Cause of boy’s roller coaster death ‘undetermined,’ parents sue
Experts have no idea why a boy died on an Indiana roller coaster in June but his parents are suing the amusement park. Brayden Cooper-Douglas, 12, from Lafayette, Indiana, was riding the Hoosier Hurricane at Indiana Beach in White County when he died on June 27, reports the Journal &...
19 bodies hung from bridge or hacked up in Mexico gang feud
MEXICO CITY — Mexican police found nine bodies hanging from an overpass Thursday alongside a drug cartel banner threatening rivals, and seven more corpses hacked up and dumped by the road nearby. Just down the road were three more bodies, for a total of 19. The killing spree in the...
Magnitude 6 quake shakes western Turkey; more than 20 hurt
ANKARA, Turkey — A strong earthquake hit western Turkey on Thursday, damaging homes, causing residents to run into the streets in panic and injuring over 20 people. The quake was centered on the town of Bozkurt, in Denizli province, according to Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency, AFAD. It said...
16-year-old earns National Merit Scholarship following freshman year at Carnegie Mellon
For Carnegie Mellon University students in the “Fundamentals of Programming and Computer Science” course, it may have taken a little time to adjust to a teaching assistant two years their junior. On the other side of the equation, that 16-year-old teaching assistant, Elena Swecker of Murrysville, was also adjusting to...
Ivanka Trump to promote women’s initiative in South America
WASHINGTON — Ivanka Trump will call attention to issues that make it difficult for women in developing countries to prosper financially when she travels to South America in September. Aides to President Donald Trump’s daughter and adviser say she plans to visit Paraguay and Argentina to promote her Women’s Global...
Smokey Bear, fire prevention icon, turns 75Video
CAPITAN, N.M. — Smokey Bear, the icon of the longest-running public service campaign in the U.S., is 75 years old. Birthday parties are scheduled to take place this week in honor of the bear that promotes forest fire prevention. The decision to use the Smokey Bear character happened on Aug....
Police: 2 men arrested after road rage shooting at school
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Police in Alabama say two men are in custody after what they described as an apparent road rage shooting over traffic outside a Montgomery elementary school. Local news outlets report the shooting happened Thursday morning when two fathers got into an argument about traffic coming into Blount...
Giant emoji painted on house roil California community
A Southern California seaside community is in an uproar after a home was given a new paint job featuring two huge emoji on a bright pink background. Manhattan Beach residents railed against the makeover during a City Council meeting Tuesday night, citing problems with spectators and asserting that it was...
How to convince yourself that it’s time for that new tractor
Step 1: Ask yourself, will you use it? Yes, you will. You work hard for your money, so it’s time to look into a lifetime investment, and there is nothing better than a big and beautiful bright orange Kubota.You need reliability. Kubota gives you the reassurance that, whatever model you...
Trump says he’s considering commutation for Blagojevich
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump says he’s “very strongly” considering commuting the sentence of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who is serving a 14-year prison term on multiple federal corruption convictions. Trump suggested more than a year ago that he was considering a commutation for Blagojevich, who then filed paperwork...
Mayors push Senate to return to Washington for gun bill vote
WASHINGTON (AP) — More than 200 mayors, including two anguished by mass shootings in Texas and Ohio, are urging the Senate to return to the Capitol to act on gun safety legislation amid criticism that Congress is failing to respond to back-to-back shootings that killed 31 people. In a letter...
New UN warming report sees hungry future that can be avoided
WASHINGTON — On the ground, climate change is hitting us where it counts: the stomach — not to mention the forests, plants and animals. A new United Nations scientific report examines how global warming and land interact in a vicious cycle. Human-caused climate change is dramatically degrading the land, while...
Poll: Majority of Pennsylvanians support additional regulations on gun ownership
Retired steelworker Arthur Flowers of Derry Township is among thousands of Pennsylvanians who have a license to carry a concealed handgun. But he’s also among nearly two-thirds of registered voters in a recent statewide poll who said they favor some type of additional laws regulating gun ownership. A Franklin &...
