Associated Press stories, Page 2413
Cyberattacks inflict deep harm at technology-rich schools
AVON, Conn. — Over six weeks, the vandals kept coming, knocking the school system’s network offline several times a day. There was no breach of sensitive data files, but the attacks in which somebody deliberately overwhelmed the Avon Public Schools system in Connecticut still proved costly. Classroom lesson plans built...
South African musician Johnny Clegg dies at 66 after cancer
JOHANNESBURG — Johnny Clegg, a South African musician who performed in defiance of racial barriers imposed by the apartheid system decades ago and celebrated its new democracy under Nelson Mandela, died Tuesday after a battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 66. The British-born singer sometimes called the “White Zulu” died...
Fossil found in 1980s in Texas declared new genus, species
BIG BEND NATIONAL PARK, Texas — Experts say fossil remains discovered in the 1980s at the Big Bend National Park in southwest Texas have been identified as a new genus and species of duckbilled dinosaur. The Journal of Systematic Paleontology announced the classification of the Aquilarhinus palimentus last week. It...
3 dead, 4 missing in float plane crash in Canada
ST JOHN’s, Newfoundland — At least three people died and a search is under way for four others missing after a float plane crashed into a lake in the Eastern Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Air Saguenay President Jean Tremblay said Tuesday the de Havilland DHC-2 Beaver was carrying...
Appeals court: NYC can ban ads in Uber and Lyft cars
NEW YORK — Drivers for companies like Uber and Lyft in New York City can be banned from displaying advertisements in their vehicles, a federal appeals court said Tuesday. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the ban does not violate the First Amendment as it reversed a February...
Calif. camper chased by man with knife glad to be back with family
BISHOP, Calif. — A woman missing for three days after disappearing from a remote campground in California’s White Mountains on Tuesday described a man she says chased her with a knife as a burley, bald “big guy” with tanned skin. Sheryl Powell, of Huntington Beach, California, detailed what it was...
Trump abortion rule prompts exit at family planning program
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration’s ban on taxpayer-funded family planning clinics referring women for abortions prompted a major provider in Maine to announce Tuesday it is dropping out of the program after nearly 50 years. Others may follow. “It is objectionable that the federal government is so arrogant as to...
Gas worker’s body recovered after California house explosion
MURRIETA, Calif. — Authorities have recovered the body of a Southern California Gas Co. worker killed in an explosion and fire that destroyed a house and damaged others in the city of Murrieta. Deputy Fire Chief David Lantzer says the utility worker’s body was removed Monday night, hours after the...
Tick removed from Kentucky man’s eye
PRESTONSBURG, Ky. — A Kentucky man who went to the doctor with an irritated eye got the unsavory news that it contained a tick. WYMT-TV reports an optometrist used tweezers to remove the tick from Chris Prater’s eye. Prater works for an electric company and had left a job site...
‘Game of Thrones’ sets record with 32 Emmy nominations
LOS ANGELES — HBO’s “Game of Thrones” slashed its way to a record-setting 32 Emmy nominations Tuesday for its eighth and final season, leading HBO back to dominance over Netflix, the streaming service that bumped it last year from atop the increasingly crowded television heap. The bloodthirsty saga’s total eclipsed...
Blackface scandal dampens Virginia governor’s fundraising
RICHMOND, Va. — Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam is struggling to raise big money in a key election year after a blackface scandal nearly ended his political career. New campaign finance reports filed Monday show the Democratic governor raised slightly more than $300,000 between April and June. That’s far below the...
Retail rivals crash Amazon’s Prime Day party
NEW YORK — The gravitational pull of Amazon Prime Day is so strong on shoppers it’s benefiting other retailers as well, according to an early analysis from a key data group. On Monday, the first day of its 48-hour sales event, large retailers, those that generated annual revenue of at...
Apollo 11 astronaut returns to launch pad 50 years later
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins returned Tuesday to the exact spot where he and two other astronauts flew to the moon 50 years ago. At NASA’s invitation, Michael Collins spent the golden anniversary at Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A in Florida. He marked the precise...
