U.S./World category, Page 1225
Border security brawl seems near a serene resolution
WASHINGTON — Congress is set to resolve its clattering brawl with President Donald Trump in uncommonly bipartisan fashion as lawmakers prepare to pass a border security compromise providing a mere sliver of the billions he’s demanded for a wall with Mexico and averting a rekindled government shutdown this weekend. With...
School massacre 1 year later: A time to remember the victims
PARKLAND, Fla. — The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre a year ago renewed the national debate on guns and school safety, turned some victims’ parents and surviving students into political activists and at least temporarily ended the local sheriff’s career. But Thursday’s anniversary will primarily be about remembering the...
Prince Philip won’t be charged in UK car crash
LONDON — British prosecutors say Prince Philip won’t face charges in connection with a car collision that left two women injured. The decision came just days after Buckingham Palace said the 97-year-old royal would stop driving. Prosecutors said Thursday they had decided that it would not be in the public...
Suspect charged with murder in NYPD friendly fire death
NEW YORK — A robbery suspect with a long rap sheet and a habit of bizarre stunts was charged Wednesday with murder in the death of a New York City police detective struck by friendly fire while responding to a stick-up Tuesday night. Detective Brian Simonsen died after being hit...
Michael Avenatti accused of hiding millions of dollars from bankruptcy court
LOS ANGELES — Michael Avenatti hid millions of dollars from the court overseeing his law firm’s bankruptcy and used much of the money for personal compensation, a former partner alleges in new court records. The firm, Eagan Avenatti, was required by law to file monthly reports on its income and...
Perennial presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche dead at 96
LEESBURG, Va. — Lyndon LaRouche Jr., the political extremist who ran for president in every election from 1976 to 2004, including a campaign waged from federal prison, has died. He was 96. LaRouche’s political action committee confirmed Wednesday on its website that LaRouche died a day earlier. The cult-like figure,...
Ex-W.Va. Supreme Court justice Allen Loughry gets 2 years for corruption
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A former West Virginia Supreme Court justice who had a $32,000 blue suede couch in his office and was at the center of an impeachment and corruption scandal was sentenced to two years in federal prison Wednesday. “I have not seen evidence of remorse,” U.S. District Judge...
U.S. says ex-intel official Monica Witt defected to Iran, revealed secrets
WASHINGTON — A former U.S. Air Force counterintelligence specialist who defected to Iran despite warnings from the FBI has been charged with revealing classified information to the Tehran government, including the code name and secret mission of a Pentagon program, prosecutors said Wednesday. The Justice Department also accused Monica Elfriede...
Authorities say suspect in suitcase death is in the country illegally
A man accused of killing his ex-girlfriend and dumping her body in a suitcase in Connecticut is a citizen of Portugal who has been in the U.S. illegally for more than a year, federal authorities said Wednesday as the victim’s loved ones gathered for her funeral. Javier Da Silva Rojas,...
FEMA chief Brock Long, who faced questions over his use of government vehicle, to resign
WASHINGTON — Less than two years into a tenure marked by five major hurricanes, multiple lethal wildfires and a tense relationship with his boss, Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator William “Brock” Long resigned Wednesday “to go home to my family,” as he put it in an official statement released by...
Condolences pour in mourning the loss of NASA’s Mars rover
A robot tugged at our emotions with just eight little words. “My battery is low and it’s getting dark.” The poignant words were the last sent to Earth by NASA’s Opportunity, the Mars rover that spent the past 15 years exploring the planet before it stopped communicating about eight months...
Kentucky bishop says Covington students were not instigators
COVINGTON, Ky. — Investigators hired by a Kentucky diocese have found that Catholic school boys didn’t instigate a confrontation at the Lincoln Memorial that went viral on social media. Covington Bishop Roger Foys initially condemned the students’ behavior after a video showed a teenage boy face-to-face with a Native American...
NASA rover finally bites the dust on Mars after 15 years
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA’s Opportunity, the Mars rover that was built to operate for just three months but kept going and going, rolling across the rocky red soil, was pronounced dead Wednesday, 15 years after it landed on the planet. The six-wheeled vehicle that helped gather critical evidence that...
