U.S./World category, Page 1107
Cause of boy’s roller coaster death ‘undetermined,’ parents sue
Experts have no idea why a boy died on an Indiana roller coaster in June but his parents are suing the amusement park. Brayden Cooper-Douglas, 12, from Lafayette, Indiana, was riding the Hoosier Hurricane at Indiana Beach in White County when he died on June 27, reports the Journal &...
19 bodies hung from bridge or hacked up in Mexico gang feud
MEXICO CITY — Mexican police found nine bodies hanging from an overpass Thursday alongside a drug cartel banner threatening rivals, and seven more corpses hacked up and dumped by the road nearby. Just down the road were three more bodies, for a total of 19. The killing spree in the...
Magnitude 6 quake shakes western Turkey; more than 20 hurt
ANKARA, Turkey — A strong earthquake hit western Turkey on Thursday, damaging homes, causing residents to run into the streets in panic and injuring over 20 people. The quake was centered on the town of Bozkurt, in Denizli province, according to Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency, AFAD. It said...
Ivanka Trump to promote women’s initiative in South America
WASHINGTON — Ivanka Trump will call attention to issues that make it difficult for women in developing countries to prosper financially when she travels to South America in September. Aides to President Donald Trump’s daughter and adviser say she plans to visit Paraguay and Argentina to promote her Women’s Global...
Smokey Bear, fire prevention icon, turns 75Video
CAPITAN, N.M. — Smokey Bear, the icon of the longest-running public service campaign in the U.S., is 75 years old. Birthday parties are scheduled to take place this week in honor of the bear that promotes forest fire prevention. The decision to use the Smokey Bear character happened on Aug....
Police: 2 men arrested after road rage shooting at school
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Police in Alabama say two men are in custody after what they described as an apparent road rage shooting over traffic outside a Montgomery elementary school. Local news outlets report the shooting happened Thursday morning when two fathers got into an argument about traffic coming into Blount...
Giant emoji painted on house roil California community
A Southern California seaside community is in an uproar after a home was given a new paint job featuring two huge emoji on a bright pink background. Manhattan Beach residents railed against the makeover during a City Council meeting Tuesday night, citing problems with spectators and asserting that it was...
Restaurant seeks ‘bacon intern,’ pay is $1,000 for 1 day of work
Hello, dream job! Bacon lovers your wait is over — your day of service has arrived. Farmer Boys, a West Coast restaurant chain, has posted a job opening for a “bacon intern.” That’s right, pork pals: Bacon as a career. OK, so maybe not a career. It’s an internship. And...
Mayors push Senate to return to Washington for gun bill vote
WASHINGTON (AP) — More than 200 mayors, including two anguished by mass shootings in Texas and Ohio, are urging the Senate to return to the Capitol to act on gun safety legislation amid criticism that Congress is failing to respond to back-to-back shootings that killed 31 people. In a letter...
New UN warming report sees hungry future that can be avoided
WASHINGTON — On the ground, climate change is hitting us where it counts: the stomach — not to mention the forests, plants and animals. A new United Nations scientific report examines how global warming and land interact in a vicious cycle. Human-caused climate change is dramatically degrading the land, while...
Attacker kills 4 in series of stabbings in California cities
GARDEN GROVE, Calif. — Investigators believe a man who stabbed four people to death and wounded two others targeted his victims at random during a bloody rampage across two Southern California cities, authorities said. The 33-year-old man from the city of Garden Grove was “full of anger” when he carried...
S.C. teen ousted from school, charged after racist gun videos emerge
A South Carolina teenager has been expelled and charged after videos surfaced of him making threats against black people while shooting at inanimate objects. According to The State, the 16-year-old boy, who referred to himself as “Parker” in two videos, sent the clips to several of his classmates at Cardinal...
