Nation & World

A jury has awarded over $1.2 million to Robert De Niro's former personal assistant after finding his production company engaged in gender discrimination and retaliation. While the jury found De Niro was not personally liable for the abuse, they said his company, Canal Productions, should make two payments of $632,142 to his longtime personal assistant, Graham Chase Robinson. De Niro has been ensnared in dueling legal claims since Robinson quit in April 2019. She has maintained that De Niro and his girlfriend teamed up against her to turn a job she once loved into a nightmare.

A project to build a first-of-a-kind small modular nuclear reactor power plant was terminated Wednesday. It is a blow to the Biden administration’s clean energy agenda following cancellations last week of two major offshore wind projects. Oregon-based NuScale Power has the only small modular nuclear reactor design certified for use in the United States. For its first project, it was working with a group of Utah utilities to demonstrate a six-module plant at the Idaho National Laboratory. It was a way to launch the commercial development of the new nuclear technology to help transition away from fossil fuels.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia announced Thursday that he won’t seek reelection in 2024, giving Republicans a prime opportunity to pick up a seat in the heavily GOP state.

High-speed pursuits of migrants and suspected smugglers have become routine in Texas. But a chase Wednesday came to one of the deadliest endings in recent years: a head-on crash that killed eight people. The mangled wreckage at the scene near La Pryor has laid bare the danger of high-speed pursuits undertaken by an ever-expanding presence of law enforcement at the border. Texas alone has stationed hundreds of additional troopers the past two years. The crash has also renewed criticism that the pursuits are too fast and have gone on for too long despite chases that have ended in injuries or death.

EL CAJON, Calif. (AP) — With his mustard-yellow suit practically matching the color of a bulldozer right behind him, Padres slugger Manny Machado put on a hard hat, grabbed a shovel and joined in the ceremonial groundbreaking Thursday for the MLS expansion San Diego FC's $150 million trainin…

In the United States, the national conference of Catholic bishops rejects the concept of gender transition, leaving many transgender Catholics feeling excluded. Now the Vatican has released a sharply contrasting statement, saying it’s permissible, under certain circumstances, for transgender people to be baptized as Catholics and serve as godparents. The document was signed Oct. 21 by Pope Francis and Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, who heads the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. It was posted this week on that office's website. The document says trans Catholics can receive baptism under the same conditions as other Catholics, as long as it does not cause scandal or confusion.

Partnerships between two- and four-year colleges and universities could help more community college students go on to earn bachelor’s degrees, according to data released Thursday by U.S. Education Department. Only 13% of federal financial aid recipients who enrolled in community college in 2014 went on to receive a bachelor’s degree within eight years, the data found. Hundreds of thousands of those who enroll annually at the more affordable two-year schools plan to transfer to a four-year program at a college or university, but obstacles including lost credit transfers and a lack of guidance get in the way.

Stocks fell on Wall Street as the pressure cranked higher from the bond market again. The S&P 500 lost 0.8% Thursday. The Dow dropped 220 points, and the Nasdaq composite fell 0.9%. Stocks had been higher earlier in the day, but the market quickly sagged under the weight of rising bond yields. Yields rose after the government announced the results of a sale of 30-year Treasury bonds. They went even higher after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the Fed will not hesitate to raise interest rates again if it feels that inflation isn't under control.

The proportion of U.S. kindergartners exempted from school attendance vaccination requirements has hit its highest level ever. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday released a report detailing the trends. Nationally, 3% of kindergartners got exemptions. Hawaii saw the largest jump, with the statistic nearly doubling from the year before. Idaho was highest overall, with 12%. Experts say more parents are questioning routine childhood vaccinations that they used to automatically accept. It's an effect of the political schism that emerged during the pandemic around COVID-19 vaccines. It also raises the chances of outbreaks of measles, polio and other diseases.