Barbara Bush saw Trump as a ‘symbol of greed’
WASHINGTON — Barbara Bush didn’t bite her tongue in recent years when it came to Donald Trump: She just didn’t like him. But a new biography of the former first lady finds that her disdain for the Republican president, who transformed the party her own family had embodied for generations...
TSA’s social media highlight weird stuff in travelers’ bags
WASHINGTON — David Johnston stands over a table full of peculiar items confiscated at Dulles International Airport: A glittery clutch with brass knuckles as a clasp. A perfume bottle shaped like a grenade. A rusted circular saw blade. A pocket-sized pitchfork. None of those are quite right. Then Johnston sees...
Trump White House doubles down on threat to close U.S.-Mexico borderVideo
WASHINGTON — The White House doubled down Sunday on President Trump’s threat to close the U.S. border with Mexico, despite warnings that the move would inflict immediate economic damage on American consumers and businesses while doing little to stem a tide of migrants clamoring to enter the United States. Sealing...
One of Russia’s richest women dies in plane crash in Germany
FRANKFURT, Germany— One of Russia’s richest women, S7 Group co-owner Natalia Fileva, died Sunday in a plane crash in Germany, the airline operator said. Fileva, 55, was aboard a single-engine, six-seat Epic LT aircraft that crashed and burned in a field as it approached the small airport at Egelsbach, a...
German train car arrives in New York for Auschwitz exhibit
NEW YORK — On a Sunday morning, a crane lowered a rusty remnant of the Holocaust onto tracks outside Manhattan’s Museum of Jewish Heritage — a vintage German train car like those used to transport men, women and children to Auschwitz and other Nazi death camps. The windowless boxcar is...
2 pilots killed in Marine helicopter crash in Arizona
YUMA, Ariz. — U.S. Marine Corps officials are investigating after two pilots died in a helicopter crash during a training mission in southwestern Arizona. A statement from the Marine Corps Air Station says the crash of the AH-1Z Viper occurred at about 8:45 p.m. Saturday. A spokesman for the station...
Chief: Ride-share mistake led to death of South Carolina college student Samantha Josephson
COLUMBIA, S.C. — The man accused of killing a woman who got into his car thinking it was her Uber ride had activated the child locks in his backseat so the doors could only be opened from the outside, police in South Carolina say. Columbia Police Chief Skip Holbrook also...
Manhattan tolls, plastic bag ban approved in New York budget
ALBANY, N.Y. — New York’s Democrat-controlled Legislature on Sunday passed a statewide ban on single-use plastic bags and expected to approve tolls for driving into the busiest sections of Manhattan starting in 2021 as part of a $175.5 billion state budget agreement worked out with Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The Assembly...
Salem Township woman loved to work in her garden
Helen Kersten loved to garden. It was the place where she could be creative, and she had a real good sense of colors, said her daughter, Donna McDowell of Ligonier. “She had a beautiful garden,” McDowell said. “She always liked flowers that were different.” Mrs. Kersten did not rely on...
German train car arrives in New York for Auschwitz exhibit
NEW YORK — On a Sunday morning, a crane lowered a rusty remnant of the Holocaust onto tracks outside Manhattan’s Museum of Jewish Heritage — a vintage German train car like those used to transport men, women and children to Auschwitz and other Nazi death camps. The windowless boxcar is...
Biden defends his behavior with women
WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Joe Biden said Sunday he doesn’t believe he ever acted inappropriately toward women but will “listen respectfully” to suggestions he did. Biden, who is deciding whether to join the 2020 presidential race, released a new statement in response to allegations from a Nevada politician that...
Trump’s battle with ‘Obamacare’ moves to the courts
WASHINGTON — After losing in Congress, President Donald Trump is counting on the courts to kill off “Obamacare.” But some cases are going against him, and time is not on his side as he tries to score a big win for his re-election campaign. Two federal judges in Washington, D.C.,...
