U.S./World category, Page 1285
TSA officer jumps to his death at Orlando airport
ORLANDO, Fla. — An officer from the Transportation Security Administration jumped to his death from a balcony inside Florida’s busiest airport Saturday, creating panic that brought some security checkpoints to a halt for hours and caused serious delays. Panicked passengers rushed past checkpoints leading to about half of the gates...
Hashtag stirs debate over role of Christian schools in U.S.
NEW YORK — For their supporters, the thousands of Christian schools across America are literally a blessing — a place where children can learn in accordance with biblical teachings, untainted by the secular norms of public schools. To critics, many of these Christian schools venture too often into indoctrination, with...
Parents of 2 Parkland victims want Pulitzer for local paper
PASADENA, Calif. — Two parents who lost daughters in last year’s Parkland, Florida, school shooting are calling for their local newspaper to win the Pulitzer Prize, saying the South Florida Sun Sentinel has stayed on the story to demand accountability long after the national media left. The parents, Ryan Petty...
Judge: Companion of late gorilla Koko must go back to zoo
CINCINNATI — A male silverback gorilla loaned to a California group in 1991 as a possible mate for Koko, the gorilla who astounded the world by learning sign language, must be returned to a zoo in Cincinnati, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled Friday. Judge Richard Seeborg’s ruling said...
New Mexico ceremony marks ‘horrible’ discovery of bodies
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The notes are written on paper tags, tributes to the nine women, two teenage girls and unborn child found buried 10 years ago atop a New Mexico mesa. One bears a stick-figure angel and a message from a woman who says the victims watch over her. Another...
Lawyers: New York City inmates stuck in freezing cells
NEW YORK — Hundreds of inmates at a federal jail in New York City have spent days in cold, dark cells amid frigid weather and without access to visitors or email, attorneys for the inmates said Friday. Lawyers from the Federal Defenders office said there’s been limited electricity, heat and...
Lawyer: Suspect in 5 killings wanted to say ‘I’m sorry’
WARSAW, Va. — A man charged with killing his parents and three others in Louisiana drove to Virginia to try to hug and kiss two aunts and a grandmother goodbye, his court-appointed attorney in Virginia said Friday. Dakota Theriot declined to fight extradition back to Louisiana, and authorities flew him...
Big storm sets sights on California, evacuations ordered
SAN FRANCISCO — A powerful storm bearing down on California on Friday was expected to produce heavy rainfall, damaging winds, localized stream flooding and heavy snow in the Sierra Nevada, forecasters said. Evacuations were ordered or recommended in advance for residents of some of the many areas stripped bare by...
Judge in Roger Stone case says she’s considering gag order
WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Friday cautioned longtime Donald Trump confidant Roger Stone not to treat the charges against him like a public relations campaign or book tour, and said she may issue a gag order in the case. U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson said she had already...
Man gets 48-year sentence after fatal argument over popcorn
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — A man who got in an argument with his cousin over popcorn and struck him in the head with a baseball bat has been sentenced to 48 years in prison for manslaughter. The Montgomery Advertiser reports 29-year-old Richard Wilson was sentenced Thursday in Johnny Waits’ 2016 death....
Palestinians, Israeli troops clash in West Bank, Gaza
JERUSALEM — Palestinian protesters and Israeli troops skirmished Friday as hundreds demonstrated against violence by Jewish settlers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and thousands more against a crippling Israeli-Egyptian blockade in the militant Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. In Gaza, mass demonstrations along the perimeter fence with Israel have been a weekly...
Whole Foods recalls 365 Everyday Value brand tortilla chips in U.S., Canada
Whole Foods Market has recalled 365 Everyday Value White Corn Tortilla Chips, the FDA said Friday. The chips were recalled and removed from Whole Foods Market shelves because the product might contain undeclared milk that was not listed on the product label. “People who have an allergy or severe sensitivity...
U.S. announces pullout from key arms treaty with Russia
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration said Friday it is withdrawing from a treaty that has been a centerpiece of superpower arms control since the Cold War. Some analysts worry the move could fuel a new arms race. President Donald Trump said in a statement that Russia, “for far too long,”...
