Young homebuyers scramble as prices rise faster than incomes
For millennials looking to buy their first home, the hunt feels like a race against the clock. In the seven years since the housing crash ended, home values in more than three-quarters of U.S. metro areas have climbed faster than incomes, according to an Associated Press analysis of real estate...
Death toll for Mt. Everest climbers reaches 10 for this season
Officials say a British man died Saturday morning in an attempt to climb Mount Everest, bringing this season’s death toll to 10. Al Jazeera reports that 44-year-old Robin Haynes Fisher died after he “suddenly collapsed” while returning from the summit. Two other climbers died Friday, Irishman Kevin Hynes, 56, and...
Albinism pageant in Zimbabwe joyfully breaks down prejudice
HARARE, Zimbabwe — Ayanda Sibanda, a model with albinism, has invariably been called “yellow” or “white” by friends and even some relatives. But she hardly recalls anyone referring to her by her actual race. “I am black, that’s what I thought, but then I am always made to feel otherwise,”...
State abortion bans may hand Democrats a political weapon
WASHINGTON — A flood of laws banning abortions in Republican-run states has handed Democrats a political weapon heading into next year’s elections, helping them paint the GOP as extreme and court centrist voters who could decide congressional races in swing states, members of both parties say. The Alabama law outlawing...
Pennsylvania has already seen yearly average of tornadoes
Weather officials say Pennsylvania has already recorded the average number of tornados for a year. Meteorologist Sarah Johnson of the National Weather Service office in Mount Holly, New Jersey says 16 tornadoes that have had preliminary confirmation in the commonwealth so far this year. Severe weather is more common in...
Nepal’s record-setting Everest guide returns as a hero
KATHMANDU, Nepal — Family, friends and supporters welcomed a veteran Sherpa guide upon his return to Nepal’s capital on Saturday, days after his 24th climb of Mount Everest extended his record. After flying back from Everest to Kathmandu, Kami Rita was greeted by the waiting crowd at the airport. His...
Family of woman mauled by lion pushes for new regulations
BURLINGTON, N.C. — Alex Black came face to face with an escaped lion when she was just 10 days into her unpaid internship at a private animal sanctuary. The 22-year-old had been preparing deer meat to feed the big cats, and suddenly found herself alone, staring down the lion in...
Fishermen face another quota cut, could hit lobster prices
PORTLAND, Maine — Fishermen already dealing with a dramatic reduction in the amount of a key bait fish they are allowed to harvest will likely face an additional cut next year that could drive up the price of lobster for consumers. Regulators on the East Coast are contending with a...
Lawyers for Noah’s Ark theme park are suing its insurance company for rain damage
It is one of the world’s classic stories. A gigantic ark gets built with the help of a higher power, a symbolic refuge from the depravity of humankind. It is a huge, grandiose structure constructed out of wood that is perhaps larger than anything comparable in the world. Then heavy...
Congregants grapple with church shooter once their colleague
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Minister Joey Spann watched Friday as 27-year-old Emanuel Kidega Samson was convicted of first-degree murder for killing one person and wounding seven others when he sprayed Spann’s church and its congregants with bullets in 2017. It was hard for Spann to recognize in Samson the same young...
Police say 10 wounded following shooting at New Jersey bar
TRENTON, N.J. — New Jersey police say 10 people have been wounded following a shooting at a Trenton bar. Authorities say police were notified of gunfire at about 12:25 a.m. Saturday outside a bar in the 300 block of Brunswick Avenue. Arriving officers found several victims in and around the...
Police: ‘Ongoing dispute’ suspected in Robinson shooting death
A feud between two men led to the shooting death of one of them Friday night in Robinson Township, police said. The Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed that 51-year-old Michael McDonald was the victim. He was shot at a home on the 2000 block of Forest Grove Road just...
Level Green dietitian shared Italian culinary traditions
Food was a passion and a profession for Lisa Ginsburg. A registered dietitian, she made sure those she cared for — including family members — were well fed and hydrated. “When I was in college, I played baseball for Clarion University, and she helped me with my nutrition,” her younger...
