June 2022

The trade association for U.S. nuclear plant operators says it hopes to nearly double their output over the next three decades. Those plans hang on the functionality of a new type of nuclear reactor that’s far smaller than traditional reactors. The industry is generating less electricity as reactors retire. Even so, utilities that are members of the Nuclear Energy Institute project they could add 90 gigawatts of nuclear power with the bulk of that coming online by 2050. That translates to about 300 new small modular reactors. The institute’s president spoke about doubling U.S. nuclear output in a speech Tuesday to industry leaders and policymakers.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A series of clandestine, against-the-odds helicopter missions to reach besieged soldiers are being celebrated in Ukraine as one of the riskiest, most heroic feats of military derring-do in the four-month war against Russia. The flights delivered supplies and evacuated wounded during the last-ditch defense of the Azovstal steel mill. It was surrounded by Russian forces in the brutalized city of Mariupol. Ukrainian troops were pinned down for weeks, their supplies running low, their dead and injured stacking up. Ukraine’s president first spoke of the sometimes deadly helicopter resupply missions only after Azovstal’s defenders started surrendering in May. The Associated Press has found and interviewed some of the wounded who were rescued from the death trap.

RENO, Nev. (AP) — The attack ads already are airing and campaign fundraising emails are flooding into inboxes as one of the most competitive U.S. Senate races in the country gets rolling in Nevada, where candidates will be juggling persistent concerns about election integrity and inflation that is rising at its fastest pace in decades.

PIERRE, S.D. (AP) — Prosecutors at the impeachment trial of South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg say he lied to investigators and abused the power of his office after he struck and killed a pedestrian. They are seeking conviction on a pair of impeachment charges that would mean automatic removal from office. Ravnsborg’s attorneys countered in Tuesday’s opening statements that such an action would improperly undo the will of voters for what Ravnsborg has maintained was an accident. Ravnsborg struck and killed 55-year-old Joe Boever in September 2020. Ravnsborg told a 911 dispatcher that he was in the middle of the road and might have struck a deer, and has said he didn’t know he hit a man until the next day. Criminal investigators said they doubted some of his statements.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has ruled that religious schools can’t be excluded from a Maine program that offers tuition aid for private education. It’s a decision that could ease religious organizations’ access to taxpayer money. The most immediate effect of the court’s decision beyond Maine will be next door in Vermont, which has a similar program. But Tuesday’s outcome also could fuel a renewed push for school choice programs in some of the 18 states that so far have not directed taxpayer money to private, religious education.

Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes slowed for the fourth consecutive month in May as climbing mortgage rates and prices discouraged many would-be buyers. The National Association of Realtors said Tuesday that existing home sales fell 3.4% last month from April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.41 million. Sales fell 8.6% from May last year. The national median home price jumped 14.8% in May from a year earlier to $407,600, an all-time high. The housing market, a crucial part of the economy, is slowing as homebuyers facing sharply higher home financing costs than a year ago following a rapid rise in mortgage rates.

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks rose broadly on Wall Street Tuesday, clawing back some of the ground they lost in their worst weekly drop since the beginning of the pandemic. The S&P 500 rose 2.6% as of 11:36 a.m.

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Manager Ashley Ford strode the perimeter of one of Indianapolis’ five open swimming pools, monitoring kids as they jumped off a diving board or careened into the water from a curved slide. Four lifeguards, whistles at the ready, watched from their tall chairs stationed around the water.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian attacks are laying down a curtain of fire across areas of eastern Ukraine where pockets of resistance are denying Moscow full military control of the region. A regional official told The Associated Press on Tuesday that “everything that can burn is on fire.” Russia’s war has caused alarm over food supplies from Ukraine to the rest of the world and gas supplies from Russia. It has also raised questions about security in Western Europe. The Russian military currently controls about 95% of the eastern Luhansk region. But Moscow has struggled for weeks to overrun it completely. Separately, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland met for about an hour at a Ukrainian-Polish border post with Ukrainian Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova.

The officers in the hallway of Robb Elementary wanted to get inside classrooms 111 and 112 — immediately. One officer’s daughter was inside. Another officer had gotten a call from his wife, a teacher, who told him she was bleeding to death.