Author: chicagoinquirer

by Jones Aleccia and Laura Ungar For the first time, U.S. regulators on Wednesday approved the sale of chicken made from animal cells, allowing two California companies to offer “lab-grown” meat to the nation’s restaurant tables and eventually, supermarket shelves. The Agriculture Department gave the green light to Upside Foods and Good Meat, firms that had been racing to be the first in the U.S. to sell meat that doesn’t come from slaughtered animals — what’s now being referred to as “cell-cultivated” or “cultured” meat as it emerges from the laboratory and arrives on dinner plates. The move launches a…

WASHINGTON  — Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito accepted a 2008 trip to a luxury fishing lodge in Alaska from two wealthy Republican donors, one of whom repeatedly had interests before the court, and he did not disclose the trips on his financial disclosure for that year, ProPublica reports. A story published late Tuesday by the nonprofit investigative journalism organization states that in July 2008 Alito flew to a remote corner of Alaska aboard the private plane of businessman and Republican donor, Paul Singer. A hedge fund founded by the billionaire has brought roughly a dozen cases before the court since…

by Rebecca Santana WASHINGTON  — Ammar Rashed has a stack of letters from U.S. troops attesting to his work during some of the most dangerous days of the Iraq War. But six years after he applied to immigrate to the United States under a program for interpreterswho helped America, he is still waiting. “You don’t have to keep me and my family suffering for, for years waiting,” said Rashed during a Skype interview from Jordan, where he lives. “It’s really frustrating.” Rashed is among thousands of Iraqis, many of whom risked their lives by working closely with Americans during the war…

by Mathew Lee BEIJING  — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken began a second and final day of critical meetings with senior Chinese officials Monday, as the two sides expressed willingness to talk but showed little inclination to bend on hardened positions that have sent tensions soaring. Blinken met with China’s top diplomat Wang Yi for about three hours, according to a U.S. official, but it is still not confirmed if Blinken will meet President Xi Jinping before he departs in the late evening. Neither Blinken nor Wang made any comment to reporters as they greeted each other and sat…

by Doug Ferguson LOS ANGELES  — Wyndham Clark always carried the message from his late mother to “play big.” Nothing was bigger than Sunday when he held off Rory McIlroy with one clutch shot after another to become a U.S. Open champion. The final act was two putts from 60 feet away on the 18th hole at Los Angeles Country Club, and the 29-year-old Clark pumped his fist when it settled a foot away. He tapped that in for an even-par 70 and a one-shot victory over McIlroy and so many other stars. Scottie Scheffler, the No. 1 player in…

by Lindsay Whitehurst WASHINGTON  — On his first day as attorney general, Merrick Garland pledged a return to what he called the “norms” of the Justice Department and said he would work to eliminate the perception of political interference. But in the two years since he took office, the former federal judge has found himself in the middle of a political firestorm of historic proportions. The case against Donald Trump — the first former president to face federal criminal charges — brought a crush of protesters to the Miami courthouse last week, as well as a torrent of social media broadsides from Trump and an onslaught of…

by Bianca Vazquez Toness, Ed White and Adrian Sainz Detroit  — Americans across the country this weekend celebrated Juneteenth, marking the relatively new national holiday with cookouts, parades and other gatherings as they commemorated the end of slavery after the Civil War. While many have treated the long holiday weekend as a reason for a party, others urged quiet reflection on America’s often violent and oppressive treatment of its Black citizens. And still others have remarked at the strangeness of celebrating a federal holiday marking the end of slavery in the nation while many Americans are trying to stop parts…

KYIV, Ukraine  — Russia and Ukraine are suffering high numbers of military casualties as Ukraine fights to dislodge the Kremlin’s forces from occupied areas in the early stages of its counteroffensive, British officials said Sunday. Russian losses are probably at their highest level since the peak of the battle for Bakhmut in March, U.K. military officials said in their regular assessment. According to British intelligence, the most intense fighting has centered on the southeastern Zaporizhzhia province, around Bakhmut and further west in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk province. While the update reported that Ukraine was on the offensive in these areas and…

by James Keaten KYIV, Ukraine  — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday met with a group of leaders of African countries who traveled to Russia on a self-styled “peace mission” the day after they went to Ukraine, but the meeting ended with no visible progress. The seven African leaders — the presidents of Comoros, Senegal, South Africa and Zambia, as well as Egypt’s prime minister and top envoys from the Republic of Congo and Uganda — visited Ukraine on Friday to try to help end the nearly 16-month-old war. The African leaders then traveled to St. Petersburg on Saturday to meet…

by Agency Reports LAS VEGAS — Nine more women are accusing Bill Cosby of sexual assault in a lawsuit that alleges he used his “enormous power, fame and prestige” to victimize them. A lawsuit filed Wednesday in federal court in Nevada alleges that the women were individually drugged and assaulted between approximately 1979 and 1992 in Las Vegas, Reno and Lake Tahoe homes, dressing rooms and hotels. One woman alleges that Cosby, claiming to be her acting mentor, lured her from New York to Nevada, where he drugged her in a hotel room with what he had claimed to be…