World News

LOS ANGELES — Sean Penn has expanded his fight against the coronavirus beyond his own expectations. The Oscar winner’s disaster relief organization CORE has gone from providing 6,500 tests in a couple weeks to administering more than 1.

SILVER SPRING, Md. — More Americans signed contracts to buy homes in July, suggesting the current hot housing market could continue in the fall. The National Association of Realtors said Thursday that its index of pending sales rose 5.9%, to 122.

EDINBURGH, Scotland — Francesca Moody is spending August the way she always does: in darkened rooms in Edinburgh, watching some of the best new theatre and comedy the world has to offer.

WASHINGTON — Just over 1 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week, a sign that the coronavirus outbreak continues to threaten jobs even as the housing market, auto sales and other segments of the economy rebound from a springtime

BALTIMORE — The U.S. economy shrank at an alarming annual rate of 31.7% during the April-June quarter as it struggled under the weight of the viral pandemic, the government estimated Thursday. It was the sharpest quarterly drop on record.

KENOSHA, Wis. — A white, 17-year-old police admirer was arrested Wednesday after two people were shot to death during a third straight night of protests in Kenosha over the police shooting of a Black man, Jacob Blake.

CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand — The white supremacist who slaughtered 51 worshippers at two New Zealand mosques was sentenced Thursday to life in prison without the possibility of parole, the first time the maximum available sentence has been imposed in

SEOUL, Korea, Republic Of — A typhoon barrelled through the Korean Peninsula on Thursday, damaging buildings, flooding roads and toppling utility poles before weakening into a tropical storm.

DELCAMBRE, La. — Hurricane Laura made landfall in southwestern Louisiana as a ferocious Category 4 monster early Thursday, swamping a low-lying coast with ocean water that forecasters said could be 20 feet deep and unsurvivable.

MILWAUKEE — Three Major League Baseball games were postponed Wednesday as players across the sports landscape drove the decisions in the wake of the weekend shooting by police of Jacob Blake, a Black man, in Wisconsin.