Actor-comedian Orson Bean, 91, hit and killed by car in LA
LOS ANGELES — Orson Bean, the witty actor and comedian, was hit and killed by a car in Los Angeles, authorities said. He was 91. The Los Angeles County coroner’s office confirmed Bean’s Friday night death, saying it was being investigated as a “traffic-related” fatality. The coroner’s office provided the...
Payback: Trump ousts officials who testified on impeachment
WASHINGTON — Exacting swift punishment against those who crossed him, an emboldened President Donald Trump ousted two government officials who had delivered damaging testimony against him during his impeachment hearings. The president took retribution just two days after his acquittal by the Senate. First came news Friday that Trump had...
Greensburg woman loved to travel – Feb. 8, 2020
Dorothy Piekarski loved to travel around the world with her husband, Robert, exploring new places. “They traveled to Egypt and rode the camels. They loved traveling along the coast of California and visiting the redwood forests,” said her stepdaughter, Nancy K. Coons. Dorothy J. “Dottie” Piekarski of Hempfield died Wednesday,...
AP fact check: Democrats skew health care, Iraq facts in debate
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump says the world is witnessing a great American economic revival that he brought on by reversing course from the Obama years. Yet the economy is not so different from the robust one he inherited and disparages at every turn. Trump’s State of the Union speech...
Key takeaways from Democratic debate in New Hampshire
MANCHESTER, N.H. — Three days before the critical New Hampshire Primary, seven Democratic presidential candidates debated, with many of them fighting to survive in the race to challenge President Donald Trump. Here are some key takeaways. MAYOR PETE MAKES HIS CASE Pete Buttigieg, the 38-year-old former mayor of South Bend.,...
Front-runners Buttigieg and Sanders beat back debate attacks
MANCHESTER, N.H. — Democratic presidential front-runners Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg beat back a barrage of attacks during a Friday night debate as rivals raised persistent questions about their ideology and experience, hoping to sow doubts about their ability to defeat President Donald Trump. Reeling from a weak finish in...
Judge strikes blow to US immigration enforcement tactics
SAN DIEGO — A federal judge has prohibited U.S. immigration authorities from relying on databases deemed faulty to ask law enforcement agencies to hold people in custody, a setback for the Trump administration that threatens to hamper how it carries out arrests. The ruling applies only to the Central District...
Kansas GOP lawmakers fail in anti-abortion amendment effort
TOPEKA, Kan. — Republican lawmakers in Kansas on Friday failed to get a proposed anti-abortion amendment to the state constitution on the ballot, stalling efforts to ensure that its Bill of Rights does not secure a right to an abortion. Neither side expected Friday’s vote in the Kansas House to...
Michael Avenatti considering testifying at extortion trial
NEW YORK — California lawyer Michael Avenatti may decide to testify at his New York trial on charges that he tried to extort Nike for millions of dollars, his lawyer said Friday. Attorney Scott Srebnick said he’ll file arguments Saturday asking a judge to exclude any questions about allegations that...
New Mississippi AG reviewing 6-trial murder case
JACKSON, Miss. — Mississippi’s new attorney general must decide whether to take a quadruple murder case to a seventh trial. Curtis Flowers has had two mistrials and four reversed convictions in connection with the 1996 slayings of four people at a furniture store. Flowers was sentenced to death in the...
Defective software could have doomed Boeing’s crew capsule
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Defective software could have doomed Boeing’s crew capsule during its first test flight, a botched trip that was cut short and never made it to the International Space Station, NASA and company officials said Friday. The Starliner capsule launched without astronauts in December, but its automatic...
Trump used Philly girl’s story to attack ‘failing’ schools. But she’s at one of the city’s most desired charters
PHILADELPHIA — President Donald Trump turned a Philadelphia fourth grader into a poster child for the school-choice movement Tuesday when he told the nation thousands of students were “trapped in failing government schools” and announced that she was finally getting a scholarship to attend the school of her choice. But...
