Schools turn to apps, other tech to guard against shootings
LOS ANGELES — Schools trying to protect kids from mass shootings are turning to gunshot detection systems, cellphone apps and artificial intelligence — a high-tech approach designed to reduce the number of victims. Technology that speeds up law enforcement’s response and quickly alerts teachers and students to danger is a...
Former Disney employee accused of stealing parks’ costumes
ORLANDO, Fla. — A former Walt Disney World employee with backstage access stole about $14,000 worth of costumes and items from the Magic Kingdom and Epcot theme parks, authorities said Friday. Patrick Allen Spikes, 24, faces burglary, grand theft, and trafficking in stolen property charges, news outlets reported. The Orange...
Volunteers help more Navajo Nation homes get electricity
KAIBETO, Ariz. — Miranda Haskie sits amid the glow of candles at her kitchen table as the sun sinks into a deep blue horizon silhouetting juniper trees and a nearby mesa. Her husband, Jimmie Long, Jr., fishes for the wick to light a kerosene lamp as the couple and their...
North Huntingdon nurse made lasting impression on hospital staff, patients
Generations of staff and patients at Forbes Hospital came to know the kindness and caring of nurse Joan Saversky — a regard she also showed for others when she wasn’t on duty. “There was a certain loving care she gave to us kids and to all the patients she saw...
Heinz Mayochup has an unfortunate translation in Cree
The Kraft Heinz company must have been selling a decent amount of their mayonnaise-ketchup mashup in the United States so they expanded sales into Canada. What could go wrong? Mayochup tastes exactly the same on both sides of the border but Canada’s Cree speakers think the condiment sounds a little...
U.S. warns airliners flying in Persian Gulf amid Iran tensions; ExxonMobil begins evacuations
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — U.S. diplomats warned Saturday that commercial airliners flying over the wider Persian Gulf faced a risk of being “misidentified” amid heightened tensions between the U.S. and Iran. The warning relayed by U.S. diplomatic posts from the Federal Aviation Administration underlined the risks the current tensions...
‘Hoss’ the Ohio hair ball is 125 pounds and counting
CAMBRIDGE, Ohio — What’s 4 feet tall, 125 pounds and is covered in hair? No, it’s not Cousin Itt of the Addams Family. It’s Hoss, the giant ball of human hair. Hoss, named after Dan Blocker’s character from “Bonanza,” is an oblong shape and is, well, hairy. Hundreds of people...
Van passenger impaled by tripod on Sacramento freeway
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Authorities say somebody stole a tripod from a California Department of Transportation crew and then dropped it from an overpass onto a Sacramento freeway, impaling the lung of a passenger in a van. The driver of the van, Tim Page, tells KCRA-TV that he was on Interstate...
Jury awards $3 million to black strippers in discrimination case
JACKSON, Miss. — A Mississippi jury has awarded a total of more than $3 million to five African American strippers after a federal judge found the women worked under worse conditions than their white colleagues. U.S. District Judge Henry T. Wingate ruled in the discrimination case last year. After a...
Prosecutor: Mom plotted to kill pregnant woman, steal baby
CHICAGO — A mother plotted for months to acquire a newborn before she and her daughter strangled a pregnant Chicago woman and cut her baby from her womb using a butcher’s knife, prosecutors said Friday as they revealed gruesome new details about the case. Marlen Ochoa-Lopez, 19, was lured to...
Missouri’s GOP-led Legislature passes 8-week abortion ban
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Missouri’s Republican-led House on Friday passed sweeping legislation designed to survive court challenges, which would ban abortions at eight weeks of pregnancy. If enacted, the ban would be among the most restrictive in the U.S. It includes exceptions for medical emergencies, but not for pregnancies caused...
Trump lifts tariffs on Mexico, Canada, delays auto tariffs
WASHINGTON — Bogged down in a sprawling trade dispute with U.S. rival China, President Donald Trump took steps Friday to ease tensions with America’s allies — lifting import taxes on Canadian and Mexican steel and aluminum and delaying auto tariffs that would have hurt Japan and Europe. By removing the...
