NATION/WORLD BRIEFING

Drug overdose deaths hit 52,404 in U.S.

New York — More than 50,000 Americans died from drug overdoses last year, the most ever.

The tally has been pushed to new heights by soaring abuse of heroin and prescription painkillers, a class of drugs known as opioids.

Heroin deaths rose 23% in one year, to 12,989, slightly higher than the number of gun homicides, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data released Thursday.

Deaths from synthetic opioids, including illicit fentanyl, rose 73% to 9,580. And prescription painkillers took the highest toll, but posted the smallest increase. Abuse of drugs like OxyContin and Vicodin killed 17,536, an increase of 4%.

The new numbers were part of the agency’s annual tally of deaths and death rates in 2015.

Overall, overdose deaths rose 11% last year, to 52,404. By comparison, the number of people who died in car crashes was 37,757, an increase of 12%. Gun deaths, including homicides and suicides, totaled 36,252, up 7%.

House passes stopgap measure

Washington — The House on Thursday cleared bills to keep the government running through April and authorize hundreds of water projects, but a Senate fight over benefits for retired coal miners threatened to lead to a government shutdown this weekend.

House members promptly bolted home for the holidays and will return next month to a capital city in which Republicans will fully control all levers of power, with Donald Trump inaugurated as the nation’s 45th president.

The stopgap spending bill passed on a 326-96 vote; the massive water projects measure passed, 360-61.

In the Senate, however, Democrats made a lastditch effort to add two provisions to the bills: A one-year respite for retired coal miners scheduled to lose their health benefits at year’s end and a permanent extension of “Buy America” mandates for steel used in the construction of water projects.

But final passage by the Senate was expected by Friday’s deadline.

Second officer shot in Georgia dies

Americus, Ga. — A second Georgia police officer died Thursday, a day after being shot alongside a fellow officer, and the hunt for the suspected gunman ended when a SWAT team found the fugitive dead — apparently by his own hand — inside a home where he was hiding.

Officer Jody Smith initially clung to life after being gravely wounded

Wednesday when the university campus officer went to help his friend, Americus Officer Nicholas Smarr, respond to a 911 call of a domestic dispute at an apartment in rural Americus, about 130 miles south of Atlanta.

Both men were shot. Smarr was killed Wednesday and Smith was airlifted in critical condition to a hospital in Macon. The university that employed Smith announced Thursday evening that he had died.

A telephone tip Thursday morning sent authorities to a home where a tipster said the suspect, Minquell Lembrick, 32, was hiding. Americus Police Chief Mark Scott said the first officers on the scene heard a gunshot inside. Lembrick’s body was found inside.

Deadly pileup: Three people were killed and 11 injured in a 40-vehicle pileup Thursday morning on a snow-slickened Interstate 96 near Lansing, Mich.