Free Republic

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – Emergency workers pulled more bodies Wednesday from the rubble of a nine-story Kyiv apartment building demolished by a Russian missile, raising the death toll from the latest attack on the Ukrainian capital to 28. The building in Kyiv´s Solomianskyi district took a direct hit and collapsed during the deadliest Russian attack on Kyiv this year. Authorities said that 23 of those killed were inside the building. The remaining five died elsewhere in the city. Workers used cranes, excavators and their hands to clear more debris from the site, while sniffer dogs searched for buried victims. The...

Republicans’ House majority in the next Congress climbed to 220 on Tuesday, when Republican Kevin Kiley defeated his Democratic opponent, Kermit Jones, in the tight race for California’s 3rd Congressional District. The Associated Press called the race for Kiley on Tuesday afternoon, two weeks after voters headed to the polls to cast their ballots in the eastern California district. Kiley, a California State Assembly member, won with 53 percent of the vote. Kiley’s win brings Republicans’ House majority to 220, while Democrats currently hold 212 seats. Three races are still uncalled by the AP: California’s 13th District, Alaska’s at-large district...

Powerball has yet to find its first jackpot winner of 2022, making the next drawing worth $522 million. Jackpot hopefuls fell short of the $500 million prize for the 37th consecutive drawing on Saturday.

A Springfield hospital announced Tuesday that it expanded its morgue capacity amid an increase in COVID-19 deaths, while the Kansas City mayor announced he would reinstate a mask mandate for indoor spaces. Missouri has the nation’s fourth-worst COVID-19 diagnosis rate over the past week, with one in every 360 people diagnosed with COVID-19. Its seven-day rolling average of daily deaths has nearly doubled over the past two weeks, according to data from John Hopkins. Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas tweeted on Tuesday evening that he would provide details Wednesday morning on his plans to return Kansas City to a mask...

An additional 5.9 million people in the United States are on food stamps since the coronavirus pandemic began in March 2020, according to the latest data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The USDA data showed that in March 2020, the month the pandemic hit the U.S., 37,140,169 individuals were receiving food stamps. Yet in April, that number soared by an estimated 5.9 million to 42,995,224 individuals.

LONDON (Reuters) - Gold rallied nearly 7 percent on Wednesday to a two-and-a-half-week high of $830.10 an ounce, as a wave of risk aversion triggered buying of the precious metal as a safe haven and oil prices climbed.