Unhappy with deal, Trump still doesn’t expect a new shutdown
WASHINGTON — Under mounting pressure from his own party, President Donald Trump appeared to be grudgingly leaning toward accepting an agreement that would head off a threatened second government shutdown but provide just a fraction of the money he’s been demanding for his Mexican border wall. Trump said Tuesday he...
King the wire fox terrier takes Westminster’s best in show
NEW YORK — Wire fox terriers are still King at Westminster. A wire fox from Brazil who’s won big in Europe became America’s top dog Tuesday night, beating out a crowd-pleasing longhaired dachshund and popular Sussex spaniel. There were some boos — along with modest cheers — when judge Peter...
Before Bezos fight, National Enquirer publisher AMI faced steep losses
NEW YORK — The publisher of the National Enquirer, currently under attack by Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos, has been facing steep financial losses that have left the once-loyal keeper of Donald Trump’s secrets with more than $1 billion in debt and a negative net worth. The closely held American...
Police detective killed by friendly fire in New York City
NEW YORK — A New York City police detective was shot and killed by friendly fire Tuesday night as officers confronted a robbery suspect who turned out to be armed with a replica handgun, Commissioner James O’Neill said. “This appears to be an absolutely tragic case of friendly fire,” an...
Police: Ohio State student and her abductor killed in Kentucky chase
CRESTWOOD, Ky. — A female student from an Ohio State University campus and a man suspected of abducting her both died after a police chase and shooting, Kentucky State Police said Tuesday. The chase began Monday afternoon in northern Kentucky as police responded to a call about a person in...
NASA about to pull plug on Mars rover, silent for 8 months
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA is trying one last time to contact its record-setting Mars rover Opportunity, before calling it quits. The rover has been silent for eight months, victim of one of the most intense dust storms in decades. Thick dust darkened the sky last summer and, for months,...
Kansas declares staffing emergency at most crowded prison
TOPEKA, Kan. — Kansas declared an emergency Tuesday at its most crowded maximum-security state prison over what Gov. Laura Kelly called “serious staffing shortages” inside a lockup that’s had multiple inmate disturbances over the past two years. But Kelly acknowledged that the most immediate effect of the declaration — longer...
World’s oldest known wild bird hatches chick on Midway Atoll
HONOLULU — The oldest known wild bird in the world has become a mother again at the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, U.S. wildlife officials said. The Laysan albatross named Wisdom hatched a chick earlier this month at the remote atoll northwest of Hawaii, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported Monday. Wisdom...
Ex-boyfriend confesses to slaying of woman found dead inside suitcase
GREENWICH, Conn. — An ex-boyfriend of Valerie Reyes is in federal custody after prosecutors say he confessed to the slaying of the 24-year-old New Rochelle, N.Y., woman, whose body was stuffed inside a suitcase and dumped on the side of the road in Greenwich a week ago. Detectives from Connecticut...
Wisconsin judge tosses wrestler’s suspension, worrying refs
MILWAUKEE — A Wisconsin judge overturned a high school wrestler’s suspension for unsportsmanlike conduct after the student’s parents took legal action, worrying referees and the state’s athletic association that officiating decisions could be undermined by courts. At issue is a Feb. 2 wrestling contest in which the victor was suspended...
Texas sheriff: 2 malnourished children found in dog cage
DECATUR, Texas — Sheriff’s deputies discovered four malnourished children, including two locked inside a dog cage, when they responded to a domestic disturbance at a Northeast Texas home. Wise County Sheriff Lane Akin says deputies found the children aged 5 and younger Tuesday morning at the home near Rhome, about...
At major colleges, sexual assaults most likely off-campus
WASHINGTON — At some of the nation’s largest universities, the vast majority of sexual assaults take place not in dorm rooms or even on school property, but in the neighborhoods beyond campus boundaries, according to data obtained by The Associated Press. But the schools’ obligation to investigate and respond to...
