Inmate who escaped Utah jail caught in Idaho 4 days later
SALT LAKE CITY — A California man convicted of mail fraud who escaped from a Utah jail by posing as a fellow inmate whose time had come to be released was captured in Idaho Friday, authorities said. Kaleb Wiewandt was arrested on Interstate 84 southeast of Mountain Home, Idaho, the...
Utah advances plan to remove felony status for polygamy
SALT LAKE CITY — Polygamy wouldn’t be a felony crime in Utah for the first time in 85 years under a bill that passed the Legislature on Friday and appears to be supported by the governor. Lawmakers voted overwhelmingly for the proposal that supporters said will allow the 30,000 or...
Students stage sit-in outside University of Oklahoma offices
NORMAN, Okla. — Dozens of University of Oklahoma students staged a sit-in that continued Friday outside OU’s administrative offices following two instances of professors using racial slurs in the classroom. However, OU Interim President Joseph Harroz Jr. has rejected the demands of the school’s Black Emergency Response Team, known as...
‘Lone wolf’ broke news of the Milwaukee gunman’s identity
IOWA CITY, Iowa — When a local newspaper reported the identity of the gunman in Milwaukee’s mass shooting, it came many hours after that news was broken on Twitter by an unemployed and formerly imprisoned journalist working from his bedroom in California. Matthew Keys was the first to report that...
US judge cancels oil and gas leases on some sage grouse land
BOISE, Idaho — A federal judge has cancelled more than $125 million in oil and gas leases on public lands that are home to the declining bird species greater sage grouse, in a ruling that said the Trump administration illegally curtailed public comment. The ruling doesn’t prevent the administration from...
Court temporarily halts Trump’s ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy
SAN DIEGO — Dealing a significant blow to a signature Trump administration immigration policy, a federal appeals court ruled Friday that the government can no longer make asylum-seekers wait in Mexico while their cases wind through U.S. immigration courts. The government faced a setback from a three-judge panel of the...
Democrats launch probe of Justice Department, seek Roger Stone interviews
WASHINGTON — The House Judiciary Committee is launching a wide-ranging probe of Attorney General William Barr and the Justice Department, demanding briefings, documents and interviews with 15 officials as it tries to determine whether there has been improper political interference in federal law enforcement. Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., on...
Trump’s EPA readies rollback of rules limiting mercury, other toxins
WASHINGTON — Despite bipartisan objection and industry pushback, the Trump administration is expected to soon weaken rules meant to limit mercury and other toxic emissions from oil and coal-fired power plants across the nation. The Environmental Protection Agency has already sent the Office of Management and Budget the final rule,...
Pompeo to witness signing of Afghanistan peace deal, Trump says
WASHINGTON — President Trump said Friday that he’s dispatching Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to the signing of an agreement with the Afghan Taliban aimed at beginning a drawdown of thousands of U.S. troops and ending America’s 18-year involvement in the war. Trump said Pompeo would soon, at the president’s...
Wilkes-Barre native reportedly contracts coronavirus on cruise ship in Japan
A Wilkes-Barre native is on life support in Japan after contracting the coronavirus while on vacation, according to WNEP, an ABC affiliate in Luzerne County. Dan Fisher, who graduated from Coughlin High School in 1975, was on vacation in Japan earlier this month when he fell ill, Fisher’s childhood friend,...
U.S. reports first drug shortage tied to virus outbreak
WASHINGTON — Health officials reported the first U.S. drug shortage tied to the viral outbreak that is disrupting production in China, but they declined to identify the manufacturer or the product. The Food and Drug Administration said late Thursday that the drug’s maker recently contacted officials about the shortage, which...
W.Va. moving to up fines after girl’s fall into grease pit
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — West Virginia may soon stiffen fines for restaurants that fail to secure the lids of grease pits after a young girl fell into one of the collection traps last year. The House of Delegates on Friday unanimously approved a measure to increase fines from $5 to $50...
