NEW YORK (Reuters) - The federal judge who will rule in a class-action lawsuit accusing New York City police of racial profiling in their "stop and frisk" crime-fighting tactic expressed interest in having police officers wear cameras as the trial concluded on Monday.
"Everybody ...
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Chicago police arrested about two dozen people on Monday who were protesting against the planned closure of 54 schools in the country's third-largest school district, ahead of a planned Wednesday vote on the matter.
The protests at City Hall were the culmination of three days ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court agreed on Monday to weigh whether federal law prevented a customer from suing an airline for kicking him out of its frequent flyer program for allegedly complaining too frequently about the service.
Rabbi Binyomin Ginsberg sued Northwest Airlines Corp, ...
TALLAHASSEE (Reuters) - Florida Governor Rick Scott signed the largest budget in his state's history on Monday while vetoing a college tuition increase and axing $368 million in projects he said did not meet his Republican criteria of job creation, education improvement and holding down the cost ...
There were no immediate reports of injuries or death from the tornado, which was located near Moore, Oklahoma, a suburb of Oklahoma City.
A tornado warning means that residents should immediately take cover.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. authorities brought criminal charges against three New York University researchers on Monday, alleging they conspired to take bribes from Chinese medical and research outfits for details about NYU research into magnetic resonance imaging technology.
A criminal complaint ...
OMAHA (Reuters) - Investigators in Omaha are looking at whether the murders discovered last week of a doctor and his wife are connected to the unsolved 2008 murders of a young boy and his family's housekeeper, police said on Monday.
Dr. Roger Brumback and his wife, Mary, both 65, were found ...
ST. LOUIS, Mo (Reuters) - Five people were killed and six were injured Monday morning when a van carrying them home from a religious gathering in California rolled over off of Interstate 70 near Vandalia in southern Illinois, police said.
Fayette County Sheriff's Department Deputy Shawn Carter ...
(Reuters) - Vermont on Monday became the fourth U.S. state to end legal penalties for doctors who prescribe medication to terminally ill patients seeking to end their own lives.
The law, which includes a number of safeguards over the next three years as the state adapts, marked the first time a ...
No ships were waiting to transit the portion of the ship channel north of the Fred Hartman bridge connecting the cities of La Porte and Baytown, Texas, as of 12:30 p.m. CDT (1730 GMT), according to the Coast Guard Houston Vessel Traffic Center.
The shutdown would end as soon as the person who came ...
The change is posing a challenge to some traditional U.S. approaches to fighting poverty, which were aimed primarily at poverty in urban settings, the Brookings Institution study found.
The number of poor people living in suburbs rose 64 percent between 2000 and 2011, reaching 16.4 million, it ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A dangerous, half mile-wide tornado struck near Oklahoma City Sunday afternoon, part of an extreme weather system moving through the central U.S. and stretching from north Texas to Minnesota.
Earlier, a "large tornado" touched down near Wichita, Kansas at 3:45 ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an Alaskan village's claim that it should be able to sue oil companies and utilities for damages attributed to climate change.
Lawyers for the village of Kivalina wanted various named defendants responsible for greenhouse ...
Two Fidelity whistleblowers asked the court to decide whether the Sarbanes-Oxley Act provision that prevents employers from retaliating against whistleblowers applies to private companies serving under contract as advisers to public companies.
(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Howard ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Delving into the controversial relationship between government and religion, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to consider whether a town in New York could allow members of the public, who in practice were nearly all Christian clergy, to open meetings with a ...
SHERIDAN, Illinois (Reuters) - With the U.S. spring planting season off to a historically slow start, an increasing number of farmers are counting on powerful tools to catch up: Monster machines that sow 36 rows of corn at once and feature high-tech innovations like computer-guided directional ...
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - In October 2004, then California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger rolled up to a pioneering fueling station at Los Angeles International Airport in a hydrogen-powered metallic blue Hummer loaned to him by General Motors Corp.
The "California Hydrogen Highway," ...
HOUSTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - For the past three years, the boom in the U.S. shale oil industry has outstripped all expectations. Production surged far faster than any forecasts; drillers raced to secure space in new pipelines to get their crude to market.
Now, at the periphery, that may be ...
