U.S./World category, Page 1232
Democrats offer no money for border wall
WASHINGTON — House Democrats unveiled a new border security plan Wednesday that contains no money for physical barriers along the U.S.-Mexico divide, defying President Trump’s insistence on a wall of some kind to stave off another government shutdown. The Democrats’ proposal was their opening bid in bipartisan House-Senate negotiations aimed...
Texas executes man in Houston officer’s slaying
HUNTSVILLE, Texas — A 61-year-old Texas inmate was executed Wednesday evening for killing a Houston police officer more than three decades ago. Robert Jennings received lethal injection for the July 1988 fatal shooting of Officer Elston Howard during a robbery at an adult bookstore that authorities said was part of...
Rand Paul awarded more than $580K after neighbor’s attack
U.S. Sen. Rand Paul was awarded more than $580,000 in damages and medical expenses Wednesday in his lawsuit against the neighbor who tackled him and broke several of his ribs in a dispute over lawn maintenance. A jury in Bowling Green, Ky., deliberated less than two hours before delivering the...
Parole recommended for Manson followerVan Houten
LOS ANGELES — A California panel Wednesday recommended that Charles Manson follower Leslie Van Houten be paroled after serving more than four decades in prison. After a hearing at the women’s prison in Corona, Calif., commissioners of the Board of Parole Hearings found for the third time that the 69-year-old...
Nurse indicted on charges of raping incapacitated woman
PHOENIX — A nurse suspected of raping an incapacitated woman who later gave birth at a long-term care facility in Phoenix has been indicted on charges of sexual assault and abuse of a vulnerable adult. The document filed Tuesday mirrors charges that prosecutors filed last week against 36-year-old Nathan Dorceus...
Illinois business groups pitch geography-based minimum wage
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Business advocates now resigned to the likelihood that Illinois will soon adopt a $15-an-hour minimum wage urged legislators Wednesday to make it a tiered approach based on geography, arguing there are vast cost-of-living differences between Chicago and more rural areas downstate. While Illinois’ statewide minimum wage has...
Report: Toddler bruised after fall into rhino exhibit at zoo
MELBOURNE, Fla. — A toddler who fell into a rhinoceros exhibit at a Florida zoo this month suffered bruises to her chest, stomach, back and behind her right ear after being bumped by two rhinos. A report on the incident released Wednesday shows the 21-month-old girl also had a bruised...
New York middle school strip search claims prompt state investigation
ALBANY, N.Y. — Allegations that four 12-year-old girls were strip-searched for drugs in an upstate New York middle school because they were hyper and giddy raised “serious concerns of racial and gender bias,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday, as he directed the state Education Department to investigate the incident. Binghamton...
Monarch population up 144 percent at Mexico wintering grounds
MEXICO CITY — The population of monarch butterflies wintering in central Mexico is up 144 percent over last year, experts said Wednesday. The data presented by Andrew Rhodes, Mexico’s national commissioner for protected natural areas, was cheered but scientists quickly warned that it does not mean the butterflies that migrate...
Bat infestation forces closure of building at university
MONROE, La. — The University of Louisiana Monroe has closed a building until a colony of bats can be removed. The university’s Public Relations Director, Hope Young, says Sugar Hall will be closed until the bats and that classes and administrative offices have been moved. Young says the bats entered...
Foxconn reconsiders plan for Wisconsin manufacturing hub
MADISON, Wis. — Electronics giant Foxconn reversed course and announced Wednesday that the massive Wisconsin operation that was supposed to bring a bounty of blue-collar manufacturing jobs back to the Midwest — and was offered billions of dollars in incentives from the state — will instead be devoted mostly to...
Official: Air traffic safety system will take time to recover after shutdown
WASHINGTON — The pipeline that produces air traffic controllers essential to the aviation system and the economy will reopen Monday, but union officials warn that it may be years before the system rebounds from consequences of the 35-day federal government shutdown. “We’re not sure what the damage really is,” said...