Teen held after apparent school shooting joke involving Siri
VALPARAISO, Ind. — Authorities say a 13-year-old Indiana boy is charged with intimidation after he told Apple’s digital assistant Siri that he planned a school shooting and posted an iPhone screenshot of the response on social media as an apparent joke. The (Northwest Indiana) Times reports the middle school student...
Missing Maryland man found dead in West Virginia
MARTINSBURG, W.Va. — Police in Hagerstown, Md., say a missing man has been found dead in Berkeley County, W.Va. News outlets report Hagerstown police say the body 27-year-old Christopher Turner was found Wednesday. Police say the manner and condition of the body indicated that Turner was killed. Police say Turner’s...
3 students killed in South Africa school walkway collapse
JOHANNESBURG — At least three students are dead after a walkway collapsed at a school outside Johannesburg, a South African official said Friday, and 23 were injured. Panyaza Lesufi, the head of education for Gauteng province, posted the toll on Twitter shortly after the collapse at the Hoerskool Driehoek high...
Hong Kong court denies male status to 3 transgender men
HONG KONG — Hong Kong’s High Court has refused to allow three transgender men to be recognized as males on their official identity cards because they have not undergone full sex-change operations. Friday’s ruling was seen as a blow to the fledgling LGBT movement in the semiautonomous Chinese city of...
Human toll of cold: more than 2 dozen dead, hundreds hurt
CHICAGO — The dangerous cold and heavy snow that hobbled the northern U.S. this week has retreated, but not before exacting a human toll: more than two dozen weather-related deaths in eight states and hundreds of injuries, including frostbite, broken bones, heart attacks and carbon monoxide poisoning. In Illinois alone,...
20 charged in Chinese birth tourism crackdown
SANTA ANA, Calif. — Dongyuan Li’s business was called “You Win USA,” and authorities say she coached pregnant Chinese women on how to get into the United States to deliver babies who would automatically enjoy all the benefits of American citizenship. Over two years, the now-41-year-old raked in millions through...
Freeze adds layer of complication for farmers, livestock
RIPON, Wis. — On the coldest day in two decades on his fifth-generation dairy farm, Chris Pollack grabbed a thick, black hose from the barn and ventured into the subzero cold, where his beef cattle were chomping cud and waiting for water. The power had briefly gone out the previous...
St. Louis police chief angered over prosecutor allegations
ST. LOUIS — The St. Louis prosecutor’s criticism of how police investigated a male officer’s alleged Russian roulette-style fatal shooting of a female colleague drew an angry response Thursday from Police Chief John Hayden. Hayden, speaking at a news conference, raised his voice and pounded his fist in responding to...
Border agency announces largest-ever fentanyl bust
PHOENIX — U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials announced Thursday their biggest fentanyl bust ever, saying they captured nearly 254 pounds of the deadly synthetic opioid from a secret compartment inside a load of Mexican produce heading into Arizona. The drug was found hidden Saturday morning in a compartment under...
Catholic leaders in Texas name 286 accused of abusing minors
DALLAS — Catholic leaders in Texas on Thursday identified 286 priests and others accused of sexually abusing children, a number that represents one of the largest collections of names to be released since an explosive grand jury report last year in Pennsylvania. Fourteen dioceses in Texas named those credibly accused...
Wisconsin high court candidate’s blog posts called ‘extreme’
MADISON, Wis. — The only conservative running for a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat kept a personal blog more than a decade ago in which he opined on hot-button issues of the day, including that he thought a U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down a Texas anti-sodomy law could lead to...
Man found with wife’s dismembered body convicted of felonies
OLATHE, Kan. — A man arrested at a Kansas storage unit with two of his children and his dismembered wife’s remains has been convicted of three felony counts of sexual exploitation of a child. Jurors Thursday found 36-year-old Justin Rey guilty of the felonies, as well as misdemeanor counts of...
