Associated Press stories, Page 2649
Jason Aldean to receive artist of the decade award at ACMs
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Reigning entertainer of the year Jason Aldean will receive the artist of the decade award at this year’s Academy of Country Music Awards in April. The ACM announced Wednesday that Aldean will join only five other honorees that have received the award since 1969, including Marty...
German police: Dead gardener targeted enemies with bombs
BERLIN — German police on Wednesday urged anyone who had a conflict with a recently deceased man to be wary, after a doctor was killed and a mother and daughter were injured by bombs apparently planted by him before he died. Westpfalz police spokesman Bernhard Christian Erfort told The Associated...
Kentucky could make it a crime to ‘dox’ minors
FRANKFORT, Ky. — Months after a Kentucky high school student was vilified following his interaction with a Native American protester, the state legislature is advancing a bill that would make it a crime to publish personal information of a child online with the intent to harass or intimidate. A Kentucky...
School lessons targeted by climate change doubters
HARTFORD, Conn. — A Connecticut lawmaker wants to strike climate change from state science standards. A Virginia legislator worries teachers are indoctrinating students with their personal views on global warming. And an Oklahoma state senator wants educators to be able to introduce alternative viewpoints without fear of losing their jobs....
School bus crash injures 20, 1 student seriously hurt
AURORA, Ind. — A school bus collided with a garbage truck in Indiana on Wednesday, seriously injuring one student and leaving 20 other people hurt, authorities said. Preliminary information indicates that 18 students, the bus driver and the driver of the garbage truck were injured in the crash, said Indiana...
Pennsylvania imposes $1.5M fine on gas pipeline builder
HARRISBURG, Pa. — The builder of a natural gas gathering pipeline system in southwestern Pennsylvania is agreeing to a $1.5 million fine for failing to prevent sedimentation and erosion into streams during construction. The consent agreement between the state Department of Environmental Protection and Rice Midstream Holdings was released this...
Foreign leaders lavish Trump with diplomatic gifts
WASHINGTON — Foreign leaders showered President Donald Trump and his family with more than $140,000 in gifts during their first year in the White House, with China and Saudi Arabia among the most lavish givers. According to the State Department’s annual accounting of such gifts, Chinese President Xi Jinping gave...
U.S. trade deficit jumps to 10-year high, including record gap with China
WASHINGTON — The U.S. trade deficit jumped nearly 19 percent in December, pushing the trade imbalance for all of 2018 to widen to a decade-long high of $621 billion. The gap with China on goods widened to an all-time record of $419.2 billion. The Commerce Department figures released Wednesday undermined...
Searches find no more deaths in Alabama; toll stands at 23
BEAUREGARD, Ala. — All those listed as missing have been found and searches ended with no additional bodies discovered among the shattered homes, splintered pines and broken lives devastated by a tornado in rural Alabama, leaving the death toll at 23, authorities said Wednesday. “We are still in standby mode...
Federal wildlife officials plan to lift protections for gray wolves
BILLINGS, Mont. — U.S. wildlife officials plan to lift protections for gray wolves across the Lower 48 states, a move certain to re-ignite the legal battle over a predator that’s rebounding in some regions and running into conflicts with farmers and ranchers, an official told The Associated Press. Acting Interior...
Teacher wins $10K for reading fine print in insurance policy
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — A Florida travel insurance company has awarded a Georgia high school teacher $10,000 for reading the fine print in a policy she recently purchased. A Squaremouth statement says Donelan Andrews claimed the prize 23 hours after the contest began. The St. Petersburg-based company says it launched...
Netflix to make ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ series
NEW YORK — Netflix has acquired the rights to Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” one of the most celebrated novels of the 20th century. The streaming company announced Wednesday that it will adapt the 1967 book into a Spanish language series. “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” which...
Fossilized dinosaur tracks discovered at Valley Forge park
VALLEY FORGE — The national park on the site where George Washington and the struggling Continental Army endured a tough winter during the American Revolution boasts a new feature that’s a couple of hundred million years old — dozens of fossilized dinosaur footprints discovered on rocks used to pave a...
