U.S./World category, Page 1175
Decorated soldier dies in combat operations in Afghanistan
FORT BRAGG, N.C. — A decorated Special Forces company sergeant major has died during combat in Afghanistan, U.S. military officials said Sunday. James G. “Ryan” Sartor, 40, was killed Saturday during combat operations in Faryab Province, according to Lt. Col. Loren Bymer, spokesman for the U.S. Army Special Operations Command....
Ohio spends $4M to clean up 396,000 bags of roadside litter
CINCINNATI — Ah, the open road. Sunshine. The wind in your hair. Miles and miles of — garbage. Every year, the Ohio Department of Transportation picks up heaps and heaps of trash from the side of the road. In 2018, it was more than 396,000 trash bags full. And that’s...
Churches jump into action with threat of immigration sweeps
CHICAGO — Religious leaders across the country used their pulpits Sunday to quell concerns in immigrant communities and spring into action as nationwide immigration enforcement sweeps loomed. A Chicago priest talked during his homily about the compassion of a border activist accused of harboring illegal immigrants, while another city church...
Man dies after being infected with flesh-eating bacteria in Florida
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A Tennessee man died this week after being infected with a flesh-eating bacteria during a trip to a Florida beach. According to news reports, the man became ill shortly after returning from vacation in Destin Beach where he was visiting family for the 4th of July. Cheryl...
Trump defends border detention camps
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is defending the conditions of the border detention facilities visited by Vice President Mike Pence on Friday. Trump tweeted Sunday, saying the children’s rooms were “well run and clean” while the men’s facilities were “clean but crowded.” The president’s account flies in the face of...
Toxic lake in Russia’s Siberia becomes selfie sensation
MOSCOW — Residents of a city in Siberia don’t need to fly off to tropical locales for picturesque selfies taken by pristine turquoise waters. Thousands of Novosibirsk residents — ranging from scantily clad women to newlyweds — have been busy instagramming near a bright blue lake nicknamed the “Siberian Maldives.”...
Thousands left in the dark during NYC power outage
NEW YORK — On the anniversary of a 1977 blackout that left most of New York City without power, a massive power outage on a hot Saturday night in Manhattan preemptively brought the curtain down on Broadway shows and packed streets with people wielding cellphones as flashlights amid a cacophony...
Barry’s flood threat lingers as storm slowly sweeps inland
NEW ORLEANS — Tropical Depression Barry dumped rain as it slowly swept inland through Gulf Coast states Sunday, sparing New Orleans from a direct hit but stoking fears elsewhere of flooding, tornadoes, and prolonged power outages. Though the system was downgraded to a tropical depression Sunday afternoon and its wind...
Extremist attack on Somali hotel leaves 26 dead
MOGADISHU, Somalia — Islamic terrorists blew up the gate of a Somali hotel with a car bomb and took over the building for more than 14 hours, leaving 26 people dead before Somali forces who besieged the hotel overnight killed the attackers. The victims included a prominent Canadian-Somali journalist ....
New election systems use vulnerable software
WASHINGTON — Pennsylvania’s message was clear: The state was taking a big step to keep its elections from being hacked in 2020. In April 2018, its top election official told counties they had to update their systems. So far, nearly 60% have taken action, with $14.15 million of mostly federal...
NYC power outage knocks out subways, businesses, elevators
NEW YORK — Authorities were scrambling to restore electricity to Manhattan following a power outage that knocked out Times Square’s towering electronic screens and darkened marquees in the theater district and left businesses without electricity, elevators stuck and subway cars stalled. A transformer fire Saturday evening at West 64th Street...
Weakened Barry rolls into Louisiana, drenches Gulf Coast
NEW ORLEANS — Barry rolled into the Louisiana coast Saturday, flooding highways, forcing people to scramble to rooftops and dumping heavy rain that officials had feared could test the levees and pumps that were bolstered after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005. After briefly becoming a Category 1 hurricane,...
