U.S./World category, Page 1049
Alarms raised on reliability, security of pricey ballot-marking voting machines
Nearly 1 in 5 U.S. voters will cast ballots this year on devices that look and feel like the discredited paperless voting machines they once used, yet leave a paper record of the vote. But computer security experts are warning that these so-called ballot-marking devices still pose too much of...
Man drives Jeep off 6-story roof of Los Angeles-area garage
SANTA MONICA, Calif. — A man drove his Jeep off the the sixth floor of a Los Angeles-area parking garage early Sunday and was taken to a hospital in critical condition, authorities said. When officers arrived shortly after midnight, they found the destroyed vehicle up against a McDonald’s restaurant across...
Trump expresses optimism for U.S. peace deal with Taliban
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Sunday he’s ready to sign a peace deal with the Taliban in Afghanistan if a temporary truce holds in America’s longest war. “Time to come home,” he said. “They want to stop. You know, they’ve been fighting a long time. They’re tough people. We’re...
Man skeptic of world being round dies in California rocket crash
BARSTOW, Calif. — A California man who said he wanted to fly to the edge of outer space to see if the world is round has died after his home-built rocket blasted off into the desert sky and plunged back to earth. “Mad” Mike Hughes was killed on Saturday afternoon...
Passage to India: Trump ready for warm embrace, adulation
WASHINGTON — It was the Trumpiest of offers. A rally at one of the world’s largest stadiums. A crowd of millions cheering him on. A love fest during an election year. President Donald Trump’s packed two-day visit to India promises the kind of welcome that has eluded him on many...
Italy cancels Venice Carnival in bid to halt spread of virus
CODOGNO, Italy — Italy stepped up measures Sunday to ban public gatherings amid rapidly rising numbers of COVID-19 cases in the country and a third death from the virus, calling off the famed Venice Carnival attended by thousands of revelers. The decision to call off the Carnival was announced by...
Tackling a top killer of New Jersey’s bald eagles: electrocution
A female bald eagle took flight in September 2014 from the Maurice River in New Jersey’s Cumberland County, soaring westward thousands of feet over the Delaware Bay. Nicknamed Millville after her hometown, she made her way to the upper Chesapeake Bay, 50 miles away, according to GPS tracking. Two months...
New York readies to say goodbye to a staple of city life: plastic shopping bags
NEW YORK — Bag the ban, say some business leaders and New Yorkers ahead of regulations barring a staple of city life. “I can’t do without it!” Barbara White, 70, said while clutching her plastic bags Saturday outside an East Harlem grocery store. “I’m so used to this kind of...
Charter bus rollover kills 3, injures 18 outside San Diego
PALA MESA, Calif. — A charter bus swerved on a rain-slicked Southern California highway and rolled down an embankment Saturday, killing three people and injuring 18 others, authorities said. Several passengers were thrown from the bus, and one of the dead was trapped under the vehicle after it landed on...
By decoding the coronavirus genome, scientists seek the upper hand against COVID-19
The genetic code of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 is only about 30,000 characters long, but what a story it tells. Those nucleotides conceal secrets of the virus’ past, including its origins, its passage among families and its journey to distant ports. They signal how long it has been at...
Death of Prince heir complicates estate settlement even more
MINNEAPOLIS — The death of Prince’s brother Alfred Jackson, along with his contested will, are raising new questions in the endlessly complicated efforts to settle the legendary musician’s estate, including whether a California man with a reputation for cozying up to celebrities will end up with one-sixth of Prince’s riches....
After learning of Whitey Bulger LSD tests, juror has regrets
EASTHAM, Mass. — One of the jurors who convicted notorious crime boss James “Whitey” Bulger says she regrets her decision after learning that he was an unwitting participant in a covert CIA experiment with LSD. Bulger terrorized Boston from the 1970s into the 1990s with a campaign of murder, extortion,...
Couple who vanished during California getaway found alive
INVERNESS, Calif. — An academic couple who vanished during a getaway in the woods of Northern California was found Saturday by search-and-rescue workers who spent almost a week looking for them and gave up hopes of finding them alive. The Marin County Sheriff’s office tweeted that two helicopter crews airlifted...