Prosecutor calls evidence against El Chapo overwhelming
NEW YORK — Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman orchestrated a two-decade campaign to flood the United States with tons of cocaine as a ruthless leader of the Sinaloa cartel, a prosecutor said in closing arguments on Wednesday at Guzman’s U.S. trial. Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrea Goldbarg began her...
Analysis: This is what 40 below zero feels like
The fact of the matter is I don’t know exactly how cold it got at my house today. The mercury thermometer on our porch only goes down to minus 30. The digital thermometer in our backyard weather station bottoms out at minus 40. For roughly two hours on Wednesday, this...
Trump says ‘wall’ must be part of lawmakers’ border deal
WASHINGTON — Capitol Hill negotiators are hopeful of an agreement as they officially kick off talks Wednesday on a homeland security spending bill stalled over funding for President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall. Left on their own, the seasoned House and Senate lawmakers say they could easily reach a border...
Suspect in Tampa serial killings says jail making him sick
TAMPA, Fla. — The Florida man charged with being the serial killer who terrorized a Tampa neighborhood says jail is making him sick. The Tampa Bay Times reports that 26-year-old Howell Donaldson III asked Judge Mark Wolfe on Tuesday for “some professional help” for unspecified ailments. The former college basketball...
Police: Would-be bank robber gets cold feet, rips up note
FALL RIVER, Mass. — Police in Massachusetts are looking for a woman they say intended to rob a bank but got cold feet and left without a penny. Fall River police tell the Herald News the woman walked into the Fall River Municipal Credit Union on Monday afternoon and approached...
New Mexico school delays classes because of … vegetable oil
EUNICE, N.M. — A New Mexico high school was forced to delay classes after authorities say vandals poured vegetable oil throughout the hallways. The Hobbs News-Sun reports the oil was poured at Eunice High School in the small city of Eunice late Sunday and forced janitors to clean up the...
Report: Half of U.S. coal mines operating in 2008 have closed
More than half of the U.S. coal mines operating in 2008 have since closed, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday. Most of the mine closures were in the Appalachian states of Kentucky, West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania, the EIA said. The closings were driven by the decreasing demand...
Brown University criticized for using live pigs in medical training
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — A prominent physicians’ group has asked federal regulators to investigate Brown University’s medical school, arguing it is violating the law by using live pigs for training in emergency medicine. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine on Tuesday asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health...
6 deaths linked to blast of arctic cold
CHICAGO — Police say at least two people in the Detroit area have died in the extremely cold weather, including a former member of the City Council in the town of Ecorse, Mich. Ecorse detective Tim Sassak tells TV station WDIV that the man was discovered Wednesday. Sassak says the...
Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin: Closing schools for cold shows ‘we’re getting soft’
LEXINGTON, Ky. — Political rivals and educators took Gov. Matt Bevin to task this week, when he told a talk-radio host that canceling schools for cold weather is an indication that “we’re getting soft.” Bevin followed up the comment by saying that “it’s better to err on the side of...
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam faces fierce conservative backlash over abortion bill
RICHMOND — Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam faced intense backlash on Wednesday for comments he made about a fellow Democrat’s abortion-rights bill, whose sponsor said it would allow abortion right up to the final moments of pregnancy. In a radio interview, Northam was asked about the bill brought by Del. Kathy...
Grenade thrown into Philippine mosque kills 2 Islam teachers
ZAMBOANGA, Philippines — A grenade was thrown into a mosque in the southern Philippines where Muslim teachers were sleeping early Wednesday morning, killing two of them and injuring four, authorities said. It was the second explosion at a religious site in the south this week, though authorities didn’t see it...
Trump says ‘wall’ must be part of lawmakers’ border deal
WASHINGTON — Capitol Hill negotiators are hopeful of an agreement as they officially kick off talks on a homeland security spending bill stalled over funding for President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall. Left on their own, the seasoned House and Senate lawmakers say they could easily reach a border security...
