Police in Maine cancel shelter-in-place order after explosions and fire are reported
AUBURN, Maine — Police in Maine have canceled a shelter-in-place order in the city of Auburn after reporting that an armed person was in an area where a series of explosions and a house fire erupted early Saturday. The Auburn Police Department said on Facebook that the situation had been...
Unruly customer breaks bartender’s jaw at central Pa. restaurant
A man broke the jaw of a bartender at a popular Lebanon County restaurant and assaulted two other female employees after they asked him to leave earlier this week, the owner told CBS 21. The owner of Downtown Lounge on the 700 block of Cumberland Street said two men came...
Crews rescue 30 people trapped upside down high on Oregon amusement park ride
PORTLAND, Ore. — Emergency crews in Oregon rescued 30 people Friday after they were stuck for about half an hour dangling upside down high on a ride at a century-old amusement park. Portland Fire and Rescue said on the social platform X that firefighters worked with engineers at Oaks Park...
Speaker Johnson says House will go to court for Biden audio
WASHINGTON — Speaker Mike Johnson said Friday the House will go to court to enforce the subpoena against Attorney General Merrick Garland for access to President Joe Biden’s special counsel audio interview, hours after the Justice Department refused to prosecute Republicans’ contempt of Congress charge. “It is sadly predictable that...
Atlanta’s former Coca-Cola museum demolished for parking lot
ATLANTA — Once a shrine to the world’s most popular soft drink, the building that housed the original World of Coca-Cola is going flat at the hands of Georgia’s state government. Crews continued Friday to demolish the onetime temple of fizz in downtown Atlanta near the state capitol, with plans...
Las Vegas shooting survivors alarmed at Supreme Court’s strike down of ban on rifle bump stocks
Survivors of the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas and families who received somber calls from police hours later said they were alarmed when the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday struck down a ban on the gun attachment used by the shooter who rattled off over 1,000 bullets into a...
Jay-Z enters one of Pa.’s messiest political fights
Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan, and nonprofit newsroom producing investigative and public-service journalism that holds power to account and drives positive change in Pennsylvania. HARRISBURG — A series of events intended to get Philadelphians to support using taxpayer money to fund private school vouchers is bankrolled by an unexpected...
Yellowstone visitors hope to catch a glimpse of rare white buffalo
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. — Standing at the edge of a bluff overlooking the Lamar River in Yellowstone National Park, TJ Ammond stared through binoculars at hundreds of buffalo dotting the verdant valley below. Tan-colored calves frolicked near their mothers while hulking bulls wallowed in mud. As his wife and...
Penn-Trafford students raise $8K for Damar Hamlin’s Chasing M’s Foundation
It’s not often that Penn-Trafford business teacher Kim Stefkovich is left speechless. But when Pittsburgh native and NFL player Damar Hamlin gave her a hug and thanked her Sunday for the $8,000 donation Stefkovich’s students made to his charity, words escaped her. “When I went up to meet him at...
The RNC is launching a massive effort to monitor voting. Critics say it threatens to undermine trust
BLOOMFIELD HILLS, Mich. — The Republican National Committee on Friday launched a swing state initiative to mobilize some 100,000 polling place monitors, poll workers and attorneys to serve as “election integrity” watchdogs in November — an effort that immediately drew concerns that it could lead to harassment of election workers...
Justice Department won’t prosecute Garland for contempt, says refusal to provide audio wasn’t crime
WASHINGTON — Attorney General Merrick Garland will not be prosecuted for contempt of Congress because his refusal to turn over audio of President Joe Biden’s interview in his classified documents case “did not constitute a crime,” the Justice Department said Friday. In a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson, a...
Take the TribLive weekly news quiz: June 14
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Kate, Princess of Wales, says she’s making ‘good progress’ in cancer treatment
LONDON — The Princess of Wales says she is “making good progress” in her cancer treatment and will attend Saturday’s royal Trooping the Color ceremony, Kate’s first public appearance since her diagnosis. The 42-year-old wife of Prince William has not made any public appearances this year. She announced in March...