As storm moved in, 1 couple moved up their wedding ceremony
NEW ORLEANS — As New Orleans hunkered down ahead of Tropical Storm Barry Friday, news photographers from across the city could be found together in a church, witnessing the wedding of one of their own. Associated Press photographer Gerald Herbert and Lucy Sikes weren’t supposed to get married Friday night....
Apollo 11 at 50: Celebrating first steps on another world
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A half-century ago, in the middle of a mean year of war, famine, violence in the streets and the widening of the generation gap, men from planet Earth stepped onto another world for the first time, uniting people around the globe in a way not seen...
Rare sea turtles smash nesting records in Georgia, Carolinas
SAVANNAH, Ga. — Rare sea turtles are smashing nesting records this summer on beaches in the Southeast, with scientists crediting the egg-laying boom to conservation measures that began more than 30 years ago. Giant loggerhead sea turtles weighing up to 300 pounds crawl ashore to dig nests in the sand...
Jeffrey Epstein’s New Mexico ranch linked to investigation
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — At the center of Jeffrey Epstein’s secluded New Mexico ranch sits a sprawling residence the financier built decades ago — complete with plans for a 4,000-square-foot courtyard, a living room roughly the size of the average American home and a nearby private airplane runway. Known as the...
Earthquakes shake up Yucca Mountain nuke dump talk in Nevada
LAS VEGAS — Recent California earthquakes that rattled Las Vegas have shaken up arguments on both sides of a stalled federal plan to entomb nuclear waste beneath a long-studied site in southern Nevada. Wyoming Republican Sen. John Barrasso said this week his legislation to jump-start the process to open the...
Barry strengthens to hurricane; storm surge feared
NEW ORLEANS — Carrying “off the chart” amounts of moisture, sprawling Barry strengthened into a hurricane Saturday as it crawled slowly toward shore, knocking out power on the Gulf Coast and dumping heavy rains that could last for days in a test of flood-prevention efforts implemented after Hurricane Katrina devastated...
Film airing on PBS recalls city’s dark deportation history
BISBEE, Ariz. — The darkest, most violent chapter in the history of Bisbee was an open secret for decades in the funky old Arizona copper town 7 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border. But few residents knew the details of how about 1,200 miners, most of them immigrants, were pulled...
Special counsel Mueller’s testimony delayed until July 24
WASHINGTON — Special counsel Robert Mueller’s testimony to Congress has been delayed until July 24 under an agreement that gives lawmakers more time to question him. Mueller had been scheduled to testify July 17 about the findings of his Russia investigation. But lawmakers in both parties complained that the short...
Appeals court gives Trump a win in sanctuary city case
SEATTLE — A federal appeals court gave President Trump a rare legal win in his efforts to crack down on “sanctuary cities” Friday, upholding the Justice Department’s decision to give preferential treatment in awarding community policing grants to cities that cooperate with immigration authorities. The 2-1 opinion overturned a nationwide...
Trump says immigration arrests to begin Sunday
WASHINGTON — The head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement said efforts to deport families with orders to leave the country will continue after an upcoming national sweep that President Trump said would start Sunday. Matthew Albence, the agency’s acting director, said targets were on an “accelerated docket” of immigration court...
Man whose tirade beatdown at bagel shop went viral gives interview
The Long Island man who became an overnight sensation after his rant at a bagel shop in New York was cut short by a beatdown has given his local news station an interview. And it is a doozy. Chris Morgan, who was a customer at Bagel Boss, unknowingly took social...
Tropical Storm Barry starts lashing Louisiana
NEW ORLEANS — Homeowners sandbagged their doors and tourists trying to get out of town jammed the airport Friday as Tropical Storm Barry began rolling in, threatening an epic drenching that could test how well New Orleans has strengthened its flood protections in the 14 years since Hurricane Katrina. With...
Chevron spills 800,000 gallons of oil, water in California
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California authorities said Friday that crews are beginning to clean up a massive oil spill that dumped nearly 800,000 gallons of oil and water into a Kern County canyon, making it larger — if less devastating — than the state’s last two major oil spills. The seep,...
