U.S./World category, Page 1228
Vet sentenced for implanting heroin in puppies as drug mules
NEW YORK — A veterinarian who surgically implanted liquid heroin in puppies on behalf of Colombian drug traffickers was sentenced to six years in prison Thursday. One of the puppies went on to become a drug-detection dog named Heroina. The sentence for Andres Lopez Elorez was announced in Brooklyn by...
Pedestrian run over when he takes shortcut underneath truck
EDISON, N.J. — Authorities say a pedestrian who tried to take a shortcut by scooting underneath a parked tractor-trailer was critically injured when the driver started up the vehicle and drove away. Edison police say the 30-year-old Princeton man and a friend were walking back to a hotel around 9:30...
Army aims for more combat-ready troops with new fitness testVideo
FORT BRAGG, N.C. — Army soldiers struggle to haul heavy sleds backward as fast as they can down a grassy field at Fort Bragg, filling the brisk North Carolina morning air with grunts of exertion and the shouts of instruction from their coaches. Watching from the sidelines, Sgt. Maj. Harold...
New U.S.-Mexico border barrier charts tricky course near homes
ALONG THE SAN DIEGO-TIJUANA BORDER — For all practical purposes, the purple-and-white stucco shrine that Jose Arias built to celebrate his recovery from a heart attack and honor his family lies in Mexico. The only way in and out of his plywood shack is through one of Tijuana’s oldest neighborhoods,...
Netanyahu channeling Trump in Israel’s election campaign
JERUSALEM — Seeking re-election under a cloud of criminal investigations, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu looks to be channeling his inner Donald Trump in an angry campaign against perceived domestic enemies. Drawing clear inspiration from Trump, Netanyahu’s Likud party has plastered huge billboards of the two leaders together and launched...
Democrats speechless as scandal engulfs Virginia’s leaders
RICHMOND, Va. — With Virginia’s top three elected officials engulfed in scandal, fellow Democrats were rendered practically speechless, uncertain of how to thread their way through racial and sexual allegations and their tangled political implications. Gov. Ralph Northam’s career was already hanging by a thread over a racist photo in...
Anti-abortion bills: Odds good in GOP states, not Congress
President Donald Trump’s call for a ban on late-term abortions is unlikely to prevail in Congress, but Republican legislators in several states are pushing ahead with their own tough anti-abortion bills that they hope can pass muster with the Supreme Court. Two bills proposing to outlaw abortions after a fetal...
3.5 magnitude quake shakes parts of northwest Oklahoma
CHEROKEE, Okla. — No damage has been reported following a 3.5 magnitude earthquake in northwestern Oklahoma. The U.S. Geological Survey says the quake was recorded at 9:54 a.m. Thursday in Alfalfa County near Cherokee, about 100 miles northwest of Oklahoma City. The temblor was recorded at a depth of about...
Paul Erickson, boyfriend of admitted covert Russian agent, accused of fraud
PIERRE, S.D. — The boyfriend of a Russian woman who admitted she was a secret agent for the Kremlin has been charged with fraud in South Dakota, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced Wednesday. Businessman and conservative political operative Paul Erickson, 56, pleaded not guilty Wednesday to 11 counts of wire...
NASA, NOAA: 2018 fourth warmest year in more than a century
Earth’s global surface temperatures in 2018 were the fourth warmest since 1880, adding to a long-term global warming trend, NASA officials reported Wednesday in a joint release with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The 2018 annual mean temperature for the contiguous 48 United States was the 14th warmest on...
A DOJ office with limited reach to probe handling of controversial child sex abuse case
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department office that handles employee discipline has opened an investigation into whether attorneys committed “professional misconduct” in allowing a well-connected millionaire to spend just over a year in jail to resolve allegations that he molested dozens of young girls. The department revealed the investigation Wednesday in...
House Democrats to seek ‘sensible’ gun laws
WASHINGTON — Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee said Wednesday they will push for “sensible” gun safety laws that the public is demanding after a series of mass shootings in recent years. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., the panel’s chairman, said he was disappointed that President Trump did not mention gun...
