HOLIDAYS WEEKENDS

A towering statue depicting the famed embrace between a sailor and a woman in white, celebrating the end of World War II, has become an unwelcome symbol of assault to some.

Russian lawmakers have passed a bill restricting social media and smartphone use by service members.

March 1 “is not a magical date,” President Trump said this week, about his self-imposed deadline when tariffs would spike. Whether a deal will resolve key structural issues isn’t clear.

“The hard-line, the anti-EU awkward squad that have destroyed every leader for the last 40 years are now running the Conservative party from top to toe,” lawmaker Anna Soubry said Wednesday.

His family says the newspaper targeted the student and defamed him for political purposes after the release of a video that appeared to show a standoff between him and a Native American activist.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote the opinion and announced it on just her second day back at court after surgery for lung cancer late last year.

The carrier says the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association “has a history of work disruptions.” The union says the airline is “scapegoating” its technicians.

In 1939, an event at Madison Square Garden was billed as a “Pro American Rally.” It was, in fact, a rally in support of Hitler and fascism.

The activist, filmmaker and writer chronicles sexual abuse allegations against R. Kelly in the six-part docuseries, Surviving R. Kelly, even as new allegations against him surface.

“They said that they were here on a ‘government mission,’ ” Miami Herald reporter Jacqueline Charles told NPR from Port-au-Prince on Wednesday.

The Southern Poverty Law Center says many groups are driven by white supremacist ideology and the “hysteria over losing a white-majority nation.” Critics accuse the group of overblowing the threat.

Five books remain in the running: Tommy Orange’s There There; Tayari Jones’ An American Marriage; David Chariandy’s Brother; Jennifer Clement’s Gun Love; and Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah.

American Catholics have become disappointed as Pope Francis described the meeting as featuring “prayer and discernment” — hardly an ambitious vision for what could have been a momentous event.

Justices criticized a state appeals court for using outdated medical standards when it determined that a murderer wasn’t intellectually disabled and could therefore be executed.

Gilroy, Calif., is known as the garlic capital of the world. Two Trump administration policies — one on trade, the other on immigration — are affecting the town in starkly different ways.

Michigan resident Paul Whelan has been held in a Russian prison since he was arrested in December on suspicion of spying. His family says he was just attending a friend’s wedding in Moscow.

Independent brokers help employers choose health benefits for their staff but are paid by the health insurance industry, creating financial incentives to sell more without regard to cost.

As an exoneree, Mark Schand did not qualify for job training, tuition help or other re-entry services offered to people on parole. But he did fight for, and receive, monetary compensation.

For centuries, people have turned to jesters for relief from the miseries of life. As it turns out, some stand-up performers turn pain and rage into their own coping and catharsis.

The insects were created, using CRISPR, to carry a powerful “gene drive.” The mosquitoes could provide a potent weapon against malaria, but they raise fears about unpredictable environmental effects.

Shamima Begum, 19, left England in 2015. Now she is a married mother and living in a refugee camp. Begum says she wants to come home, but the U.K. government doesn’t want her back.

The president is in a Twitter war with Gov. Gavin Newsom over the project and the president’s emergency declaration to build a border wall.

Yang Fenglan, who has lived in Tanzania on and off for decades and operated a Chinese restaurant, was found guilty of working with two Tanzanian men to smuggle more than 800 pieces of ivory.

“We’ll get the hemp ropes out, loop them over a tall limb and hang all of them,” said Goodloe Sutton, publisher of the Democrat-Reporter, after admitting he wrote an incendiary editorial.

Li Li Leung, a former gymnastics competitor, will now head an organization in turmoil, as USA Gymnastics seeks to recover from its widespread sex abuse scandal.

The country had been a holdout from a trend already sweeping other parts of Europe and beyond. Now the right-wing Vox party shares power in Spain’s largest region.

“I’m very confident that we’re going to have criminal charges on one or more police officers” from a raid that left two suspects dead, Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo said.

It would be under the umbrella of the Air Force to try to simplify the process. This represents a shift; Trump had stated that he wanted a space force that is “separate but equal” from the Air Force.

The Oscar-nominated film has reignited interest in the life (and love interests) of a corpulent, gouty, queen who liked chocolate more than tea. So why are Queen Anne and tea-drinking so closely tied?

Whistleblowers told the Oversight committee that efforts by some national security officials to try to transfer sensitive nuclear technology to the Saudi government potentially violated the law.

Trump’s plan includes a focus on fighting HIV in the rural Midwest and South. But there are doubts in Oklahoma, where the state’s uninsured rate and stigmatization of HIV are high.

George Mendonsa claimed to be the sailor kissing a woman in Times Square — a photo that defined the jubilation of Victory over Japan Day. The two had never met.