‘Shocking’: Ohio State doc abused 177, officials were aware
COLUMBUS, Ohio — A now-dead Ohio State team doctor sexually abused at least 177 male students from the 1970s through the 1990s, and numerous university officials got wind of what was going on over the years but did little or nothing to stop him, according to a report released by...
Man sets himself on fire outside Alabama Walmart
ATHENS, Ala. — A man who set himself on fire outside a Walmart store in Alabama was reported in stable condition Friday at a Tennessee hospital. After the incident happened about 6:30 p.m. Thursday, the man was taken to a hospital in Athens, Alabama, and then sent by helicopter ambulance...
Prosecutor: Mom plotted to kill pregnant woman, steal baby
CHICAGO — A mother plotted for months to acquire a newborn before she and her daughter strangled a pregnant Chicago woman and cut her baby from her womb using a butcher’s knife, prosecutors said Friday as they revealed gruesome new details about the case. Marlen Ochoa-Lopez, 19, was lured to...
Government audit: Ben Carson’s $40K office purchases broke law
WASHINGTON — Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson violated the law when his department spent more than $40,000 to purchase a dining set and a dishwasher for his office’s executive dining room, government auditors concluded. In a report released Thursday, the Government Accountability Office said HUD failed to notify...
Trump says Iran, too, may be confused about war signals
WASHINGTON — After two weeks of mixed signals on Iran, from high-profile U.S. military moves to administration assertions that it’s not angling for war, President Donald Trump said Friday that even the Iranians may be confused about what comes next. “With all of the Fake and Made Up News out...
Report: Brakes unused on fiery Russian plane that killed 41
MOSCOW — A Russian state news agency says a report from the country’s civil aviation authority indicates that the crew of an airliner that caught fire while making an emergency landing, killing 41 people, had not deployed the plane’s air brakes. The report Friday indicated that human error could be...
Judge refuses to toss suit over Pepe the Frog poster sales
A federal judge will let a jury decide whether conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ Infowars website had a legal right to sell a poster featuring the image of Pepe the Frog, a cartoon character that became hijacked by far-right extremists. U.S. District Judge Michael Fitzgerald refused Thursday to throw out a...
House approves sweeping bill to expand gay rights
WASHINGTON — Democrats in the House approved sweeping anti-discrimination legislation Friday that would extend civil rights protections to LGBT people by prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. The protections would extend to employment, housing, loan applications, education, public accommodations and other areas. Called the Equality Act, the...
Prosecutor: Mom and daughter strangled pregnant Chicago teen
CHICAGO — A pregnant Chicago teen who was killed and whose baby was cut from her womb was strangled while being shown a photo album of the late son and brother of her attackers, a prosecutor said Friday in urging a judge to keep the defendants locked up. Assistant State’s...
Florida governor warns his state can’t handle an influx of immigrants
MIAMI — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Friday the state isn’t prepared to handle vague Trump administration plans to send some 1,000 undocumented immigrants a month from the southern border to South Florida. “We cannot accommodate in Florida the dumping of unlawful migrants into our state,” DeSantis said during a...
Feds want stolen Alexander Hamilton letter returned
BOSTON — A 1780 letter from Alexander Hamilton to the Marquis de Lafayette stolen from the Massachusetts Archives decades ago has been found and now an effort is underway to get it back. The U.S. attorney’s office in Boston this week filed a forfeiture complaint in federal court asking a...
United Airlines to lay off 100 in Houston, outsource jobs
HOUSTON — United Airlines says it will cut about 100 accounting jobs in Houston in July and shift the work to a contractor. The airline reported the layoffs in a letter this week to the Texas Workforce Commission. It did not identify the contractor that will handle accounting of revenue...
House passes bill to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity
WASHINGTON — The House passed legislation Friday to amend the decades-old Civil Rights Act to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Despite a sea change in the past decade in public opinion regarding gay rights and the legalization of same-sex marriage nationally, 30 states have no laws...