Largest U.S. immigration raids in a decade net 680 arrests
MORTON, Miss. — U.S. immigration officials raided seven Mississippi chicken processing plants Wednesday, arresting 680 mostly Latino workers in the largest workplace sting in at least a decade. The raids, planned months ago, happened just hours before President Trump visited El Paso, Texas, the majority-Latino border city where a man...
Train station experiment reveals one way to counteract bias against Muslims
An experiment conducted in German train stations involving paper cups and escaping oranges has found that people are less likely to help a woman if she appears to be Muslim — but they’re more likely to help that same woman if she somehow proves that she shares their social values....
Massive tarantula migration to start this month in ColoradoVideo
Why do thousands of tarantulas cross the road? To get to the side where their mates live. The annual spider migration is about to commence in southeast Colorado and Highway 109 south of La Junta is a good place to watch, according to the town’s tourism team. Large populations of...
Yellowstone officials warn of dangerous behavior with bison
CHEYENNE, Wyo. — A man reaches over a railing to pet a bison on the head in yet another example of dangerous behavior by visitors to Yellowstone National Park. A video shows the bison stepped away from the man standing on a crowded boardwalk near a thermal area. Nobody was...
Canadian police say 2 bodies found, believed to be teen fugitivesVideo
TORONTO — Canadian police said Wednesday they believe two fugitives suspected of killing a North Carolina woman and her Australian boyfriend as well as another man have been found dead in dense brush in northern Manitoba. Authorities located two male bodies and are confident they are 19-year-old Kam McLeod and...
32 busted in federal drug crackdown in San Francisco
SAN FRANCISCO — Federal prosecutors said Wednesday that they charged nearly three dozen people, mostly Honduran nationals, after investigators uncovered twin international trafficking operations that poured heroin, meth and cocaine into a notorious San Francisco neighborhood crawling with rampant drug use. The drug charges are the first step in a...
Puerto Rico high court overturns Pedro Pierluisi as governor
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Puerto Rico’s Supreme Court on Wednesday overturned the swearing in of Pedro Pierluisi as the island’s governor less than a week ago, clearing the way for Justice Secretary Wanda Vázquez to take up the post after weeks of turmoil. The unanimous ruling said Pierluisi must...
U.S. hopes for North Korea nuclear talks despite missile tests
WASHINGTON — The U.S. is still hoping to hold another round of nuclear talks with North Korea despite the country’s recent missile tests, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday. Those talks could be held within a “a couple of weeks,” Pompeo said, speaking shortly after returning from Asia and...
Florida woman bites intruder who forced his way into home
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A nearly toothless South Florida woman says she bit a man who forced his way into her apartment. Alice Coleman tells WSVN she woke up early Monday morning to a fire alarm going off. The 61-year-old says that when opened the door, a man pushed his...
USA Today HQ search concludes without incident after report of man with weapon
McLEAN, Va. —Police have cleared the northern Virginia office building that houses USA Today without incident after receiving a report of an armed man. Fairfax County Police Chief Edwin Roessler said Wednesday afternoon that SWAT teams had concluded their search and found no evidence that any crime had occurred. Police...
Police patrol Rome’s Spanish Steps to enforce sitting ban
ROME — Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn perched there without a care in the 1953 film “Roman Holiday.” But the Spanish Steps in Rome are no longer a place for sitting. Enforcing an ordinance that took effect last month, police officers patrolled the famed stone staircase Wednesday to tell locals...
Ex-dean with oversight of Larry Nassar gets 1 year in jail
LANSING, Mich. — A former Michigan State University dean with oversight of now-imprisoned sports doctor Larry Nassar was ordered Wednesday to serve up to a year in jail after being convicted of neglect of duty and misconduct in office that stemmed from claims he sexually harassed students. William Strampel learned...
Woman regrets putting live octopus on her face for a photo
Hindsight is 20/20. A woman in Washington state is now regretting her photo op decision to put a live octopus on her face, KIRO-TV News in Seattle reports. Jamie Bisceglia told the station she was hoping to enter a photo contest as part of a fishing derby in Tacoma, Wash....
