USA

DALLAS (AP) — As the Taliban swept back into power in Afghanistan in the summer of 2021, Fahima Sultani and her fellow university students tried for days to get into the Kabul airport, only to be turned away by gun-wielding extremists.

“No education, just go back home,” she recalled one shouting.

NEW YORK (AP) — Elon Musk said Sunday that he plans to change the logo of Twitter to an “X” from the famous blue bird, marking what would be the latest big change since he bought the social media platform for $44 billion last year.

In a series of posts on his Twitter account starting just after 12 a.m. ET, Twitter’s owner said that he’s looking to make the change worldwide as soon as Monday.

“And soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds,” Musk wrote on his account.

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi Republican state Sen. Jeremy England says he intentionally wore what he considers a “very embarrassing” Halloween costume to raise money for breast cancer research — a shiny pink bodysuit with a short pink skirt.

Now, England says a photo of him in the outfit has been misused, with a slur directed at him, in an increasingly divisive GOP primary as he supports Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann for reelection.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Standing at an Alabama Statehouse microphone before lawmakers voted on new congressional districts, state Rep. Chris England said that change in the Deep South state has often happened only through federal court order.

The Democratic lawmaker accused Republicans of repeating history and flouting a judicial mandate to create a second majority-Black district in the state or “something quite close to it.”

O’FALLON, Mo. (AP) — In the national reckoning that followed the police killing of George Floyd three years ago, about 2,000 protesters took to the streets in a St. Louis suburb and urged the mostly white Francis Howell School District to address racial discrimination. The school board responded with a resolution promising to do better.

Now the board, led by new conservative board members elected since last year, has revoked that anti-racism resolution and copies of it will be removed from school buildings.

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A deck collapsed at a Montana country club, leaving up to 25 people injured on Saturday evening, police and news reports said.

Emergency services responded to a report of a collapsed patio on the 3400 block of Briarwood Boulevard in Billings at 7:50 p.m., the Billings Police Department said in a statement posted on social media.

There were “multiple individuals with injuries” but no fatalities and a large number of people were transported to local hospitals, Billings Police Lt. Matt Lennick said in the statement.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden will establish a national monument honoring Emmett Till, the Black teenager from Chicago who was abducted, tortured and killed in 1955 after he was accused of whistling at a white woman in Mississippi, and his mother, a White House official said Saturday.

JUNEAU (Alaskia), July 22 (NNN-XINHUA) — No survivors were found after a helicopter crashed in the US state of Alaska Thursday night, according to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) officials.

Four people were onboard a Bell 206L-4 craft operating out of Maritime Helicopters in Homer, a private charter company, said Alaska NTSB Chief Clint Johnson. The helicopter lost contact via an electronic tracking system around 7 or 8 p.m. Thursday local time (0300 or 0400 GMT Friday).

WASHINGTON, July 21 (Reuters) - The FBI improperly conducted warrantless searches for information about a U.S. senator and two state officials, a U.S. intelligence agency revealed on Friday, as lawmakers are weighing whether to renew the surveillance power that makes such searches possible.

The names of the U.S. senator, the state senator and the state judge targeted were not disclosed.

WASHINGTON, July 21 (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Energy on Friday proposed energy efficiency standards on water heaters it said would save consumers $11.4 billion on energy and water bills annually.

The standards on residential water heater efficiency, which are required by Congress, have not been updated in 13 years. Water heating is responsible for roughly 13% of both annual residential energy use and consumer utility costs, the DOE said.