U.S./World category, Page 1174
Gas worker’s body recovered after California house explosion
MURRIETA, Calif. — Authorities have recovered the body of a Southern California Gas Co. worker killed in an explosion and fire that destroyed a house and damaged others in the city of Murrieta. Deputy Fire Chief David Lantzer says the utility worker’s body was removed Monday night, hours after the...
Tick removed from Kentucky man’s eye
PRESTONSBURG, Ky. — A Kentucky man who went to the doctor with an irritated eye got the unsavory news that it contained a tick. WYMT-TV reports an optometrist used tweezers to remove the tick from Chris Prater’s eye. Prater works for an electric company and had left a job site...
Blackface scandal dampens Virginia governor’s fundraising
RICHMOND, Va. — Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam is struggling to raise big money in a key election year after a blackface scandal nearly ended his political career. New campaign finance reports filed Monday show the Democratic governor raised slightly more than $300,000 between April and June. That’s far below the...
Apollo 11 astronaut returns to launch pad 50 years later
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins returned Tuesday to the exact spot where he and two other astronauts flew to the moon 50 years ago. At NASA’s invitation, Michael Collins spent the golden anniversary at Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A in Florida. He marked the precise...
NYPD cop won’t be charged in Eric Garner chokehold death
WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors won’t bring civil rights charges against a New York City police officer in the 2014 chokehold death of Eric Garner, a person familiar with the matter said Tuesday. The decision not to bring charges against Officer Daniel Pantaleo comes a day before the statute of limitations...
Nebraska woman arrested, fined for climbing Mount Rushmore
RAPID CITY, S.D. — A Nebraska woman has been fined $1,000 for climbing the Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota. Authorities say Alexandria Incontro scaled the massive granite sculpture Friday with bare feet and no rope, making it to about 15 feet (4.5 meters) from the top. The Rapid...
Florida expert captures elusive alligator at Chicago lagoon
CHICAGO — The alligator had a good run as day after day the people hunting for him in a Chicago lagoon came up empty, but in the end he was no match for an expert the city shipped in from Florida. The male gator, nicknamed ‘Chance the Snapper,’ was first...
GOP: U.S. land agency is moving West, closer to its territory
DENVER — Some Westerners have long complained the U.S. government is an absentee landlord, managing vast tracts of public lands in their states from the nation’s capital instead of closer to the properties themselves. GOP lawmakers say that may change soon. The Bureau of Land Management has decided to move...
Judge recommends $14M award to neo-Nazi trolling victim
HELENA, Mont. — The publisher of a neo-Nazi website should have to pay the victim of an internet trolling campaign over $14 million and remove all posts that encouraged his readers to contact the Montana real estate agent, a magistrate judge recommended Monday. U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeremiah Lynch called The...
Trump moves to eliminate nearly all asylum claims at U.S. southern border
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration moved Monday to in effect end asylum for the vast majority of migrants who arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border, an enormous shift in policy that could block hundreds of thousands of people from seeking protection in the U.S. — and is certain to draw legal...
GAO: EPA skirted procedures in overhaul of science boards
WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency skirted some of its usual procedures and ethics rules when it overhauled key agency advisory boards, slashing the numbers of academic scientists on the panels and appointing more industry figures, the Government Accountability Office said Monday. Senate Democrats had asked for the GAO probe....
Kellyanne Conway ignores subpoena, ditches House testimony on alleged ethics violationsVideo
Top Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway ignored a subpoena Monday and ditched House testimony on allegations that she repeatedly violated federal ethics law, prompting calls for her to be held in contempt. White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham issued a statement after it became clear Conway wasn’t showing up for the...
Man charged in Utah college student’s death appears in courtVideo
SALT LAKE CITY — A tech worker charged in the death of a Utah college student made his first court appearance Monday as friends of the slain woman held hands in the front row. Ayoola A. Ajayi appeared by video from jail alongside a court-appointed attorney during a quick hearing...