Attacker kills 4 in series of stabbings in California cities
GARDEN GROVE, Calif. — Investigators believe a man who stabbed four people to death and wounded two others targeted his victims at random during a bloody rampage across two Southern California cities, authorities said. The 33-year-old man from the city of Garden Grove was “full of anger” when he carried...
S.C. teen ousted from school, charged after racist gun videos emerge
A South Carolina teenager has been expelled and charged after videos surfaced of him making threats against black people while shooting at inanimate objects. According to The State, the 16-year-old boy, who referred to himself as “Parker” in two videos, sent the clips to several of his classmates at Cardinal...
Largest U.S. immigration raids in a decade net 680 arrests
MORTON, Miss. — U.S. immigration officials raided seven Mississippi chicken processing plants Wednesday, arresting 680 mostly Latino workers in the largest workplace sting in at least a decade. The raids, planned months ago, happened just hours before President Trump visited El Paso, Texas, the majority-Latino border city where a man...
Train station experiment reveals one way to counteract bias against Muslims
An experiment conducted in German train stations involving paper cups and escaping oranges has found that people are less likely to help a woman if she appears to be Muslim — but they’re more likely to help that same woman if she somehow proves that she shares their social values....
House Judiciary sues to force former White House counsel Don McGahn to testifyVideo
WASHINGTON — The House Judiciary Committee took another step toward possible impeachment proceedings, filing a lawsuit in federal court on Wednesday aimed at forcing former White House counsel Donald McGahn to testify about his interactions with President Trump. McGahn was a star witness in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation who...
Pennsylvania Boy Scout sex abuse lawsuit could be first of many
A Philadelphia sex abuse lawsuit against the Boy Scouts of America could be the first of hundreds, according to Abused in Scouting, a coalition of law firms created to pursue cases of sexual abuse. The organization has a list of more than 540 alleged instances of child abuse, including more...
Yellowstone officials warn of dangerous behavior with bison
CHEYENNE, Wyo. — A man reaches over a railing to pet a bison on the head in yet another example of dangerous behavior by visitors to Yellowstone National Park. A video shows the bison stepped away from the man standing on a crowded boardwalk near a thermal area. Nobody was...
Canadian police say 2 bodies found, believed to be teen fugitivesVideo
TORONTO — Canadian police said Wednesday they believe two fugitives suspected of killing a North Carolina woman and her Australian boyfriend as well as another man have been found dead in dense brush in northern Manitoba. Authorities located two male bodies and are confident they are 19-year-old Kam McLeod and...
32 busted in federal drug crackdown in San Francisco
SAN FRANCISCO — Federal prosecutors said Wednesday that they charged nearly three dozen people, mostly Honduran nationals, after investigators uncovered twin international trafficking operations that poured heroin, meth and cocaine into a notorious San Francisco neighborhood crawling with rampant drug use. The drug charges are the first step in a...
Puerto Rico high court overturns Pedro Pierluisi as governor
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Puerto Rico’s Supreme Court on Wednesday overturned the swearing in of Pedro Pierluisi as the island’s governor less than a week ago, clearing the way for Justice Secretary Wanda Vázquez to take up the post after weeks of turmoil. The unanimous ruling said Pierluisi must...
U.S. hopes for North Korea nuclear talks despite missile tests
WASHINGTON — The U.S. is still hoping to hold another round of nuclear talks with North Korea despite the country’s recent missile tests, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday. Those talks could be held within a “a couple of weeks,” Pompeo said, speaking shortly after returning from Asia and...
Florida woman bites intruder who forced his way into home
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A nearly toothless South Florida woman says she bit a man who forced his way into her apartment. Alice Coleman tells WSVN she woke up early Monday morning to a fire alarm going off. The 61-year-old says that when opened the door, a man pushed his...
