Mississippi says two inmates escaped from troubled prison
Mississippi authorities were searching for two prisoners believed to have escaped Saturday from one of several prisons rocked by violence that has left at least five inmates dead in the past week. Gov. Phil Bryant on Saturday said via Twitter that he has directed “the use of all necessary assets...
More US troops deploy to Mideast amid tensions with Iran
FORT BRAGG, N.C. — Hundreds of U.S. soldiers deployed Saturday from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to Kuwait to serve as reinforcements in the Middle East amid rising tensions following the U.S. killing of a top Iranian general. Lt. Col. Mike Burns, a spokesman for the 82nd Airborne Division, told The...
Rod Stewart punched a Palm Beach security guard on New Year’s. It wasn’t his greatest hit
MIAMI — Rod Stewart has certainly had better New Year’s Eves. There was the one 41 years ago when the British rocker — and current South Florida resident — opened 1979 with one of his signature smashes, “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?” He was knighted in late 2016 at Buckingham...
Woman accused of using Muslim student’s hijab to attack her
PORTLAND, Ore. — Authorities issued an arrest warrant Friday for a woman accused of trying to choke a Muslim student with her headscarf and then harassing her by stripping down at a train station in Portland, Oregon. Jasmine Renee Campbell, 23, has been indicted on hate crime, attempted strangulation, harassment...
Chicago mom charged with killing sons in stabbing, high-rise plunge
CHICAGO — A 20-year-old Chicago woman faces murder charges after police say she killed two of her young sons, leaving one in a bathtub and throwing another from an 11th-floor apartment window before jumping herself. Aleah Newell of Chicago was charged with two counts of murder for the death of...
Flight attendants, employees sue Delta Air Lines after new uniforms allegedly cause health problems
More than 500 Delta Air Lines employees have filed a class-action lawsuit against Lands’ End, alleging that the uniforms provided by the clothing company are “toxic” and causing some workers health issues. The new duds worn by thousands of flight attendants and maintenance workers “pose an ongoing, unreasonable risk of...
Survivor of boat disaster: ‘Sleeping to swimming’ in minutes
JUNEAU, Alaska — A survivor of an Alaska crab boat sinking that left five fellow fishermen missing said the crew went from “sleeping to swimming” in minutes as rough seas and ice battered their vessel on New Year’s Eve. “On the 31st, we just started listing really hard on the...
Amid clergy abuse, survivors of color remain in shadows
The Samples were a black Chicago family, with six children and few resources. The priest helped them with tuition, clothes, bills. He offered the promise of opportunities — a better life. He also abused all the children. They told no one. They were afraid of not being believed and of...
Man left drugs, gun in designer bags at Louisiana convenience store
GALLIANO, La. — Louisiana authorities are perplexed over why a man left apparent designer bags holding drugs, a gun, cash and a digital scale in a convenience store. The man went into the store early Thursday and put the Louis Vuitton and Gucci bags on a chair, according to a...
Man leaps off Atlanta bridge in mistaken belief cops are chasing himVideo
ATLANTA — A driver who mistakenly thought Atlanta police were chasing him as they pursued a different speeding motorist crashed his car and jumped 40 feet (12 meters) off a highway bridge to escape. The driver survived the jump early Thursday and ran into a wooded area. On Friday, Davaughn...
Ethan Couch released from jail after ‘weak positive’ drug test result
DALLAS — Ethan Couch was released from jail Friday afternoon, one day after Tarrant County authorities said he violated the terms of his probation by failing a drug test. Couch, the 22-year-old “affluenza teen,” spent nearly two years behind bars after he killed four people in a June 15, 2013,...
Court grants order to keep Texas baby on life support
FORT WORTH, Texas — A Texas appeals court on Friday agreed to delay a judge’s ruling that would have allowed a hospital to end life-sustaining treatment for an 11-month-old girl who doctors say is in pain and will not get better. The Second Court of Appeals in Fort Worth ordered...
