New plan calls for killing sea lions to save salmon in Columbia River
BOISE, Idaho — More than 1,100 sea lions could be killed annually along a stretch of the Columbia River to boost faltering populations of salmon and steelhead. Billions of dollars have been spent in Idaho, Oregon and Washington to save 13 species of Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead protected under...
Jim Leavelle, lawman at Lee Harvey Oswald’s side, dies at 99
DALLAS — Jim Leavelle, the longtime Dallas lawman who was captured in one of history’s most iconic photographs as he escorted President John F. Kennedy’s assassin as he was fatally shot, has died. He was 99. Leavelle, distinctive in his light-colored suit and white Stetson, is seen in the photograph...
Donald Trump gets statue in wife’s homeland of Slovenia
SELA PRI KAMNIKU, Slovenia — There’s no mistaking it depicts Donald Trump: a large wooden statue of the U.S. president has been erected in Slovenia, the homeland of his wife Melania. The nearly 26-foot high construction shows Trump with his trademark hair style, blue suit, white shirt and a long...
Threat of mass shootings give rise to AI-powered cameras
Paul Hildreth peered at a display of dozens of images from security cameras surveying his Atlanta school district and settled on one showing a woman in a bright yellow shirt walking a hallway. A mouse click instructed the artificial intelligence-equipped system to find other images of the woman, and it...
Woman fell asleep in her parked car, woke to find it missing
HAMILTON, N.J. — Police in New Jersey say a possible carjacker apparently removed a sleeping 80-year-old woman from her parked car before stealing the vehicle and leaving her in the driveway. Hamilton police say the woman told them she’d fallen asleep in her parked car in a driveway around 9...
Electric bikes might soon be coming to national park trails
WASHINGTON — Motorized electric bicycles may soon be humming their way into serene national parks and other public lands nationwide, under a new Trump administration order — hotly opposed by many outdoors groups — allowing the so-called e-bikes on every federal trail where a regular bike can go. Sales of...
Trump eyes mental institutions as answer to gun violence
WASHINGTON — When shots rang out last year at a high school in Parkland, Fla., leaving 17 people dead, President Donald Trump quickly turned his thoughts to creating more mental institutions. When back-to-back mass shootings in Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas, jolted the nation earlier this month, Trump again...
5 whales dead after mass stranding on Maui beach
HONOLULU — Five whales died, including four that were euthanized, after a mass stranding Thursday on a beach on the Hawaii island of Maui. Ten melon-headed whales were found stranded alive early in the morning on Sugar Beach in the coastal resort community of Kihei. Hours later, a whale calf...
Hurricane Dorian bears down on northern Bahamas
Hurricane Dorian bore down on the northern Bahamas on Saturday with howlingwinds, surging seas and a threat of torrential rains, forcing some evacuations and hotel closures ahead of the fierceCategory 4 storm. Forecasters expected Dorian, packing 150 mph winds, to hit some Bahamian islands Sunday before heading nearFlorida and then...
1-year-old child dies in hot car in North Carolina
PINEVILLE, N.C. — Police in North Carolina say a baby has died after his mother left the 1-year-old in a hot car while she was at work. News outlets report Pineville Police responded to a 911 call Thursday evening and found the 1-year-old boy in his car seat in a...
He walked into a Virginia Beach 7-Eleven for a Big Gulp. He ended up shooting 2 robbers, killing 1
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — It had already been a long and emotional day for the Virginia Beach man when he walked into a 7-Eleven store to buy a Big Gulp. He’d just been involved in a heated argument with his stepfather, and police had been called to the house. After...
Trump attacks Fox News, but the network remains silent
NEW YORK — The one constant with President Donald Trump’s increasingly frequent attacks on Fox News has been the network’s refusal to respond, even as the president complains that “Fox isn’t working for us anymore.” In recent days, however, some Fox personalities like Bret Baier, Juan Williams and Brit Hume...
250 pigs escape; most back, some with help from hot dog buns
ORANGE, Vt. — About 250 pigs have been causing a ruckus in a Vermont town the past month after they escaped from their enclosure, but most of them had been returned as of Thursday thanks to a trail of hot dog buns and good ol’ fashioned corralling. Several farm workers...