NTSB releases photo of Kobe Bryant helicopter flying into cloud before crash
LOS ANGELES — As part of its preliminary investigation into the Kobe Bryant helicopter crash, the National Transportation Safety Board on Friday released an image of the chopper flying under cloudy conditions shortly before it hit a hill in Calabasas. The report also included photos showing the poor visibility in...
More planes with quarantined China passengers arrive in US
SAN DIEGO — Hundreds more people evacuated from the virus zone in China began arriving Friday at military bases across the U.S. to begin a two-week quarantine. There were no signs of illness among those who flew into Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, said Dr. Jennifer McQuiston, deputy...
Shrinking country: Serbia struggles with population decline
BLAGOJEV KAMEN, Serbia — Uros Trainovic remembers when his small mining village in eastern Serbia was a vibrant home to 200 families, had a school of its own, a doctor and a shop. How times have changed. Now, 60-odd years later, it’s a ghost village with just eight residents. The...
Mexico won’t really raffle off huge presidential jet
MEXICO CITY — Mexicans will no longer have to worry about where to park a Boeing Dreamliner when the government raffles off the luxurious presidential jet: the air force will keep it. In fact, nobody will win the actual $130 million Boeing 787 plane in the lottery-style raffle to be...
Appeals court dismisses Democrats’ lawsuit against Trump
WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court in Washington on Friday dismissed one of several ongoing lawsuits charging that President Donald Trump has illegally profited off the presidency. The lawsuit the court dismissed was filed by Democratic members of Congress in 2017. The court was not ruling on whether Trump violated...
Secret Service may leave Homeland Security, rejoin TreasuryVideo
WASHINGTON — The White House is throwing its support behind a plan to transfer the U.S. Secret Service back to the Treasury Department to better focus on the growing threat of online financial crimes. Shifting the agency from within the Department of Homeland Security to the Treasury would require action...
Aide who testified against Trump likely out at White House
WASHINGTON — The decorated soldier and White House aide who played a central role in the Democrats’ impeachment case against President Donald Trump is expected to be pushed out of his job at the National Security Council, two people familiar with the expected personnel move said Friday. “I’m not happy...
Benetton fires famed photographer over insensitive remarks
MILAN — Photographer Olivier Toscani made a career out of provocative advertising campaigns for Benetton, the Italian clothing brand famed for its colorful knitwear. But that decades-long relationship has been severed after Toscani outraged relatives of victims in the deadly 2018 Genoa bridge collapse. Toscani told RAI television this week,...
Russia says Israel nearly shot down passenger plane in Syria
MOSCOW — Russia’s Defense Ministry said Friday that Israeli air forces nearly shot down a passenger jetliner in Syria during a missile strike on the suburbs of Damascus a day earlier. The allegation comes as tensions run high in Syria, where fighting has escalated in the northern province of Idlib....
Russian parliament member dies in helicopter crash
MOSCOW — A member of the lower house of the Russian parliament was killed in a helicopter crash in his home region Friday, officials said. Airat Khairullin was killed in the crash in Tatarstan, about 500 miles east of Moscow, Russian news agencies reported, citing parliamentary and local officials. Reports...
Trump to promote opportunity zones on North Carolina visit
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Friday will promote economic revitalization in low-income areas on his first trip outside of Washington since he was acquitted in the Senate impeachment trial. Before leaving for North Carolina, Trump continued to air grievances about his impeachment ordeal, saying of Democrats: “I think there’s...
Spain and Italy ready joint migration policy proposal for EU
MADRID — Spain and Italy want to forge a new strategic alliance that can shape the European Union’s future policies on migration, the two countries’ foreign ministers said Friday. Spain’s Arancha González Laya and Italy’s Luigi di Maio also said after talks in Madrid that an informal document on proposed...
Former congressman Walsh ends 2020 GOP bid against Trump
WASHINGTON — Former Illinois congressman Joe Walsh ended his Republican primary challenge to President Donald Trump on Friday, abandoning an effort that faced long odds and financial struggles from the start. “I’m suspending my campaign, but our fight against the Cult of Trump is just getting started. I’m committed to...
