Trump attacks Fox News, but the network remains silent
NEW YORK — The one constant with President Donald Trump’s increasingly frequent attacks on Fox News has been the network’s refusal to respond, even as the president complains that “Fox isn’t working for us anymore.” In recent days, however, some Fox personalities like Bret Baier, Juan Williams and Brit Hume...
250 pigs escape; most back, some with help from hot dog buns
ORANGE, Vt. — About 250 pigs have been causing a ruckus in a Vermont town the past month after they escaped from their enclosure, but most of them had been returned as of Thursday thanks to a trail of hot dog buns and good ol’ fashioned corralling. Several farm workers...
Alabama governor apologies for wearing blackface in college
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey apologized Thursday for wearing blackface decades ago, becoming the latest politician to face scrutiny over racially insensitive photos and actions from their university days. Ivey, 74, issued the apology after a 1967 radio interview surfaced in which her now-ex-husband describes her actions at...
Condemned death row inmate waits to hear whether he will be spared
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A condemned Tennessee prisoner is waiting to hear whether he will be spared the death chamber after he claimed prosecutors illegally excluded African Americans from the jury pool. Abu-Ali Abdur’Rahman (ah-BOO’-ah-LEE’) (AHB’-dur-RAK’-mahn), who is black, faces an April 16 execution date for the 1986 murder of Patrick...
Feds: Drug ring had enough cheap fentanyl to kill 14 million
NORFOLK, Va. — Law enforcement officials in Virginia said Thursday that they’ve taken down a multi-state drug ring and seized enough cheap fentanyl from China to kill 14 million people. The bust was announced in the wake of growing efforts to stem the flow of fentanyl from Chinese labs to...
Texas governor says ‘mistakes’ made in immigrant rhetoric
EL PASO, Texas — Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said Thursday “mistakes were made” when he sent a fundraising mailer that called on supporters to “defend Texas” from illegal immigration, which was dated a day before a gunman targeting Mexicans killed 22 people in El Paso. The letter was condemned as...
Teammates mourn slayings of pitcher’s family in Va. town
KEELING, Va. — Blake Bivens was inconsolable as the 24-year-old minor league pitcher flew from a road trip back to southern Virginia, where his wife, 1-year-old son and mother-in-law were slain. “It was awful,” said Montgomery Biscuits manager Morgan Ensberg, who traveled with Bivens on Tuesday. “Blake is an incredibly...
New Mexico official: Retake state land leased to Epstein
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — New Mexico’s attorney general urged officials Thursday to retake state trust land that had been leased to Jeffrey Epstein’s ranch, saying the financier’s bid for the scrubby, desert acreage meant for cattle grazing should not have been granted. In a statement, Attorney General Hector Balderas accused Epstein...
Marshal says fugitives had 8-hour head start on authorities
PHOENIX — The U.S. marshal for Arizona says a fugitive couple suspected of murder escaped by tying up two security guards near the Utah state line. In an interview Thursday with Phoenix radio station KTAR-FM, David Gonzales shared more details about how 56-year-old Blane Barksdale and 59-year-old Susan Barksdale escaped...
Sewickley Creek spill among those cited in $313K Sunoco Pipeline fine
Energy Transfer subsidiary Sunoco Pipeline LP has agreed to pay $313,000 in fines for environmental violations related to building the Mariner East 2 pipeline, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection announced Thursday. DEP said construction of the pipeline through Pennsylvania in 2018 resulted in spills of drilling fluid that got...
U.S. proposes easing rules on methane emissions
WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing to revoke many of its regulations covering oil-industry leaks of methane, a potent climate-changing gas. EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler said in a statement Thursday that the agency is following President Donald Trump’s directive to remove regulatory burdens on the oil and gas...
Eating poultry instead of red meat may lower breast cancer risk
Good news for women who can’t quite bring themselves to go vegetarian, but don’t mind giving up burgers and steaks: A new study finds red meat may increase breast cancer risk, while substituting poultry may lower it. The study, published in the International Journal of Cancer, looked for links between...