Alabama governor apologies for wearing blackface in college
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey apologized Thursday for wearing blackface decades ago, becoming the latest politician to face scrutiny over racially insensitive photos and actions from their university days. Ivey, 74, issued the apology after a 1967 radio interview surfaced in which her now-ex-husband describes her actions at...
Condemned death row inmate waits to hear whether he will be spared
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A condemned Tennessee prisoner is waiting to hear whether he will be spared the death chamber after he claimed prosecutors illegally excluded African Americans from the jury pool. Abu-Ali Abdur’Rahman (ah-BOO’-ah-LEE’) (AHB’-dur-RAK’-mahn), who is black, faces an April 16 execution date for the 1986 murder of Patrick...
Feds: Drug ring had enough cheap fentanyl to kill 14 million
NORFOLK, Va. — Law enforcement officials in Virginia said Thursday that they’ve taken down a multi-state drug ring and seized enough cheap fentanyl from China to kill 14 million people. The bust was announced in the wake of growing efforts to stem the flow of fentanyl from Chinese labs to...
Texas governor says ‘mistakes’ made in immigrant rhetoric
EL PASO, Texas — Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said Thursday “mistakes were made” when he sent a fundraising mailer that called on supporters to “defend Texas” from illegal immigration, which was dated a day before a gunman targeting Mexicans killed 22 people in El Paso. The letter was condemned as...
Teammates mourn slayings of pitcher’s family in Va. town
KEELING, Va. — Blake Bivens was inconsolable as the 24-year-old minor league pitcher flew from a road trip back to southern Virginia, where his wife, 1-year-old son and mother-in-law were slain. “It was awful,” said Montgomery Biscuits manager Morgan Ensberg, who traveled with Bivens on Tuesday. “Blake is an incredibly...
New Mexico official: Retake state land leased to Epstein
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — New Mexico’s attorney general urged officials Thursday to retake state trust land that had been leased to Jeffrey Epstein’s ranch, saying the financier’s bid for the scrubby, desert acreage meant for cattle grazing should not have been granted. In a statement, Attorney General Hector Balderas accused Epstein...
Marshal says fugitives had 8-hour head start on authorities
PHOENIX — The U.S. marshal for Arizona says a fugitive couple suspected of murder escaped by tying up two security guards near the Utah state line. In an interview Thursday with Phoenix radio station KTAR-FM, David Gonzales shared more details about how 56-year-old Blane Barksdale and 59-year-old Susan Barksdale escaped...
Sewickley Creek spill among those cited in $313K Sunoco Pipeline fine
Energy Transfer subsidiary Sunoco Pipeline LP has agreed to pay $313,000 in fines for environmental violations related to building the Mariner East 2 pipeline, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection announced Thursday. DEP said construction of the pipeline through Pennsylvania in 2018 resulted in spills of drilling fluid that got...
U.S. proposes easing rules on methane emissions
WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing to revoke many of its regulations covering oil-industry leaks of methane, a potent climate-changing gas. EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler said in a statement Thursday that the agency is following President Donald Trump’s directive to remove regulatory burdens on the oil and gas...
Eating poultry instead of red meat may lower breast cancer risk
Good news for women who can’t quite bring themselves to go vegetarian, but don’t mind giving up burgers and steaks: A new study finds red meat may increase breast cancer risk, while substituting poultry may lower it. The study, published in the International Journal of Cancer, looked for links between...
Unflushed toilet prompts threat with machete
A Florida man was arrested after threatening a friend with a machete over an unflushed toilet. Keith Mounts, 46, of Hudson was detained last week by officers from the Pasco Sheriff’s Office, reports Newsweek. The victim claimed Mounts pointed the knife in his face and said he would “chop” him...
New species of bloodsucking leech with 3 jaws discovered
BALTIMORE — What has three jaws, 56 to 59 teeth in each, no thumbs and was first discovered in Charles County, Md.? No, this is not a story about Chessie, the monster who definitely lives at the bottom of the Chesapeake Bay along with the unedited footage of Stanley Kubrick’s...
