2,000 at Temple University get shots amid mumps outbreak
PHILADELPHIA — More than 2,000 students and staffers at Temple University took advantage of free vaccine booster shots Wednesday as the number of mumps cases at the school topped 100. Philadelphia health officials said 2,285 people were given shots during the first of two clinics offering the MMR vaccine. The...
Trump Fed pick Stephen Moore owes $75,000 to IRS, court document says
Stephen Moore, whom President Trump said he’ll nominate for a seat on the Federal Reserve, owes more than $75,000 in taxes and other penalties, according to the U.S. government. A federal tax lien filed in the circuit court for Montgomery County, Md., where Moore owns a house, says that the...
James Fields changes plea to guilty on hate crimes in Charlottesville car attack
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — A man convicted on state murder charges in a deadly car attack at a white nationalist rally in Virginia pleaded guilty Wednesday to federal hate crime charges in a case that stirred racial tensions across the country. James Alex Fields Jr., of Maumee, Ohio, pleaded guilty to...
Washington’s cherry blossoms will be in ‘peak bloom’ on April 1
April Fool’s Day will be the peak date to enjoy the Yoshino Cherry blossoms that line the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C. The peak bloom date is when 70 percent of the blossoms are open, and it’s tough to predict more than 10 days in advance when that peak will...
Trump administration scrambles to defend budget cut for Special Olympics
The Trump administration faced withering attacks from Democrats and others as it scrambled Wednesday to defend its proposal to cut federal funding for the Special Olympics. President Donald Trump’s budget plan slashes programs of all stripes, but the idea of cutting federal support for a beloved organization appeared to generate...
Official: Norway cruise ship engines failed from lack of oil
COPENHAGEN, Denmark — A cruise ship that was the focus of a daring rescue operation off Norway’s frigid North Sea coast became disabled because its engines didn’t have enough lubricating oil, the country’s top maritime official said Wednesday. Low oil levels were the “direct cause” of the engine failure that...
Texas retailer gives 60,000 bump stocks to feds to destroy
FORT WORTH, Texas — A Texas retailer of now-banned bump stocks has transferred about 60,000 of the gun-related items to the federal government to be destroyed. RW Arms of Fort Worth turned over the bump stocks to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The products will be shredded...
U.S.: North Korean nuke work ‘inconsistent’ with disarmament
WASHINGTON — North Korea’s work on nuclear weapons and missiles is “inconsistent” with its stated intent to move toward nuclear disarmament on the Korean Peninsula, the commander of American and allied forces in South Korea said Wednesday. Army Gen. Robert Abrams, in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, also...
Powerball players seek $750M prize, 4th largest jackpot in U.S. history
DES MOINES, Iowa — After months without a winner, lottery players will have another shot at a Powerball jackpot that has soared to a massive $750 million. The Powerball drawing will be Wednesday night, giving those who buy a $2 ticket a chance at winning the fourth-largest lottery jackpot in...
Pope allows ring-kissing after earlier pulling hand awayVideo
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis allowed nuns and priests to kiss his papal ring during his weekly audience in St. Peter’s Square on Wednesday, two days after a video that showed him pulling his hand away from several faithful drew disapproval from some of the pope’s conservative critics. Some conservative...
Woman has twins just 26 days after birthing first child
A woman has doctors scratching their heads in Bangladesh. Just 26 days after giving birth to her first child, Arifa Sultana Iti, 20, returned to the hospital to deliver twins, AFP reports. While the woman’s son was delivered prematurely on Feb. 25, it was a normal delivery at the Ad-din...
Barbara Bush blamed Trump for ‘angst,’ new book reveals
WASHINGTON — Barbara Bush says Donald Trump caused her “angst” during the 2016 election and led her to question whether she was still a Republican in the months before she died. The late former first lady’s thoughts about Trump were revealed in excerpts published Wednesday in USA Today of an...
World’s biggest Tyrannosaurus rex, nicknamed Scotty, discovered in Canada
Scotty lived in prehistoric Saskatchewan, Canada, 66 million years ago. He was 42 feet long and weighed more than 9.7 tons. Scotty was world’s biggest Tyrannosaurus rex and the largest dinosaur skeleton ever found in Canada. He also lived longer than most T. rexes. These are some of the finding...