Unflushed toilet prompts threat with machete
A Florida man was arrested after threatening a friend with a machete over an unflushed toilet. Keith Mounts, 46, of Hudson was detained last week by officers from the Pasco Sheriff’s Office, reports Newsweek. The victim claimed Mounts pointed the knife in his face and said he would “chop” him...
New species of bloodsucking leech with 3 jaws discovered
BALTIMORE — What has three jaws, 56 to 59 teeth in each, no thumbs and was first discovered in Charles County, Md.? No, this is not a story about Chessie, the monster who definitely lives at the bottom of the Chesapeake Bay along with the unedited footage of Stanley Kubrick’s...
Judge ends case against Epstein, with a nod to the accusers
NEW YORK — A judge has formally ended the criminal case against financier Jeffrey Epstein. U.S. District Judge Richard Berman on Thursday granted prosecutors’ request to dismiss charges against Epstein after he killed himself in jail Aug. 10 while he was awaiting his sex trafficking trial. The judge’s action was...
Pennsylvania court: Making gun-like hand gesture is a crime
LANCASTER COUNTY — A Lancaster County man convicted of disorderly conduct for making a shooting gesture with his hand has lost his bid to have it overturned. A state appellate court made the ruling Tuesday on the appeal brought by Stephen Kirchner, 64. The man from Manor Township made the...
Hurricane Dorian picks up steam, menaces Florida
MIAMI (AP) — Leaving mercifully little damage in its wake in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, a strengthening Hurricane Dorian posed an increasing menace to Florida on Thursday as it swirled toward a possible direct hit on the state over Labor Day weekend. Along much of Florida’s east coast,...
‘This ain’t your mother’s marijuana,’ surgeon general says
WASHINGTON — Federal health officials are issuing a national warning against marijuana use by adolescents and pregnant women , as more states legalize some forms of the drug’s use. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Surgeon General Jerome Adams made the announcement Thursday. The warning comes as more...
Watchdog: Comey violated FBI policies in handling of memos
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department’s inspector general says former FBI Director James Comey violated FBI policies in his handling of memos documenting private conversations with President Donald Trump. The watchdog office says Comey broke FBI rules by giving a memo containing unclassified information to a friend with instructions to share...
Virginia man gets 5 years in prison for dog burned alive
RICHMOND, Va. — A Virginia man will serve five years in prison without parole for the death of a pit bull that was tied to a fence, covered in accelerant and set on fire. Richmond police announced Wednesday that the sentence was part of 20-year-old Jyahshua A. Hill’s plea agreement....
Authorities: Man dies after falling from cliff in Ohio park
LOGAN, Ohio — Ohio’s Department of Natural Resources says an Ohio man has died in a fall off the edge of a cliff in Hocking Hills State Park. Department spokeswoman Maureen Kocot said in a release that 22-year-old Alexander Colson was hiking Saturday on an overlook trail at Old Man’s...
Pennsylvania to close another prison as inmate ranks shrink
HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania is planning to close another prison, as the inmate population continues to decline and prison costs rise, lawmakers and union officials said Wednesday. Prison officials briefed lawmakers and Retreat state prison staff in northeastern Pennsylvania about their plans to close the facility in March, but have not...
Immigrants in U.S. military face new citizenship rule for their children
PHOENIX — The Trump administration on Wednesday introduced new rules that will make it harder for children of some immigrants serving in the military to obtain citizenship. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services released updated guidance Wednesday that appears to mostly affect non-citizen service members but which caused confusion among immigration...
Trump reportedly tells officials he’ll pardon those who break law to build border wallVideo
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has told officials that he would pardon them if they’re convicted of breaking any laws in the rush to complete several hundred miles of border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border ahead of the 2020 election, according to The Washington Post. The Post reports that the...
Video showing armed police officer fleeing naked homicide suspect sparks outrage
A news crew’s video shows an armed police officer being chased by a naked triple-homicide suspect in Virginia and then watching while the perpetrator chokes an innocent bystander. The incident happened Tuesday in Pittsylvania County when the pair emerged while employees for a local news station were staging in the...