Judge blocks Trump from building sections of border wall
SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge blocked on Friday President Donald Trump from building sections of his long-sought border wall with money secured under his declaration of a national emergency. U.S. District Judge Haywood Gilliam, Jr., on Friday immediately halted the administration’s efforts to redirect military-designated funds for wall construction....
Oregon man arrested after disappearance of mother, young son
SALEM, Ore. — Police in Oregon arrested a man Friday on suspicion of murder and kidnapping following the disappearance of a woman and their 3-year-old son. A search was continuing for the mother and son, but police had little hope they were alive. Karissa Fretwell, 25, of Salem and her...
WWII Code Talker and longtime NM lawmaker dies at 94
SANTA FE, N.M. — John Pinto, a Navajo Code Talker in World War II who became one of the nation’s longest serving Native American elected officials as a New Mexico state senator, has died. He was 94. Senate colleague Michael Padilla confirmed Pinto’s death in Gallup on Friday after years...
Ashley Judd not interested in Weinstein settlement, says she plans to see him in court
NEW YORK — The tentative $44 million settlement involving Harvey Weinstein’s sexual misconduct allegations won’t drop the curtain on all lawsuits filed against the movie mogul, some of his accusers said Friday. Ashley Judd, the first A-list actress to speak publicly about Weinstein’s alleged pattern of predatory behavior, said in...
More legal wrangling ahead over flow of gasoline in Laurel Pipeline
The Texas-based owner of a petroleum pipeline that serves Western Pennsylvania is trying once again to move refined product in an easterly direction — to the continued chagrin of Giant Eagle, GetGo, Sheetz and other gasoline retailers. Houston-based Buckeye Partners LP and its subsidiary, Laurel Pipe Line Co., which operates...
Barr could expose secrets, politicize intelligence with review of Russia probe, current and former officials fear
WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump’s new executive order giving the attorney general broad authority to declassify government secrets threatens to expose U.S. intelligence sources and could distort the FBI and CIA’s roles in investigating Russian interference in the 2016 elections, current and former U.S. officials said. On Thursday, Trump allowed...
Evidence tells grim story of the night a police officer killed Justine Damond
MINNEAPOLIS — In plastic evidence bags lay Justine Rusczcyk Damond’s pajamas from that night: the pink top emblazoned with the words “Koala Australia,” stained and ripped from when the paramedics tried to save her that night. Next to it was the iPhone she used to summon the police officer who...
US challenges part of ruling that blocked grizzly bear hunts
BILLINGS, Mont. — U.S. officials asked a federal appeals court on Friday to overturn part of a judge’s ruling that blocked the first grizzly bear hunts in the Lower 48 states in almost three decades. The case before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals involves more than 700 grizzly...
Suspect in Utah shooting found in Idaho after 2-day manhunt
BOISE, Idaho — Idaho police captured a man Friday afternoon suspected of shooting and killing a motorist in northern Utah earlier this week after a two-day manhunt. Officers arrested 45-year-old Jonathan Llana about 3:15 p.m. in an area of southern Idaho outside of Pocatello about 10 miles from where the...
Tensions flare in Texas Capitol over new Sandra Bland video
AUSTIN, Texas — Texas authorities on Friday denied withholding a cellphone video of Sandra Bland’s confrontational traffic stop, responding to a Democratic legislator’s heated questions about why the 39-second clip never publicly surfaced until now. Bland, a 28-year-old black woman from outside Chicago, had used her phone in 2015 to...
‘Here we go again’: Judge blocks Mississippi abortion ban
JACKSON, Miss. — A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked a Mississippi law that would ban most abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected, at about six weeks of pregnancy. “Here we go again,” U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves wrote in his order. “Mississippi has passed another law banning abortions...
FDA approves $2M medicine, most expensive ever
U.S. regulators have approved the most expensive medicine ever, for a rare disorder that destroys a baby’s muscle control and kills nearly all of those with the most common type of the disease within a couple of years. The treatment is priced at $2.125 million. Out-of-pocket costs for patients will...
