News category, Page 1783

LAS VEGAS — A former Las Vegas illusion show headliner from Germany appeared to faint Thursday while being sentenced to 20 years in prison and fined more than $500,000 in a federal child pornography case. Jan Rouven Fuechtener, 40, stiffened and fell backward over his chair after Chief U.S. District...

WASHINGTON — Complaints are mounting against Acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt over allegations he used his position to help the interests of his former lobbying client, California’s powerful Westlands Water District. The nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center filed a complaint accusing Bernhardt of ethics violations by partaking in decisions directly related...

WASHINGTON — President Trump early last year directed his then-chief of staff, John Kelly, to give presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner a top-secret security clearance — a move that made Kelly so uncomfortable that he documented the request in writing, according to current and former administration officials. After Kushner, a senior...

IRONTON, Ohio — A man who pleaded guilty in the deadly Ohio shootings of four relatives, including a young boy, has been sentenced to the death penalty. A panel of three judges sentenced 24-year-old Arron Lawson on Thursday in the 2017 slayings near Ironton in southern Ohio’s Lawrence County. Prosecutors...

BANGOR, Maine — Former Maine Gov. Paul LePage says any elimination of the Electoral College would hurt white people. LePage told WVOM radio that allowing the popular vote to choose the president would give minorities more power and that “white people will not have anything to say.” Proposals to eliminate...

BERLIN — Officials in Germany are defending their decision to seize an indebted family’s pet pug and sell it on eBay, saying the move was a last resort because authorities were unable to find anything else to take. The incident in the western town of Ahlen prompted criticism on social...

Denver long ago laid title to being the Mile High City, but with more than $6 billion in retail sales of cannabis and cannabis-infused products in four years of legalized recreational marijuana in Colorado, the state’s capital city might now want to claim being at least a mile and half...

The American Federation of Teachers, or AFT, is calling on Pennsylvania’s $56.2 billion school employees’ retirement fund (PSERs) and 23 other large pension funds to consider divesting their stock in private prison corporations. A new AFT report found that PSERs is among two dozen public pension funds that own a...

WASHINGTON — The Senate on Thursday approved former coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler to head the Environmental Protection Agency by a vote of 52 to 47, elevating a veteran of Washington political and industry circles who has advanced President Trump’s push to roll back Obama-era environmental regulations. Wheeler, who began his...

SANTA ANA, Calif. — A California federal judge has refused to order the Mongols motorcycle gang to forfeit its trademarked logo, delivering a blow to prosecutors. U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter said Thursday that such an order would have been unconstitutional. Mongols attorney Joe Yanny says the ruling...

KIEV, Ukraine — Hundreds of demonstrators marched across the Ukrainian capital Thursday calling for the impeachment of the country’s president over embezzlement claims. President Petro Poroshenko, who is seeking re-election in a March 31 vote, has come under fire over a media investigation that implicated one of his senior associates...

MOSCOW — A Moscow court on Thursday rejected an appeal by a prominent U.S. foreign investment manager and ordered him to remain in jail for at least the next month-and-a-half in connection with an embezzlement probe. The Moscow City Court’s decision to keep Michael Calvey behind bars until April 13...

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Thursday he takes North Korean leader Kim Jong Un “at his word” that Kim was unaware of the alleged mistreatment of an American college student who died after being imprisoned there. Trump said in Vietnam that Kim “tells me he didn’t know about it,...

If there was a place Cecil Fitzgerald was truly happy, it was most likely far offshore, aboard a boat with a fishing line in the water. “We really enjoyed boating and fishing,” said Mr. Fitzgerald’s wife of 63 years, Mary Lou Fitzgerald. “That was one of the main things we...

FLORENCE, Ariz. — A town in central Arizona has banned the use of phones while driving beginning in March. The Casa Grande Dispatch reported Thursday that the Florence Town Council passed an ordinance on Feb. 19 prohibiting the use of “portable wireless communication devices” while behind the wheel. The ordinance...

A Western Pennsylvania county will be among the first in the state to have an enhanced audit of its election results. Mercer and Philadelphia counties both bought new voting systems that will be used for the first time in November. With concerns over election security increasing in recent years, the...

The Trump administration is proposing a federal tax credit for donations made to groups offering scholarships for private schools, apprenticeships or other educational programs. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is unveiling the plan Thursday, while legislation is being proposed by Republicans in the House and Senate. The proposal, called the Education...

WASHINGTON — The U.S. economy slowed in the final three months of last year to an annual growth rate of 2.6 percent, the slowest pace since the beginning of 2018, as the government shutdown and other factors took a toll on growth. Economists believe growth has slowed even more in...

DETROIT — Hyundai and Kia have added more than a half-million vehicles to 3½-year string of U.S. recalls for engine failures and fires. Three recalls released Thursday by the government add new problems and vehicles to the Korean automakers’ list of safety woes, which have brought hundreds of complaints about...

BOLAANG MONGONDOW, Indonesia — Rescuers have passed water and food to some of the dozens of people trapped in a collapsed Indonesian gold mine, an official said Thursday, calling the grueling rescue effort in a remote inaccessible location a race against time. The national disaster agency said 19 people had...

WASHINGTON — In a damning depiction of Donald Trump, the president’s former lawyer cast him as a racist and a con man who used his inner circle to cover up politically damaging allegations about sex and who lied throughout the 2016 election campaign about his business interests in Russia. A...

HANOI, Vietnam — The nuclear summit between President Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un collapsed Thursday after the two sides failed to reach a deal due to a standoff over U.S. sanctions on the reclusive nation, a dispiriting end to high-stakes meetings meant to disarm a global threat....

FRANKLIN TOWNSHIP, N.J. — Authorities say a young man at a New Jersey supermarket assaulted an 81-year-old who was wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat. Somerset County prosecutors have charged 19-year-old Ryan Salvagno with assault and harassment. Officials say Salvagno exchanged words with the older man about the hat...

Wells Fargo has launched a program to review claims from consumers who think they were harmed by the bank violating consumer protection laws. The program is designed for people who believe they were affected by the bank but weren’t eligible for previous restitution programs. Consumers could be entitled to relief...