WATFORD CITY, North Dakota (Reuters) - In towns across North Dakota, the wellhead of the North American energy boom, the locals have taken to quoting the adage: "Whiskey is for drinking, and water is for fighting."
It's not that they lack water, like Texas and California. They are ...
BRIDGEPORT, Connecticut (Reuters) - Thousands of Connecticut commuters should brace for travel chaos on Monday as Metro-North workers repair damage on the United States' busiest rail line caused by the collision of two trains, officials warned on Sunday.
Lengthy detours and hours of traffic ...
(Reuters) - A massive storm front swept north through the central United States on Sunday, hammering the region with fist-sized hail, blinding rain and tornadoes, including a half-mile wide twister that struck near Oklahoma City. News reports said at least one person had died.
By 9:30 p.m. Central ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Greenwich Village, the birthplace of the U.S. gay rights movement, remained in shock on Sunday over the shooting death of a gay man by a gunman who police said uttered anti-gay slurs before targeting the victim.
Mark Carson, 32, was shot dead in Greenwich Village around ...
DETROIT (Reuters) - Bond restructurings, negotiated settlements with bondholders and bond insurers, and tough talk with unionized workers are on the agenda as Detroit's emergency financial manager tries to meet a self-imposed, six-week deadline to decide whether the city can get through its ...
(Reuters) - A 21-year-old university student who was taken hostage in her apartment and then shot to death during a police standoff with an armed robber on New York's Long Island was killed by a bullet fired from an officer's gun, investigators said on Sunday.
Andrea Rebello was shot in the head ...
(Reuters) - In Harrisburg, Pennsylvania's cash-hungry capital city, local political battles are waged much as they are across the United States: with big personalities and bare-knuckled verbal brawls.
But unlike most cities, Harrisburg's financial troubles have thrust it into the national ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Under pressure to fight sexual assault, the U.S. armed forces in recent years rolled out education programs about proper sexual conduct through methods like role playing and video games.
The increase in education has nevertheless failed to prevent what the nation's top ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - When the Yemen-based branch of al Qaeda placed a bounty on her husband's head, Mary Feierstein learned of it from a friend who called and said, "You must be a mess!"
U.S. Ambassador Gerald Feierstein was thousands of miles (km) away at the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa, ...
David Hernandez and Manuel Perez, waiters at the Palace nightclub near Mexico City's popular Garibaldi Square, face charges of murder and robbery, the official said.
Malcolm Shabazz, who police have said was 29, died May 9 at the Palace after a dispute over a $1,200 bill. Hernandez and Perez were ...
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - City Councilman Eric Garcetti leads City Controller Wendy Greuel by 7 percentage points in a tightening race for mayor of Los Angeles, according to the latest opinion poll, but the survey's director said Greuel could still stage an upset in Tuesday's election.
The poll ...
RICHMOND, Virginia (Reuters) - A car driven by an elderly man who may have lost consciousness plowed through a small-town parade of hiking enthusiasts in southwestern Virginia on Saturday, injuring dozens of people, nine seriously enough to be sent to hospitals, authorities said.
The incident ...
RICHMOND, Virginia (Reuters) - Virginia Republicans on Saturday formally nominated Ken Cuccinelli for governor in the nation's marquee 2013 political race, and the conservative attorney general wasted no time reminding voters of the scandals facing President Barack Obama.
"I am not a true ...
INDIANAPOLIS (Reuters) - Indiana has canceled subsidies for a planned $1.8 billion fertilizer plant in the state because of concerns that a Pakistani company involved in the project makes products used in improvised explosives that kill and injure U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
Midwest Fertilizer ...
(Reuters) - Texas has joined the crowd of Gulf of Mexico states to file suit against BP Plc, Halliburton Co and others for their role in one of the worst oil spills in U.S. history.
The complaint, filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Beaumont, Texas, alleges that the companies and others ...
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Chicago will shut down part of its "L" elevated rail system's busiest line for five months starting on Sunday, forcing thousands of commuters to seek other routes and creating the biggest such U.S. transit disruption in two decades.
The nation's second-largest public ...
NEWARK, New Jersey (Reuters) - A US Airways flight made an emergency landing on its belly at Newark Liberty International Airport early on Saturday after the plane's landing gear failed to deploy, but no one was injured, airline and government officials said.