Gas line explosion in San Francisco sets buildings on fire
SAN FRANCISCO — A gas explosion in a San Francisco neighborhood shot flames high into the air Wednesday and was burning four buildings as utility crews scrambled to shut off the flow of gas. Construction workers cut a natural gas line, San Francisco Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White said. Authorities initially...
Michigan man dies trying to get daughter’s dead cat out of roadway
MERRILL, Mich. — Authorities say a Michigan man was fatally struck by a car while trying to remove his daughter’s dead cat from a roadway before she saw it. Saginaw County sheriff’s officials say 50-year-old Andrew Rosas of Merrill was struck before sunrise Tuesday by a woman who was driving...
New USDA ‘toolkit’ features resources for high-speed internet in rural areas
The federal government is encouraging rural communities to take advantage of new opportunities to expand broadband internet service. On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture launched a new toolkit to support the deployment of high-speed internet service in rural communities. The toolkit features 27 USDA programs meant to facilitate the...
Teen who attacked mom with Molotov cocktail charged as adult
DAVIE, Fla. — A Florida teen will be tried as an adult on charges that he beat his mother with a baseball bat and lit her on fire with a Molotov cocktail because she scolded him about sneaking out of the house and using social media. James Edward Monroe faces...
Conviction upheld for woman who urged boyfriend’s suicide
BOSTON — A young woman who as a teenager encouraged her boyfriend through dozens of text messages to kill himself is responsible for his suicide, Massachusetts highest court ruled Wednesday in upholding her involuntary manslaughter conviction. The Supreme Judicial Court said in a unanimous decision in the novel case that...
Virginia AG says he wore blackface at college party
RICHMOND, Va. — Virginia sank deeper into political turmoil Wednesday when another top Democrat — Attorney General Mark Herring — admitted putting on blackface in the 1980s, when he was a college student. With Gov. Ralph Northam’s career in extreme peril over a racist photo in his 1984 medical school...
London grave of Karl Marx vandalized in hammer attack
LONDON — Custodians of a London cemetery say the tombstone of Karl Marx has been damaged in a hammer attack. The German philosopher and economist was buried in Highgate Cemetery after his death in 1883, and his grave was later topped with a large bronze bust atop a base bearing...
Police: School bus driver shot after crash in Minneapolis
MINNEAPOLIS — Authorities say a school bus driver was wounded in a shooting that followed a crash with another vehicle on a snowy interstate near downtown Minneapolis. Minneapolis Public Schools said in a statement that one student was on the small bus Tuesday afternoon and was not hurt. Police spokesman...
Fish imported from Vietnam recalled for lack of inspection
Richwell Group of California is recalling more than 55,000 pounds of sheat fish imported from Vietnam because it wasn’t presented for required re-inspection upon entering the United States. The frozen fish, which has a two-year shelf life, was imported between April and December of last year and was shipped to...
Arizona city officials decry new razor wire on border fence
NOGALES, Ariz. — Elected officials in an Arizona border city are decrying the installation of new razor fencing that now covers a border fence through downtown. The city of Nogales, Arizona, which sits on the border with Nogales, Mexico, is contemplating a proclamation Wednesday night condemning the use of concertina...
Abrams rebuts Trump: ‘We do not succeed alone’
ATLANTA — Stacey Abrams stepped onto the biggest stage of her political career Tuesday and accused President Trump and his fellow Republicans of abandoning working Americans and fomenting partisan and cultural discord. The Georgia Democrat introduced herself to the nation months after narrowly losing her bid to become America’s first...
In State of the Union, Trump shares the power but needles Democrats
WASHINGTON - Over his shoulder, a female speaker of the House. In the audience, a sea of suffragette white. President Donald Trump spent his last two speeches to Congress surrounded by men. But on Tuesday, in the glare of television spotlights, he began his State of the Union address with...
Hawaii lawmaker proposes bill setting legal smoking age at 100
Lawmakers in Hawaii have proposed legislation that would begin phasing out cigarettes in the state, banning them altogether within the next several years. At least, for people younger than 100. The bipartisan bill, HB1509, aims to raise the legal minimum age to use cigarettes to exclude everyone but centenarians by...
