Disaster aid bill facing a tricky path as it heads to Senate
WASHINGTON — A battle over funding for Puerto Rico is complicating the path forward for a long-delayed disaster aid bill that’s a top political priority for some of President Trump’s Republican allies as it heads to the Senate floor this week. At stake is $13.5 billion emergency relief legislation to...
Mystery parent paid $6.5 million to get children into top universities
Of the many outrageous allegations by federal prosecutors in the college cheating scandal, one stands out. Someone paid $6.5 million to get his or her children into elite schools. But the identity of that parent — and details about which schools were involved — remains a mystery nearly two weeks...
British media say time’s up for Theresa May, but it wouldn’t be the first time
British Prime Minister Theresa May appears to be in trouble yet again. On Saturday, senior cabinet ministers reportedly decided that May must resign. The Sunday Times spoke to 11 ministers “who confirmed that they wanted the prime minister to make way for someone else.” That someone else was thought to...
Analysis: Investigations, more division likely to follow Mueller’s report
WASHINGTON — Next, more of the same, but with more entrenched division, a bitter crossfire of allegations and then, finally, a reckoning in the form of the 2020 presidential election. The long-awaited conclusion of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election is unlikely to crack...
Vehicle crash into river kills Pennsylvania man, 1-year-old son
SAYRE — A vehicle crashed into the Susquehanna River in northern Pennsylvania, claiming the lives of a man and his 1-year-old son, authorities said. Police in Bradford County say an Athens Township officer saw a vehicle traveling at high speed Friday night. Minutes after losing sight of the vehicle, he...
DOJ: Trump campaign did not coordinate with Russia in 2016
WASHINGTON — Attorney General William Barr told Congress Sunday that special counsel Robert Mueller did not find that Donald Trump’s presidential campaign “or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia” in 2016. Barr also wrote in a letter that the evidence collected by Mueller does not conclusively show...
Mueller flashes smile as world awaits his report
WASHINGTON — As the world anxiously awaits the findings of the Russia investigation, special counsel Robert Mueller flashed a smile Sunday after going to church with his wife in Washington. Mueller and his wife, Ann, were at the morning service at St. John’s Episcopal Church near the White House. The...
Star witness: Brawling, scheming spy linked to Trump, Moscow
NEW YORK — The way Felix Sater tells it, his life is a screenplay just waiting to be written, with tales of drunken brawling, Wall Street rip-offs, international spying and a behind-the-scenes role in Donald Trump’s effort to build a skyscraper in Russia. Sater, a Soviet emigre who befriended Trump...
Democrats press for full release of Mueller’s report
WASHINGTON — Democrats are pressing for full disclosure of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on the Russia investigation and vowing to use subpoena powers and other legal means if necessary to get it. Attorney General William Barr was expected to release his first summary of Mueller’s findings on Sunday, people...
New Zealand mosque killings spark debate over free speech
DUNEDIN, New Zealand — New Zealanders are debating the limits of free speech after their chief censor banned a 74-page manifesto written by the man accused of slaughtering 50 people at two mosques in the city of Christchurch. The ban, issued Saturday, means anybody caught with the document on their...
FDA takes up decades-long debate over breast implant safety
WASHINGTON — U.S. health officials are taking another look at the safety of breast implants, the latest review in a decades-long debate. At a two-day meeting that starts Monday, a panel of experts for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will hear from researchers, plastic surgeons and implant makers, as...
Powerball jackpot now $750M after no winning ticket drawn
DES MOINES, Iowa — Lottery officials say the Powerball jackpot has ballooned to $750 million after no ticket matched all six numbers in the most recent drawing. The numbers drawn Saturday night are 24, 25, 52, 60 and 66, with a Powerball of 5. The next drawing for what would...
Russian arrested smuggling drugged orangutan in Indonesia
DENPASAR, Indonesia — Authorities say they have arrested a Russian tourist who was attempting to smuggle a drugged orangutan out of Indonesia’s resort island of Bali. Andrei Zhestkov, 27, was captured late Friday at the airport after an X-ray found the 2-year-old male orangutan in a rattan basket inside his...