Mama bear charges Great Smoky Mountains visitor who got near her cubsVideo
Luckily, a Darwin Award was not given out this weekend in the Great Smoky Mountains. A visitor to the national park inexplicably confronted a mother bear and three cubs and was able to scurry away unscathed on Saturday. As the unidentified man ignored advice from other visitors in a parking...
Man attacked in Ohio courtroom brawl last week sentenced to lifeVideo
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio — A man whose sentencing was postponed when he was attacked in an Ohio courtroom last week is headed to prison. A judge on Monday sentenced Dale Williams to 23 years to life in the killing of a Youngstown woman. His hearing was interrupted on Thursday when authorities...
New York boy, 3, dies after falling into restaurant grease trap
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — A 3-year-old boy has died after falling into an underground grease collection tank behind an upstate New York fast-food restaurant. Rochester Police Investigator Frank Camp says the boy fell through a plastic cover into the grease trap behind a Tim Hortons restaurant around 11 a.m. Monday. Witnesses...
Man gets extra life sentence, plus 419 years, in Charlottesville car attack
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — An avowed white supremacist was sentenced to life plus 419 years on federal hate crime charges Monday for deliberately driving his car into anti-racism protesters during a white nationalist rally in Virginia. James Alex Fields Jr., 22, received the sentence for killing one person and injuring dozens...
Police: Woman’s remains found naked, bound in shallow grave
LANCASTER, Ky. — Police have released more details about how they found the remains of a missing Kentucky woman. Police testified in court Monday that 23-year-old Savannah Spurlock’s naked remains were found buried in a shallow grave and wrapped in a rug and garbage bags, with her feet bound. The...
Serial killer linked to Arkansas woman’s 1994 slaying
PINE BLUFF, Ark. — Authorities are investigating whether possibly the most prolific serial killer in U.S. history is behind the death of an Arkansas woman in 1994. Police in Pine Bluff say Samuel Little has confessed to the murder of Jolanda Jones. The 26-year-old woman’s death had been determined to...
Air Force major charged with murder in death of Texas wife
SAN ANTONIO — An Air Force major based in San Antonio has been charged with murder after authorities found the remains of his wife whom he reported missing in March. Andre McDonald, 40, is being held Monday at the Bexar County jail. Bail is set at $2 million. Sheriff’s officials...
Hawaii activists protesting over start of work on telescope
MAUNA KEA, Hawaii — Hundreds of demonstrators are gathered at the base of Hawaii’s tallest mountain to protest the construction of a giant telescope on land that some Native Hawaiians consider sacred. State and local officials will try to close the road to the summit of Mauna Kea on Monday...
Authorities say 3 children killed in Ohio house fire
ASHLAND, Ohio — Fire officials say three children were killed and three other people were injured in an overnight house fire in rural north-central Ohio. Authorities said the children killed in the early Monday blaze were ages 2, 4 and 12. Three other people were hospitalized with what appeared to...
Police stop 4 kids who drove SUV 600 miles down Aussie coast
CANBERRA, Australia — Four children aged 10 to 14 packed fishing rods in a parent’s SUV, left a farewell note then drove more than 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) down the Australian east coast before they were stopped by police the next day after two fuel thefts and one aborted pursuit,...
Weakened Barry still poses flood, tornado risks
NEW ORLEANS — Even though Tropical Depression Barry did not unleash catastrophic flooding in Louisiana, many across the Gulf Coast were urged to take heed of tornado and flash-flood warnings Monday as the storm moved north. Barry was downgraded from a tropical storm on Sunday afternoon but continued to pose...
Man dies, wife injured in lightning strike on Colorado peak
DENVER — A Denver man has died after being struck by lightning while hiking on a Colorado peak. The Denver Post reports the 36-year-old man died while his 37-year-old wife sustained non-life threatening injuries Sunday on Bear Peak. Officials did not release their names. Officials say a call was made...