NYPD cop won’t be charged in Eric Garner chokehold death
WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors won’t bring civil rights charges against a New York City police officer in the 2014 chokehold death of Eric Garner, a person familiar with the matter said Tuesday. The decision not to bring charges against Officer Daniel Pantaleo comes a day before the statute of limitations...
Nebraska woman arrested, fined for climbing Mount Rushmore
RAPID CITY, S.D. — A Nebraska woman has been fined $1,000 for climbing the Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota. Authorities say Alexandria Incontro scaled the massive granite sculpture Friday with bare feet and no rope, making it to about 15 feet (4.5 meters) from the top. The Rapid...
Florida expert captures elusive alligator at Chicago lagoon
CHICAGO — The alligator had a good run as day after day the people hunting for him in a Chicago lagoon came up empty, but in the end he was no match for an expert the city shipped in from Florida. The male gator, nicknamed ‘Chance the Snapper,’ was first...
‘Likely innocent’ Philadelphia man ordered freed from prison after 28 years
PHILADELPHIA — A Philadelphia man sentenced to life in prison a quarter-century ago was ordered freed from prison Monday after the Philadelphia prosecutor’s office told the court last month that he was “likely innocent” of the murder for which he was convicted. Chester Hollman III, 48, was freed from state...
Meek Mill seeks new trial, judge after decade-long probation
Lawyers for Philadelphia rapper Meek Mill will ask an appeals court Tuesday to overturn a 2008 drug and gun conviction that’s kept the Philadelphia rapper on probation for a decade. The city judge who oversees the case and sent him to prison in 2017 on a parole violation has a...
Graphic suicide scene edited out of ’13 Reasons Why’ finale
Netflix has decided to remove a graphic suicide scene from the Season 1 finale of its show “13 Reasons Why” as the series prepares to launch its third season. Show creator Brian Yorkey says in a statement on Twitter the intent in portraying the suicide in such graphic detail was...
Polls show sour views of race relations in Trump’s America
Even before President Donald Trump’s racist tweets toward four Democratic congresswomen of color, Americans considered race relations in the United States to be generally bad — and said that Trump has been making them worse. On Sunday, Trump tweeted that the congresswomen should go back to the “broken and crime...
GOP: U.S. land agency is moving West, closer to its territory
DENVER — Some Westerners have long complained the U.S. government is an absentee landlord, managing vast tracts of public lands in their states from the nation’s capital instead of closer to the properties themselves. GOP lawmakers say that may change soon. The Bureau of Land Management has decided to move...
Facing censure, Trump insists ‘not a racist bone in my body’
WASHINGTON — Defiant in the face of widespread censure, President Donald Trump insisted Tuesday that his tweets suggesting four Democratic congresswomen of color return to their countries “were NOT Racist,” and he appealed to fellow Republicans to “not show weakness” and to resist a House resolution condemning his words. “I...
Pirates drop 4th straight in shutout loss to Cardinals
ST. LOUIS — Miles Mikolas scuffled in the first half of the season and wanted a fresh start after the All-Star game. His got it. Mikolas pitched an eight-hitter and Tyler O’Neill hit a pair of two-run homers, leading the St. Louis Cardinals to a 7-0 win over the Pittsburgh...
Judge recommends $14M award to neo-Nazi trolling victim
HELENA, Mont. — The publisher of a neo-Nazi website should have to pay the victim of an internet trolling campaign over $14 million and remove all posts that encouraged his readers to contact the Montana real estate agent, a magistrate judge recommended Monday. U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeremiah Lynch called The...
GAO: EPA skirted procedures in overhaul of science boards
WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency skirted some of its usual procedures and ethics rules when it overhauled key agency advisory boards, slashing the numbers of academic scientists on the panels and appointing more industry figures, the Government Accountability Office said Monday. Senate Democrats had asked for the GAO probe....