Piedmont Airlines flight 4560, ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Friday trimmed his funding request for the war in Afghanistan and other overseas operations by 10 percent, reflecting his plans to wind down the U.S. presence in that country.
The president asked for $79.4 billion to fund so-called overseas ...
DENVER (Reuters) - A group of Colorado county sheriffs, angry about two new state gun control laws passed in the wake of last year's mass shootings in Connecticut and Colorado, filed a federal lawsuit on Friday seeking to block the laws from going into effect.
The two laws, passed by the state's ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The technology industry and organized labor are locked in a fight that threatens to complicate the U.S. Senate's immigration bill.
At the heart of the debate is whether there is a shortage of Americans with the math and science skills needed for work at technology firms like ...
(Reuters) - A single winning ticket for a record Powerball lottery jackpot worth $590.5 million was sold in Florida, organizers said late on Saturday, but there was no immediate word about who won one of the largest jackpots in U.S. history.
The winning numbers from Saturday night's drawing were: ...
BRIDGEPORT, Connecticut (Reuters) - A fractured segment of track has been found on the rail line of a Metro-North passenger train from New York that derailed in Connecticut and struck another commuter train, injuring more than 70 people, investigators said on Saturday.
Authorities have ruled out ...
Monique Pepe was charged with being an accessory after the fact to attempted second-degree murder over accusations she harbored Shawn Scott, 24, police said. She also faces drug charges.
Scott was arrested on Thursday, a day after his brother Akein Scott, 19, was captured, police said. Both have ...
DALLAS (Reuters) - Veronica Orellana, her husband and three sons were used to living in cramped spaces until six years ago, when they moved into their three-bedroom house in Granbury, Texas, built by a nonprofit that constructs homes for low-income families.
But since a deadly tornado ripped ...
ALAMEDA, California (Reuters) - The head of the Italian sailing team in the America's Cup called on Friday for lowering limits on wind speeds and other safety measures to make the regatta less dangerous following a deadly accident last week.
Prada fashion house co-founder Patrizio Bertelli said if ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A potentially fatal hog virus, porcine epidemic diarrhea, has been found in the United States for the first time, government and private industry officials said on Friday, posing a new threat for the country's struggling pork producers.
PEDV, an incurable condition that ...
(Reuters) - Passengers aboard a high-speed commuter ferry that crashed while docking near Wall Street in January have filed 37 lawsuits against boat owner Seastreak LLC, seeking as much as $45 million each.
The 37 claims were filed in U.S. District Court in Newark, New Jersey, by Thursday's ...
Obama on Thursday named Werfel, a White House budget official, to take over the agency, which is embroiled in controversy over its targeting of conservative groups for extra scrutiny.
Werfel will report to Obama about progress in holding IRS staff accountable for inappropriate actions, correcting ...
The defense wanted to document 19-year-old Tsarnaev's injuries and mental state while being held in federal prison to provide evidence of "the voluntariness of his statements" while under interrogation, according to court papers.
Magistrate Judge Marianne Bowler, of U.S. District Court ...
(Reuters) - In a boost for President Barack Obama's healthcare reform law, two states in the Northwest said on Friday that insurance companies submitted applications to sell policies on the states' health insurance exchanges at rates well below what some insurance executives had predicted.
The ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel ordered top military chiefs on Friday to redouble their effort to address the problem of sexual assault, saying the frequency and perceived tolerance of the crime was eroding the military's ability conduct its mission.
"We're going to fix ...
SPRINGFIELD, Illinois (Reuters) - The Illinois Senate on Friday voted to approve the use of marijuana for medical purposes, which if signed into law would make it the second-most-populous state in the nation after California to allow the drug's use for medical purposes.
The bill, approved by the ...
LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - An attorney who O.J. Simpson claims botched his Nevada robbery trial five years ago told a court on Friday that he poured his "blood, sweat and soul" into defending the former football hero, who he said had been badly tainted by his sensational 1990s murder ...
LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (Reuters) - A federal judge on Friday blocked a new Arkansas law that would ban most abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy, one of the most restrictive abortion statutes in the nation.
U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright granted an injunction sought by abortion rights ...