Driver working with NBC News killed in Syria
BAGHOUZ, Syria — A driver working with an NBC News crew in Syria has been killed by an explosive device in eastern Syria, where several media outlets are covering the liberation of the last sliver of territory held by the Islamic State group. NBC employees escaped unharmed and expressed “deepest...
Barr preparing a summary of Mueller report’s key conclusions
WASHINGTON — Attorney General William Barr scoured special counsel Robert Mueller’s confidential report on the Russia investigation with his advisers, deciding how much Congress and the American public will get to see about the two-year probe into President Trump and Moscow’s efforts to elect him. Barr was on pace to...
Lower Burrell’s Clark’s Diner is the place for breakfast or lunchVideo
Start your day with the Cafe Mess. It’s a breakfast dish of eggs, home fries and sausage scrambled together, topped with cheese and covered in a secret-recipe sausage gravy, served with a side of toast. “It’s a pretty popular selection,” says John Clark, owner of Clark’s Diner in Lower Burrell....
No timetable for reopening Texas ship channel following leak
HOUSTON — Officials have no timetable for reopening a portion of the Houston Ship Channel, one of the busiest commercial waterways in the country, after another setback caused flammable chemicals to seep into the water near a fire-ravaged petrochemical tank farm, a Coast Guard commander said Saturday. Coast Guard Capt....
Atlanta police set up hotline for ‘child murders’ case
ATLANTA — Atlanta’s mayor and police chief are leading a push to re-examine evidence from a string of murders that terrorized the city’s black community between 1979 and 1981. As a result, authorities are being inundated with calls. Now, officials have set up a central hotline for anyone with information...
U.S. underground nuclear waste dump explained
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — It wasn’t long after the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan and World War II ended that the United States began to realize it had to do something with the waste that was being generated by defense-related nuclear research and bomb-making that would continue through the Cold...
Florida man used Instagram to lure teen across state lines and assault her, police say
A Florida man has been arrested and accused of using Instagram to lure a 17-year-old girl across two states to his home, then sexually assaulting her. An arrest affidavit alleges that Richard Brown, 25, struck up a friendship with the girl via Instagram, claiming to be 19 years old and...
Ethiopian Airlines chief questions Max training requirements
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — The warning and training requirements set for the now-grounded 737 Max 8 aircraft may not have been adequate, in light of the Ethiopian plane crash that killed 157 people, the chief of Ethiopian Airlines said Saturday. After the Lion Air crash off Indonesia in October, the...
Man accused of fatally stabbing woman after freeway crash
PEORIA, Ariz. — A 25-year-old Arizona man who was driving a San Diego-area woman’s car is accused of fatally stabbing her after the vehicle veered off a freeway and crashed in a Phoenix suburb, resulting in a chaotic scene involving passers-by who stopped to help. Fernando Acosta of Phoenix got...
Latrobe woman never missed family’s baseball games
Nancy Gangemi never missed a chance to see one of her sons or grandchildren play baseball. Living down from the field, Mrs. Gangemi often played catch with her son, Jeffrey “Duffy” Powers, and was always in the stands cheering for her grandchildren. “She was always an avid follower of my...
Analysis: Trump’s legal troubles far from over as Mueller probe ends
The conclusion of the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign hardly spells the end of President Donald Trump’s legal woes. Nearly every organization Trump has run over the last decade remains under investigation by state or federal authorities, and he is mired...
Florida newspaper posts video of 2017 high-wire accident
SARASOTA, Fla. — A Florida newspaper has posted video of a 2017 high-wire accident that sent five performers in tightrope-walking star Nik Wallenda’s troupe tumbling more than 30 feet to the ground. The Sarasota Herald-Tribune obtained the video from the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office. Wallenda was among eight performers rehearsing...