Case of missing children tied to doomsday beliefs, 3 deaths
HONOLULU — Family members used to describe Lori Vallow as an attentive mother who had her kids’ best interests at heart. But that was before she reportedly declared herself a god sent to prepare the world for an imminent apocalypse. Before three untimely deaths of people surrounding her. Before her...
This comedian says Border Patrol pulled him off a bus. Now he’s suing the government
SEATTLE — Libyan funny guy Mohanad Elshieky often riffs on cross-cultural quirks, such as the tendency of Americans to tell him that in this country, his name is pronounced “Mohammed.” “It’s just not how names work, they’re not based on location,” the New York-based comedian said in a Comedy Central...
White supremacists greater threat to NJ citizens than Al-Qaida and ISIS, study says
New Jersey residents are more likely to be attacked by a white supremacist than Al-Qaida. That is the grim assessment of a comprehensive New Jersey terrorism study released Friday. The state’s “Terrorism Threat Assessment” report — 42 pages long — noted that officials have raised the threat level from white...
Tobacco company must pay $12.5 million to widow of man who died of lung disease, jury finds
MIAMI — James “Jim” McHugh started smoking when he was a teenager and continued to do so for nearly five decades. He tried quitting cold turkey. He tried chewing gum. He even tried hypnosis. By the time he found a prescription medicine that could help him, he was a very...
Marchers support Assange ahead of London extradition hearing
LONDON — Hundreds of supporters of Julian Assange marched through London on Saturday to pressure the U.K. government into refusing to extradite the WikiLeaks founder to the United States to face spying charges. Famous Britons, including Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters, Pretenders singer Chrissie Hynde and fashion designer Vivienne Westwood joined...
Autopsy photos shown in trial of Mississippi man charged with killing 8
MAGNOLIA, Miss. — A deputy sheriff responding to a domestic dispute was killed by a shot to the left side of his head, a forensic pathologist testified Friday in the death-penalty trial of a man charged with killing the deputy and seven other people in Mississippi. The defendant, Willie Cory...
Virus spreads in South Korean city as thousands are screened
SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea on Saturday reported an eight-fold jump in viral infections in four days to 433, most of them linked to a church and a hospital in and around the nation’s fourth-largest city, where health workers scrambled to screen thousands of worshippers. The country also reported...
Man guilty of killing 2 who tried to stop his slurs on train
PORTLAND, Ore. — A man accused of fatally stabbing two people who prosecutors say tried to stop his racist tirade against two young black women on a Portland, Oregon, commuter train was convicted of murder Friday after an emotional trial that featured testimony from both women and the sole survivor...
AP Exclusive: DEA agent accused of conspiring with cartel
MIAMI — A once-standout U.S. federal narcotics agent known for spending lavishly on luxury cars and Tiffany jewelry has been arrested on charges of conspiring to launder money with the same Colombian drug cartel he was supposed to be fighting. Jose Irizarry and his wife were arrested Friday at their...
Kobe Bryant’s pilot had been disciplined by FAA over weather-related flight violation
LOS ANGELES — The pilot of the helicopter that crashed into a Calabasas hillside last month, killing NBA star Kobe Bryant and eight others, violated federal flight rules in 2015 when he flew into busy airspace near Los Angeles International Airport despite being ordered not to by air traffic control,...
Greyhound to stop allowing immigration checks on buses
SEATTLE — Greyhound, the nation’s largest bus company, said Friday it will stop allowing Border Patrol agents without a warrant to board its buses to conduct routine immigration checks. The company’s announcement came one week after The Associated Press reported on a leaked Border Patrol memo confirming that agents can’t...
Roman Forum find could be shrine to Rome’s founder, Romulus
ROME — Italian archaeologists unveiled to the media Friday an exciting new find from the Roman Forum, which they say could be the lost shrine dedicated some 2,600 years ago to Romulus, Rome’s legendary founder and first king. Visually, the discovery first announced Tuesday is not very remarkable: Peering down...