According to a draft of the proposed regulations, posted on the website of the state's Division of Gaming Enforcement on Friday, licensees would pay an initial Internet gaming permit fee of $400,000, and an annual fee of $250,000 for resources for problem gambling.
The Division of Gaming ...
Special Warfare Operator Third Class Jonathan Kaloust, 23, of Massapequa, New York, died when the Humvee in which he was riding overturned at 9:30 p.m. on Wednesday, said Lieutenant David Lloyd, a spokesman for East Coast-based Navy Special Warfare Group 2.
Seven people received minor injuries and ...
WINNIPEG, Manitoba (Reuters) - Canada will put forward a list of U.S. products it wants to target in retaliation for U.S. country-of-origin meat labels if last-minute changes to U.S. label regulations don't prove satisfactory, Canadian officials said on Friday.
The dispute stems from a 2009 U.S. ...
Alan Gross and his wife Judy filed the $60 million lawsuit in November 2012 against the U.S. government and Development Alternatives Inc, a Bethesda, Maryland, contractor for the U.S. Agency for International Development.
The suit claimed Gross, 64, should have been given better information and ...
Brown, who joined the organization in 1982 as a researcher and became program director in 1993, died Sunday in New York City, Human Rights Watch said on its website.
"She was principled and uncompromising — and played a big part in making Human Rights Watch that way," Kenneth Roth, the ...
Representatives Buck McKeon, the Republican who heads the House Armed Services Committee, and Jim Moran, a Democrat from Northrop's home district in Virginia, sent Hagel a strongly worded letter in which they accused the Air Force of ignoring congressional mandates by failing to procure the spy ...
DENVER (Reuters) - The judge who will hear the capital murder case against accused Colorado theater gunman James Holmes has agreed to hear arguments on the constitutionality of Colorado's insanity defense law in death penalty cases.
Arapahoe County District Judge Carlos Samour Jr. ruled on ...
Civil rights groups had filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Phoenix in November against Governor Jan Brewer and two state transportation department officials on behalf of five Mexican immigrants who qualify for deferred deportation status under a program pushed by President Barack Obama.
The ...
(Reuters) - A homeless man who achieved brief Internet fame for disrupting a California attack with his hatchet was arrested and charged with homicide on Thursday in the killing of a New Jersey attorney found bludgeoned to death in his home, officials said.
Police arrested Caleb Lawrence ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senior White House officials responsible for navigating the administration through a trio of scandals met on Thursday with outside Democratic strategists for advice on how to get past the controversies and back on track advancing the president's agenda.
The White House is ...
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Los Angeles has earned the dubious distinction for the second year in a row as the U.S. city with the most dog attacks on mail carriers, the U.S. Postal Service said.
California's biggest city accounted for 69 such attacks in fiscal 2012, which ended in September, compared ...
OLYMPIA, Washington (Reuters) - After months of study, the Washington state agency charged with overseeing the first-of-its-kind recreational cannabis market released its draft rules for the industry on Thursday.
Under the proposed guidelines issued by the Washington State Liquor Control Board, ...
(Reuters) - Fifteen men of Palestinian origin have been arrested on charges of running a multi-million-dollar cigarette smuggling ring in New York, and New York authorities who announced the arrests on Thursday said several of the suspects have ties to Hamas and other Islamist militant groups.
The ...
Fazliddin Kurbanov, 30, a national of Uzbekistan living legally in Idaho, was arrested in Boise and faces a three-count grand jury indictment in Idaho and a single-count indictment in Utah, prosecutors said.
They said Kurbanov provided information and money to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, ...
GRANBURY, Texas (Reuters) - Six people were dead and seven missing after a powerful tornado ripped through a north Texas neighborhood that included housing for the poor, in the deadliest severe storm outbreak in the United States this year.
Authorities were assessing damage and searching through ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Prospects for passage of a major immigration bill improved on Thursday when a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the House of Representatives declared they had reached a tentative deal, resolving disputes that had threatened to torpedo negotiations.
The breakthrough came at ...
Lieutenant Colonel Darin Haas was removed from his job as program manager of the Fort Campbell Sexual Harassment and Assault Response Prevention/Equal Opportunity office, as police investigated the allegations.
The Army said in a statement Haas was due to retire anyway and his replacement would ...
