U.S./World category, Page 1251
Jeff Bezos investigator says Saudis hacked into Amazon CEO’s phone
The feud between Jeff Bezos and the National Enquirer took another stunning turn over the weekend when a personal investigator for the Amazon.com chief executive officer accused Saudi Arabia of accessing Bezos’ phone data before the tabloid exposed his extramarital affair. Gavin de Becker, a security consultant for Bezos, made...
Meteor likely cause of bright flash in Florida night sky
ERIDU, Fla. — The National Weather Service says a bright flash across the Florida night sky over the weekend was likely a falling meteor. News outlets report people in southern Georgia and the Big Bend area of northern Florida reported seeing a flash shortly before midnight Saturday. The National Weather...
More officers may be reassigned to help border crush
EL PASO, Texas — The Trump administration says it may pull as many as 2,000 inspectors from border crossings to handle a surge of families arriving at the U.S.- Mexico border, many of them Central American asylum seekers. The temporary reassignments, up from 750 inspectors previously, threatens to slow the...
‘Harry Potter’ books burned at Catholic parish in Poland
WARSAW, Poland — Priests at a Catholic parish in northern Poland have burned books, including the “Harry Potter” series, and other items that their owners said had evil forces. Images from the burning at Gdansk’s Mother of Church parish on Sunday were posted on Facebook by a Catholic foundation that...
Father vows safety push after daughter’s ride sharing death
COLUMBIA, S.C. — The father of a University of South Carolina student killed when police say she got into the wrong car thinking it was her Uber ride says he will dedicate his life to increasing safety with ride sharing services. Seymour Josephson says he thinks his 21-year-old daughter Samantha...
U.S. safety agency opens probes into Hyundai, Kia fires
DETROIT — The U.S. government’s highway safety agency has decided to open two new investigations into fires involving Hyundai and Kia vehicles after getting complaints of more than 3,100 fires and 103 injuries. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says it granted a petition seeking the investigations from the nonprofit...
Official: Trump team overruled 25 security clearance denials
WASHINGTON — A career official in the White House security office says dozens of people in President Donald Trump’s administration were granted security clearances despite “disqualifying issues” in their backgrounds, such as concerns about foreign influence, drug use and criminal conduct. Tricia Newbold, an 18-year government employee who oversees the...
U.S. retail sales declined 0.2% in February
WASHINGTON — U.S. retail sales fell in February, as consumers pulled back their spending on building materials, groceries, furniture, electronics and clothing amid signs of a slowing economy. The Commerce Department said Monday that retail sales fell 0.2% in February, after posting an upwardly revised gain 0.7% in January. Over...
Technical outage causing flight delays for airlines
NEW YORK — A technical outage is impacting major airlines and causing flight delays that may impact travel. The Federal Aviation Administration said Monday that several airlines were dealing with computer issues. The agency recommended people contact their airline directly for flight information and updates. There are delays already at...
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...
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.,...
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...
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...
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...
