-Woodsat is made mostly out of plywood.

It's not such a crazy idea: Since it became widely available about a century ago, plywood has been prized for its strength, rigidity and durability — three things that are good in a spacecraft.

More than 15 months since the first confirmed death due to COVID-19 in the U.S., the coronavirus pandemic has claimed more than 600,000 lives across the country.

But that trend has slowed from thousands to hundreds per day in recent weeks, thanks largely to the ready availability of vaccines.

Southern Baptists are gathered this week in Nashville, Tenn., for an annual meeting that could prove a turning point as the faithful square off on an array of divisive issues that some fear could drive a wedge into the largest Protestant denomination in the United States.

Tuesday marks the first full day for the event in which the voting members of the Southern Baptist Convention could tackle high-profile issues including racial discrimination, gender inequality and sexual abuse.

A song alluding to Abraham Lincoln as a "tyrant" and a "despot" and to the Union as "Northern scum!" is no longer Maryland's official anthem after Gov. Larry Hogan this week approved its repeal — a move that some Republicans say is another example of "cancel culture."

Hogan gave the measure his OK months after the state's legislature voted to eliminate the long-controversial Civil War-era song, Maryland, My Maryland.

Boeing says it has received Federal Aviation Administration approval for a fix to about 100 of the company's 737 Max jets that were grounded last month due to an electrical issue.

Southwest Airlines, American Airlines and United Airlines – the only 737 Max operators in the U.S. — were among the carriers that temporarily pulled dozens of planes out of service after Boeing warned of the potential problem, which was linked to a backup power control unit in the cockpit of some recently-built airplanes.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine be given to adolescents ages 12-15.

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky issued a statement saying, "The CDC now recommends the vaccine be used among this population, and providers may begin vaccinating them right away."

Amazon has won a major court fight against a European Commission order that it pay 250 million euros ($303 million) in back taxes to Luxembourg deemed "illegal state aid."

The General Court of the European Union is based in Luxembourg, where Amazon has its European headquarters. It rejected the European Commission's contention that the online retailing giant enjoyed a selective advantage in the tax deal.

A former nursing assistant has been given multiple life sentences for the murder of seven elderly veterans after she admitted last year to intentionally using fatal injections of insulin to kill the men at a medical center for veterans in West Virginia.

Reta Mays, 46, received seven consecutive life sentences plus 20 years on Tuesday after she pleaded guilty in federal court in July to seven counts of second-degree murder and one count of assault with intent to commit murder.

LONDON — England, Scotland and Northern Ireland on Monday recorded no new COVID-19 deaths – a milestone that health experts said represents an encouraging sign, but caution could be temporary.

Meanwhile, Wales recorded just four coronavirus-related deaths. Even so, it's a sharp contrast to a January peak across the U.K., when about 1,800 deaths were recorded in a single day.

A gunman in the Russian city of Kazan opened fire at a school early Tuesday, killing at least seven students, a teacher and a school worker, and injuring 21 others, Russian officials said.

The governor of Tatarstan, an oil-rich, Muslim-majority region where Kazan is the capital, said seven of the dead were eighth-grade students at Kazan's School No. 175.

A critical pipeline that runs from refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast to terminals as far north as New York was shut down over the weekend after being hit by a massive ransomware attack.

The company announced Monday evening that its Line 4 between Greensboro, N.C., to Woodbine, Md., was operating under manual control, although its main lines were still shut down.

A police raid aimed at alleged drug traffickers that left at least 25 people dead in a shootout in a Rio de Janeiro slum has drawn criticism from the United Nations human rights office, which is calling for an independent investigation, citing a history of "disproportionate and unnecessary" use of force by police in Brazil.

Seven years after choosing to remain in the United Kingdom and five years after opposing moves to leave the European Union, voters in Scotland are going to the polls once again Thursday in a parliamentary election that could set the stage for yet another independence referendum.

The Scottish Nationalist Party, or SNP, is favored to win a fourth term, but its chances of gaining an outright majority in the semi-autonomous parliament are less certain.

Pfizer and its partner, Germany's BioNTech, announced Thursday that they have agreed to donate vaccines to competitors and staff at the Tokyo Games, set to be held this summer despite ongoing concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic.

Less than three weeks after launching a quarantine-free "travel bubble" between New Zealand and Australia, officials in Wellington, New Zealand's capital, announced Thursday that flights from Sydney would be temporarily suspended after new coronavirus cases were detected there.

The coronavirus pandemic has reached the top of the world, where it has reportedly disrupted the annual climb up Mount Everest and other Himalayan peaks just as the window for summiting the mountains opens up.

In recent days, reports have emerged of an outbreak at Everest Base Camp in Nepal, at 17,597 feet (5,364 meters), where hundreds of climbers assemble each year to adjust to the oxygen-starved altitude as they prepare to ascend the 29,032-foot (8,849-meter) peak.

MUMBAI, India — India's top diplomat and his entourage have been forced to self-isolate, participating in a G-7 foreign ministers meeting only virtually — from hotel rooms near the venue in London — after at least two members of the Indian delegation tested positive for the coronavirus.

The head of the European Commission said Monday that she is recommending that nonresident travelers vaccinated against COVID-19 and those from "countries with a good health situation" be allowed to travel to the European Union this summer.

However, von der Leyen cautioned in a tweet Monday that if variants of the coronavirus emerge, "we have to act fast: we propose an EU emergency brake mechanism."

Following days of deadly protests across Colombia against a planned nationwide tax increase, President Iván Duque has withdrawn the proposal that he insisted was needed to fix the country's pandemic-battered economy.

Protests that began last week have led to multiple deaths, and they continued over the weekend despite a promise by Duque on Friday to remove some of the bill's most controversial provisions. On Sunday, he announced the proposed overhaul would be shelved and replaced.

Four astronauts who've spent the past six months aboard the International Space Station as part of the first operational mission of SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule are back on Earth after splashing down safely on Saturday in the Gulf of Mexico.

The capsule, nicknamed Resilience, undocked from the space station at 8:35 p.m ET, taking a 6 1/2-hour journey to its splashdown just before 3:00 a.m. ET. The astronauts are the first U.S. crew to make a nighttime splashdown since 1968, during the Apollo 8 mission to orbit the moon.

No official cause has yet been established for the destruction of an Indonesian submarine with 53 people aboard earlier this month, but some speculation has zeroed in on an undersea phenomenon which has been noted by submariners since at least World War II, though it has become better understood only in recent decades.

Looking gaunt after a weeks-long prison hunger strike, a defiant Alexei Navalny appeared by video link in court on Thursday, where he denounced Russian President Vladimir Putin as a "naked, thieving king."

The organizers of Japan's Summer Olympics, due to start just weeks from now, say they will administer daily coronavirus tests to athletes and will decide in June on what is a safe number of spectators.

At a virtual meeting on Wednesday, International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach and representatives of the other organizers discussed measures to keep the coronavirus in check during the games, which begin July 23.

"The IOC is fully committed to the successful and safe delivery of the Olympic and Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020," Bach said in his opening remarks.

Several former members of the Red Brigades — a violent, radical-left Italian terrorist group that was active in the 1970s and 1980s — were arrested Wednesday in France after years of living under de facto asylum, the French government said in a statement.

The seven fugitives taken into custody, all but one former members of the Red Brigades, were convicted of murder and kidnapping decades ago but later sought refuge in France before beginning their prison sentences.

A collision between an oil tanker and a bulk carrier off China's east coast port city of Qingdao on Tuesday has resulted in an oil spill in the Yellow Sea, China's maritime safety authority and the ship's Singapore-based operator said.