Vestige of the past, Pennsylvania House’s ‘lobbyist room’ vanishes
HARRISBURG — It happened without any warning: The “lobbyist room” at the back of Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives chamber was closed and is now off limits to lobbyists. For decades, lobbyists could sit there in a handful of comfortable chairs, watch floor proceedings on TV, print out copies of legislation...
Pa. woman convicted in cult-related slaying of boyfriend
STROUDSBURG, Pa. — A woman has been convicted of killing her boyfriend, which she said he asked her to do because of issues with an online cult. Jurors in Monroe County deliberated for nine hours before convicting 42-year-old Barbara Rogers of third-degree murder Friday in the death of 32-year-old Steven...
Historic Philly street closed due to danger of collapse
Officials say a stretch of street in Philadelphia’s historic Independence National Historical Park has been closed out of concerns that the road might collapse. The Philadelphia Water Department says the stretch of street that runs past the old City Hall, which is attached to Independence Hall, is “severely undermined.” Water...
Mexican police nab man who tried to rob bank with front-end loader
MEXICO CITY — Police in Mexico say they caught a man who stole a front-end loader, drove it to a local bank, knocked down a wall, chained a safe to the machine and tried to drag it off. Prosecutors in the central state of Morelos say the loader had a...
Scranton man sentenced to life in death of neighbor found in bathtub
SCRANTON, Pa. — A northeastern Pennsylvania man has been sentenced to life in prison in the death of a neighbor found slain in a bathtub five years ago. The (Scranton) Times-Tribune reports that a Lackawanna County judge on Friday tacked on two to four more years to the sentence of...
Huge ghost town next door clouds Iowa city’s future
KNOXVILLE, Iowa (AP) — Crunching slowly down snow-covered Liberty Lane between stately brick buildings, Brian Hatch can recall when the sprawling veterans’ center on the edge of his small Iowa town teemed with activity as patients walked the lush, tree-covered grounds and hundreds of doctors, nurses and other staffers kept...
Brett Kavanaugh pivots as Supreme Court allows one execution, stops another
It’s difficult to say with certainty why the Supreme Court on Thursday night stopped the execution of a Buddhist inmate in Texas because he was not allowed a spiritual adviser by his side, when last month it approved the execution of a Muslim inmate in Alabama under the almost exact...
Massage spa busts often result in light sentences
ORLANDO, Fla. — When Florida authorities shut down 10 massage spas last month and arrested hundreds of men for buying sex, they broke a longstanding pattern of meting out minor charges and punishment for owners, letting patrons off scot-free and turning a mostly blind eye to signs of human trafficking....
New Orleans mayor to apologize for 1891 lynching of 11 Italian Americans
NEW ORLEANS — The mayor of New Orleans plans an apology to Italian Americans for what’s considered the nation’s most deadly lynching — violence in which 11 Italian immigrants were killed after acquittals in a police chief’s murder. “This has been a longstanding wound,” said Michael Santo of the Order...
Tens of thousands of Gaza protesters join anniversary march
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Tens of thousands of Palestinians gathered Saturday at rallying points near the Israeli border to mark the first anniversary of weekly protests in the Gaza Strip, as Israeli troops fired tear gas and opened fire at small crowds of activists who approached the border fence....
Gaza officials say Palestinian man killed by Israeli troops
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Gaza health officials said Israeli troops shot and killed a Palestinian man near the perimeter fence with Israel early Saturday, hours before a planned mass rally that is to mark a year of weekly border protests. The fatal shooting was bound to raise tensions at...
LA-area police chase backs up traffic for miles on freeway
BURBANK, Calif. — Traffic was backed up for miles for thousands of drivers Friday night on a busy Los Angeles-area freeway after a chase that lasted well over an hour and saw the driver repeatedly back into police cruisers. At one point after backing into a cruiser, the man gestured...
Gunman barricaded following shooting of Texas state trooper
FRISCO, Texas — A SWAT team on Saturday arrested a man suspected of shooting and wounding a Texas state trooper after evading an attempted traffic stop and then holing up in a suburban Dallas apartment for a 15-hour standoff, authorities said. Bryan M. Cahill, of Frisco, was taken into custody...