United Methodist Church negotiates a likely split over LGBTQ issues
The United Methodist Church has long been riven by bitter divisions between its U.S. and international congregations over whether to allow same-sex marriage and ordain gay clergy. Now it appears the church — whose 7 million U.S. members make it the nation’s second-largest Protestant denomination — is heading for a...
Trump says alleged rape victim can’t sue him in New York
NEW YORK — President Donald Trump asked a New York judge to throw out an advice columnist’s lawsuit accusing him of defamation after he denied her claim that he raped her in a department store dressing room two decades ago. E. Jean Carroll, who went public with her allegation against...
Carnival cruise ship dumped 5,900 gallons of gray water into the ocean at Port Canaveral
MIAMI — Carnival Corporation again has found itself in the spotlight for pollution, this time for discharging untreated gray water into the ocean while at Port Canaveral. On Thursday morning, while the company’s Carnival Elation cruise ship was docked, a gray water valve “failed and unintentionally discharged gray water from...
Christians cheer Trump in Miami as he says Soleimani’s ‘bloody rampage’ is over
MIAMI — Speaking from a campaign rally at a West Miami-Dade County megachurch, President Donald Trump declared to a cheering audience of thousands that Iran’s top general was dead, and said a “major attack” against the U.S. had been stopped. Trump, in some of his first public comments about the...
Mississippi prison chief says 4 of 5 killings done by gangs
Mississippi’s outgoing prisons chief said Friday that at least some of the five killings of inmates since Sunday stem from gang violence, as guards struggle to maintain control of restive inmates. “These are trying times for the Mississippi Department of Corrections,” Commissioner Pelicia Hall said in a statement hours after...
Q&A: How climate change, other factors stoke Australia fires
Australia’s unprecedented wildfires are supercharged thanks to climate change, the type of trees catching fire and weather, experts say. And these fires are so extreme that they are triggering their own thunderstorms. Here are a few questions and answers about the science behind the Australian wildfires that so far have...
Pennsylvania requires permits for hemp growers and processors in 2020
Like hemp growers, facilities that process the crop also will have to get permits in 2020 as Pennsylvania’s emerging industry enters its second year, state officials said. The commercial cultivation of hemp, which had been banned by the federal government for 80 years, took off in Pennsylvania last year after...
U.S. long watched Soleimani, but feared risks of a strike
WASHINGTON — In 2007, U.S. commandos watched as a convoy carrying a powerful Iranian military leader made its way to northern Iraq. It was a prime opportunity to take out Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who had been accused of aiding Shiite forces that killed thousands of American troops in Iraq. But...
California skeleton ID’d as Japanese internee
LOS ANGELES — A skeleton found by hikers this fall near California’s second-highest peak was identified Friday as a Japanese American artist who had left the Manzanar internment camp to paint in the mountains in the waning days of World War II. The Inyo County sheriff used DNA to identify...
Soleimani’s death ratchets up tensions and raises questions about U.S. long game
Gen. Qassem Soleimani, head of Iran’s powerful Quds Force, wasn’t a name known to most Americans before a U.S. drone strike early Friday near Baghdad killed him. But he’s been front and center among serious considerations for Iran watchers for years, said Julia Santucci, a senior lecturer in intelligence studies...
‘Millions of sparks’: Weather raises Australia’s fire danger
SYDNEY — Wildfires raging across Australia have prompted one of the largest evacuations in the country’s history as what is already the worst season on record is likely to become even more devastating due to hot weather and strong winds. More than 200 fires were burning, and warnings of extreme...
Judge: Indicted Giuliani associate Lev Parnas may give records to House
NEW YORK — A federal judge on Friday allowed a Rudy Giuliani associate indicted on campaign finance charges to turn over documents to Congress as part of the impeachment proceeding against President Donald Trump. U.S. District Court Judge Paul Oetken granted Lev Parnas’ request to turn over to the House...
Teen charged with murder in death of pregnant woman, fetus
BROWNSVILLE, Tenn. — A Tennessee teenager was arrested in connection to a shooting that killed a pregnant woman and her fetus, paralyzed her 8-year-old daughter and wounded another adult family member, authorities said. A 17-year-old boy was arrested Thursday and charged with two counts of first-degree murder and two counts...