Harvey Weinstein juror: #MeToo movement was not a factor in trial
NEW YORK — The jury that convicted Harvey Weinstein of rape and sex assault did not consider the trial’s implications for the #MeToo movement, one of the jurors said in an interview aired Friday. “No, zero, absolutely zero,” juror Drew Malbin said on “CBS This Morning.” “Because it’s not the...
Franklin Regional plans lecture series on hot-button school issues
Franklin Regional officials are reaching out to parents and the community to engage them about hot-button issues facing today’s students: bullying, drugs and pitfalls of social media use. The Franklin Regional Parent and Community Lecture Series kicks off March 11 with an overview of the district’s bullying prevention strategy. It...
Nigeria confirms 1st case of new virus in sub-Saharan AfricaVideo
ABUJA, Nigeria — Nigerian authorities on Friday reported the first confirmed case of the new coronavirus in sub-Saharan Africa as the outbreak spread to a region with some of the world’s weakest health systems. The health commissioner for Lagos, Africa’s largest city with more than 20 million people, said an...
Vatican task force offers help to church on abuse prevention
VATICAN CITY — The Vatican is launching a task force of experts to help Catholic dioceses and religious orders develop guidelines to handle cases of sexual abuse by clergy and tend to survivors. The initiative was proposed last year during Pope Francis’ summit on preventing abuse. It was considered necessary...
Southwest Greensburg woman had heart of gold, killer card-playing instincts
If David and Patrick Leonard got into trouble, they could expect to revisit it later in the week. “My father was a long-distance truck driver,” said David Leonard of Greensburg. “One thing I always remember is, if we got into trouble, my mother took care of it, but you got...
Mexico confirms first 2 cases of coronavirus
MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s assistant health secretary announced Friday that the country now has two confirmed cases of the new coronavirus. Hugo Lopez-Gatell said one of the patients is in Mexico City and the other in the northern state of Sinaloa. While a second test is still pending on that...
White House hopefuls target Trump on coronavirus response
CHARLESTON, S.C. — Democratic White House hopefuls are seizing on President Donald Trump’s delayed response to the coronavirus outbreak, calling it the latest evidence of his incompetence and warning that the crisis may only deepen as a result. But some experts and Democrats warn that the candidates risk exacerbating a...
California is abnormally dry after low-precipitation winter
SAN FRANCISCO — A dry beginning of the year has left most of California abnormally parched, as officials brace for the possibility of an early and more intense wildfire season amid record-breaking temperatures. Drought has expanded from just under 10% of the state last week to nearly a quarter, mainly...
Ex-Phoenix area sheriff declares victory despite court loss
PHOENIX (AP) — Former Phoenix-area Sheriff Joe Arpaio lost a bid to erase his criminal conviction for disobeying a 2011 court order, but claimed victory Thursday after an appeal’s court said the verdict no longer has any legal consequence because of President Donald Trump’s pardon. The 9th Circuit Court of...
Grandfather, Navy vet among 5 victims of Wisconsin shooting
The five men who were killed by a co-worker at a Milwaukee brewery include an electrician, a Navy veteran, a father of two small children, a fisherman and a grandfather who is being remembered as someone who “always put his family’s needs before his own.” Authorities said the five men...
Warren still dogged by past claims of indigenous ancestry
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — Cherokee citizens are calling on Elizabeth Warren to publicly disavow a family story of indigenous heritage as a way to dissuade others from making false claims they say often romanticize Native Americans. The topic has haunted the Massachusetts senator since even before she announced she would seek...
New coronavirus case escalates US response
VACAVILLE, Calif. — Public health officials were retracing the steps of a Northern California woman on Thursday believed to be the first person in the U.S. to contract the highly contagious coronavirus without traveling internationally or being in close contact with anyone who had it. The diagnosis, confirmed Wednesday, marks...
Mississippi man gets death sentence for multiple killings
MAGNOLIA, Miss. — A Mississippi man was given four death sentences by a jury on Thursday, hours after he spoke in court and blamed the devil for his actions the night eight people were shot to death. Willie Cory Godbolt, 37, was convicted Tuesday of the May 2017 slayings of...