Alex Jones’ assets to be sold to pay Sandy Hook debt; company bankruptcy dismissed
HOUSTON — A federal judge on Friday ordered the liquidation of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones ′ personal assets but dismissed his company’s separate bankruptcy case, leaving the future of his Infowars media platform uncertain as he owes $1.5 billion for his false claims that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting...
Worst rainfall that triggered floods in Florida is over as affected residents clean up
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Although more rain could trigger additional isolated Florida flooding on Friday, forecasters say the strong, persistent storms that dumped up to 20 inches (50 centimeters) in southern parts of the state appear to have passed. Some neighborhood streets in the Miami and Fort Lauderdale areas still...
Demolition of the Parkland classroom building where 17 died in 2018 shooting begins
PARKLAND, Fla. — A large excavator stretched to the top floor of the three-story building where 17 people died in the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, punching its first hole Friday into the classroom where teacher Scott Beigel perished saving students. Beginning a weekslong demolition, the...
Bird flu is highly lethal to some animals, but not to others. Scientists wants to know why
NEW YORK — In the last two years, bird flu has been blamed for the deaths of millions of wild and domestic birds worldwide. It’s killed legions of seals and sea lions, wiped out mink farms, and dispatched cats, dogs, skunks, foxes and even a polar bear. But it seems...
Supreme Court strikes down Trump-era ban on bump stocks, gun accessories used in 2017 massacre
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Friday struck down a Trump-era ban on bump stocks, the rapid-fire gun accessories used in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, in a ruling that threw firearms back into the nation’s political spotlight. The high court’s conservative majority found that the Trump...
Illinois is hit with cicada chaos. This is what it’s like to see, hear and feel billions of bugs
RIVERWOODS, Ill. — The ground had seemed to undulate at night, alive with bugs. Crawling cicada nymphs, striving to get higher after 17 years underground, marched en masse toward and up trees, pausing to shed their skin and emerge as adults. And then the fun began. Cicada chaos is flourishing...
How do cicadas make their signature sound, so eerie and amazingly loud?
WHEATON, Ill. — The most noticeable part of the cicada invasion blanketing the central United States is the sound — an eerie, amazingly loud song that gets in a person’s ears and won’t let much else in. “It’s beautiful chaos,” said Rebecca Schmidt, a U.S. Department of Agriculture research entomologist....
Ready to renew your U.S. passport? You can now apply online
WASHINGTON — There’s an easier way to renew your passport — online. The State Department has opened a trial run allowing a limited number of people to apply for their updated travel documents with a few clicks. You can’t just start anytime — windows will open at midday Eastern time...
Make mine medium-rare: Men really do eat more meat than women, study says
CHICAGO — Vacationing in Chicago this week from Europe, Jelle den Burger and Nirusa Naguleswaran grabbed a bite at the Dog House Grill: a classic Italian beef sandwich for him, grilled cheese for her. Both think the way their genders lined up with their food choices was no coincidence. Women,...
Swedish officials say weak replacement parts caused a fatal roller coaster derailment last year
COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Swedish accident investigators on Friday said the country’s oldest amusement park didn’t properly test new parts for a roller coaster that derailed last year and sent some passengers plunging to the ground, killing one and injuring nine others, one seriously. The June 25 derailment at the Grona...
Putin offers truce if Ukraine exits Moscow-occupied areas and drops NATO bid — a nonstarter for Kyiv
Russian President Vladimir Putin promised Friday to “immediately” order a cease-fire in Ukraine and begin negotiations if Kyiv started withdrawing troops from the four regions annexed by Moscow in 2022 and renounced plans to join NATO. Such a deal appears a nonstarter for Kyiv, which wants to join the military...
NATO approves a plan to speed security aid and training to Ukraine’s beleaguered armed forces
BRUSSELS — NATO defense ministers on Friday approved a plan to provide reliable long-term security aid and military training for Ukraine after delays in Western deliveries of funds, arms and ammunition helped invading Russian forces to seize the initiative on the battlefield. Kyiv’s Western backers have mostly concentrated their efforts...
