North America

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — A protest strike shuttered businesses, schools and public transportation in a new blow to Haiti’s anemic economy, and unions and other groups vowed to continue the shutdown Tuesday in anger over worsening crime as authorities try to rescue 17 kidnapped members of a U.S.-based missionary group.

FBI agents and other U.S. officials are helping Haitian authorities hunt for the 12 adults and five children linked to the Christian Aid Ministries in Ohio who were kidnapped Saturday during a trip to visit an orphanage.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — When Republican lawmakers in Tennessee blocked a policy to ease up on low-level marijuana cases, Nashville’s top prosecutor decided on a workaround: He just didn’t charge anyone with the crime.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — It was nearly last call on a Friday when Jacob Eli Knight Vasquez went to get a drink across the street from the tavern where he worked in northwest Portland — an area with a thriving dining scene, where citygoers enjoy laid-back eateries, international cuisines and cozy cafés.

The 34-year-old had been at the pizza bar only a short time when shots rang out. Vasquez was struck by a stray bullet and died at the scene.

BRUNSWICK, Ga. (AP) — Attorneys planned to resume questioning potential jurors Tuesday in the trial of three white men charged with chasing and killing Ahmaud Arbery following a slow start and some admonishment from the judge to speed things along.

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas Republicans approved redrawn U.S. House maps that favor incumbents and decrease political representation for growing minority communities, even as Latinos drive much of the growth in the nation’s largest red state.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A child of working-class Jamaican immigrants in the Bronx, Colin Powell rose from neighborhood store clerk to warehouse floor-mopper to the highest echelons of the U.S. government. It was a trailblazing American Dream journey that won him international acclaim and trust.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A House committee tasked with investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection is moving swiftly Tuesday to hold at least one of Donald Trump’s allies in contempt as the former president is pushing back on the probe in a new lawsuit.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is entering a crucial two weeks for his ambitious agenda, racing to conclude contentious congressional negotiations ahead of both domestic deadlines and a chance to showcase his administration’s accomplishments on a global stage.

BRUNSWICK, Ga. (AP) — Hundreds of people were ordered to report for jury duty Monday in Georgia for what could be a long, laborious effort to find jurors to hear the trial of three white men charged with fatally shooting Ahmaud Arbery as he was running in their neighborhood.

The slaying of the 25-year-old Black man sparked a national outcry fueled by graphic video of the shooting. Father and son Greg and Travis McMichael and their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan are charged with murder and other crimes in Arbery’s death on Feb. 23, 2020, just outside the port city of Brunswick.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is launching a broad strategy to regulate toxic industrial compounds associated with serious health conditions that are used in products ranging from cookware to carpets and firefighting foams.

Michael Regan, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, said it is taking a series of actions to limit pollution from a cluster of long-lasting chemicals known as PFAS that are increasingly turning up in public drinking water systems, private wells and even food.