Storm chaser’s mother blames the Weather Channel in son’s death
The wall of charcoal gray clouds drifted across the sky, the rain picked up and the storm chasers gunned it. Kelley Williamson and Randy Yarnall were looking for rotation, any signs of the birth of a tornado. Hurtling down a two-lane highway deep in the Texas Panhandle, they sat behind...
Pa. woman admits giving birth at work, leaving baby in toilet
LANCASTER, Pa. — A Pennsylvania woman who gave birth in a restroom at her work and left the baby boy partially submerged in the toilet has pleaded guilty to felony child endangerment. Emmanuella Osei entered her plea during a court hearing Tuesday. The 23-year-old Reading woman faces up to 10...
Kirsten Gillibrand releases her 2018 taxes
WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand has released her tax returns for 2018, showing she paid $29,170 in federal taxes on an income of about $214,000. The New York Democrat on Wednesday became the first presidential candidate to disclose the latest tax filing. Her income included her $167,000 Senate salary,...
U.S. trade gap falls 15 percent to $51.1 billion in January
WASHINGTON — The U.S. trade deficit tumbled nearly 15 percent in January as imports fell and exports rose. Shipments of American goods to China skidded to the lowest level in more than eight years as the world’s two biggest economies remained locked in a trade war. The Commerce Department said...
Arby’s manager charged in death of threatening customer
TULSA, Okla. — Authorities say the manager of an Oklahoma Arby’s restaurant has been charged in the fatal shooting of a customer who she said threatened her. Tulsa County jail records show 25-year-old Deionna Young is being held without bond Tuesday on a first-degree murder charge. Records don’t list an...
U.S. shuts interior checkpoints to focus on Mexico border
LAS CRUCES, New Mexico — U.S. immigration authorities have temporarily closed highway checkpoints in New Mexico and much of West Texas, as they reassign agents and use the outposts to help process the growing numbers of Central Americans arriving at the Mexican border. The checkpoints, located up to 100 miles...
Search on for burial site of America’s first published poet
NORTH ANDOVER, Mass. — Anne Bradstreet was the North American continent’s first published poet, yet her legacy has largely been lost to time. Now, professors and students at Merrimack College in Massachusetts are trying to pinpoint her burial site while at the same restoring her legacy and what they say...
Heiress hoax scores woman celebrity treatment, and charges
NEW YORK — Anna Sorokin traveled in celebrity circles and tossed $100 tips — all the more reason to believe she was the German heiress she said she was. But behind the jet-set lifestyle and pricey threads, prosecutors say, was a fraudster who bilked friends, banks and hotels for a...
Trump buoyant at luncheon while Pelosi urges focus on policy
WASHINGTON — An exuberant President Donald Trump took a victory lap on Capitol Hill, emboldened by the end of the special counsel’s Russia probe, even as Democrats pressed insistently for Robert Mueller’s full report and Justice Department officials said more information could be released in “weeks, not months.” Trump strode...
Trump’s 2020 machine a far cry from fly-by-night 2016 effort
WASHINGTON — In 2016, President Donald Trump compared Hillary Clinton’s campaign to the lumbering federal bureaucracy. Now he’s building one of his own. From an office tower across the Potomac River from Washington, from the bowels of the Republican National Committee’s headquarters on Capitol Hill and from field offices across...
FAA to revamp aircraft construction oversight, official says
The Federal Aviation Administration plans to significantly revamp its oversight of airplane construction this summer after questions were raised about how it manages inspections done by the industry, according to testimony prepared for a Senate subcommittee hearing on Wednesday. The testimony by Calvin Scovel III, the Transportation Department’s inspector general...
Dismissal of Smollett case brings backlash, more questions
CHICAGO — Prosecutors still insist Jussie Smollett faked a racist, anti-gay attack on himself in the hopes that the attention would advance his acting career. The “Empire” star still says he was assaulted by two men late at night in downtown Chicago. But with little explanation, authorities on Tuesday abruptly...