Pennsylvania joins lawsuit over Trump’s abortion ‘gag rule’
HARRISBURG, Pa. — Pennsylvania is joining 19 other states in a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s move to restrict taxpayer-funded family planning clinics from referring women for abortions. Attorney General Josh Shapiro joined the lawsuit filed Tuesday in an Oregon federal court challenging what critics call the “gag rule.” Shapiro,...
TSA agents find non-working grenade launcher in luggage
ALLENTOWN, Pa. — A Florida man’s plans to bring a military rocket-propelled grenade launcher back home were shot down after security screeners at a Pennsylvania airport spotted the non-functioning weapon in his checked bag. The Transportation Security Administration says the unassembled parts of the launcher and a replica grenade were...
Last car to roll off assembly line at Lordstown GM plant
LORDSTOWN, Ohio — A sprawling General Motors’ assembly plant near Youngstown will be idled on Wednesday after more than 50 years producing cars and other vehicles, a move that will eliminate nearly 1,700 hourly positions by months’ end. GM announced in December that Lordstown along with three plants in the...
Woman films moment an avalanche in central Norway came down
COPENHAGEN, Denmark — A Norwegian woman showed her quick wits when filming a “dramatic” avalanche that was cascading down towards her home. Gunn Gravem Isaksen told The Associated Press she was at home in central Norway when the avalanche occurred on Tuesday. On realizing what was going on, she rushed...
Furious R. Kelly cries, blasts sex abuse accusers as liarsVideo
CHICAGO — R&B star R. Kelly cried, angrily stood up and ranted about being “assassinated” during his first interview since being charged with sexual abuse, calling his accusers liars and saying people are after him for his money. Kelly, one of the best-selling music artists of all time, told Gayle...
Monster twister takes 10 relatives from 1 Alabama family
BEAUREGARD, Ala. — Cousins Cordarrly Jones and Demetria Jones have a hard time counting all the relatives they lost to a monster tornado that wiped out a rural community in Alabama. Their grandparents, 89-year-old Jimmy Jones and 83-year-old Mary Louise Jones, were killed in their home on a two-lane road...
Omar’s Israel remarks expose Democrats’ simmering divisions
WASHINGTON — Back in January, the Democrats welcomed their brash young newcomers to Congress with smiles and hugs. That was before the new colleagues dragged the party’s simmering divisions over Israel out in the open. Provocative comments from Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota have thrust the Democrats into an uncomfortable...
China says new law will bar demands for technology handover
BEIJING — China will bar government authorities from demanding overseas companies hand over technology secrets in exchange for market share, a top economic official said Wednesday, addressing a key complaint at the heart of the China-U.S. trade dispute. The provision is contained in a foreign investment law to be debated...
Clash of ‘Jeopardy!’ titans ends with $1 million runaway win
LOS ANGELES — The first-ever “Jeopardy!” team championship came down to a clash of the titans, Ken Jennings vs. Brad Rutter. With $1 million at stake, a big Daily Double bet by Rutter positioned his team for a runaway victory as the quiz show’s “All-Star Games” ended Tuesday. Rutter and...
Homeland Security chief defends Trump’s misstatement on border apprehensions
WASHINGTON — Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen sparred with newly empowered House Democrats over President Trump’s immigration policies Wednesday, defending his recent misstatement that border apprehensions were at an all-time high. Nielsen called on Congress to address what she described as a growing emergency along the southern border even as...
Bend, Oregon, now has last Blockbuster store in world
BEND, Ore. — The Blockbuster store in Bend, Ore., became the last one in the United States last year. And now it’s the only one in the world. The Bulletin reports that a Blockbuster store in Perth, Australia, is closing later this month, leaving the Bend franchise alone on the...
Mexico says at most only 22 vaquita porpoises remain
MEXICO CITY — Experts said Wednesday that, at most, only 22 vaquitas remain in the Gulf of California, where a grim, increasingly violent battle is playing out between emboldened fishermen and the last line of defense for the smallest and most endangered porpoise in the world. Jorge Urban, a biology...