(Reuters) - The New York attorney general's office on Thursday said it was investigating allegations that fast-food operators in the state are underpaying workers in violation of labor laws.
The announcement came on the heels of a survey of 500 New York City fast-food employees at chains such as ...
(Reuters) - A homeless man who achieved brief Internet fame for disrupting a California attacker with a hatchet in February was being sought on Thursday in the killing of a New Jersey attorney found bludgeoned to death in his home, law enforcement officials said.
Caleb Lawrence McGillvary, 24, ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans in control of the House Education and the Workforce Committee voted on Thursday to advance legislation tying student loan interest rates to the financial markets, a plan they said would give borrowers a better sense of how much they must repay.
Currently, ...
WEST, Texas (Reuters) - The cause of a fire that triggered a massive explosion at a West, Texas fertilizer plant has been ruled undetermined, and investigators have not eliminated the possibility that the fire was set intentionally, state and federal officials said on Thursday.
Robert Champion, a ...
MIAMI (Reuters) - The United States Army Corps of Engineers awarded a $180 million contract to dredge Miami's harbor to an Illinois-based company on Thursday, part of a plan to deepen the port channel to handle larger ships coming through the expanded Panama Canal in 2015.
The port hopes its short ...
Marina Krim and her husband, Kevin, announced the pregnancy on a Facebook page established in memory of their two slain children, Lulu, 6, and Leo, 2.
The couple had another child, Nessie, who was 3 years old and out with her mother when her brother and sister were killed last year.
(Reuters) - New York authorities on Thursday will announce the arrest of 16 people in a cigarette smuggling ring that included three men who had been under scrutiny because of suspected links to Islamic militant groups, a law enforcement official said.
The announcement will be made at a news ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives trying to write an immigration bill met on Thursday in a last-ditch attempt to resolve their differences over a temporary worker program and healthcare benefits for illegal immigrants.
The group of eight Democratic and ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Many leading U.S. colleges and universities face a shortfall in enrollment for fall classes and will offer price discounts as they compete for students in an ever expanding higher education market, according to Forbes.
The magazine highlighted 50 public and private U.S. ...
The Justice Department's inspector general said in a report that the witness protection program did not give the new identities to the Terrorist Screening Center, the agency that keeps the "no fly" list. The list is used to bar those considered a security threat from boarding ...
Obama ousted acting IRS commissioner Steven Miller late on Wednesday shortly after the revelation the IRS had targeted conservative groups for special scrutiny. The president called the targeting inexcusable, but the incident has become a embarrassment for him.
Werfel is controller of the White ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Senate panel will try on Tuesday to pry more details out of current and former officials of the Internal Revenue Service about the agency's targeting of conservative groups for extra scrutiny when they sought tax-exempt status.
Lawmakers are also expected to demand answers ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner on Thursday tried to encourage negotiations on immigration legislation amid signs that a bipartisan House group trying to write a bill was near collapse.
"I am concerned that the bipartisan group has been unable to wrap ...
With a vote 97 to 0 in favor, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor will take the helm of the department poised to issue a series of decisions on the future of U.S. natural gas exports and to guide the country's energy investments.
(Reporting by Ayesha Rascoe; Editing by Gerald E. ...
Obama, speaking at a joint news conference with Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, also said he would take other action to help protect U.S. diplomats abroad.
"I'm calling on Congress to work with us to support and fully fund our budget request to improve the security of our embassies ...
BOSTON (Reuters) - Thousands of runners whose Boston Marathon was cut short by the deadly bombings at the finish line will be invited back next year, the organizer of the world-famous race said on Thursday.
The Boston Marathon attracts runners from the United States and all over the world who ...
(Reuters) - Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley on Thursday signed into law one of the United States' toughest gun control measures, even as opponents vowed to overturn it.
The legislation prompted by the Newtown, Connecticut, school massacre requires handgun buyers to undergo safety training and ...
East Los Angeles College was evacuated while students and staff at about 10 nearby public schools were confined to their campuses after police received an anonymous call at about 8 a.m. local time from a person saying he was headed to a school with a gun, the sheriff's department said.
A similar ...
(Reuters) - New York authorities on Thursday will announce the arrest of 16 people in a cigarette smuggling ring that included three men who had been under scrutiny because of suspected links to Islamic militant groups, a law enforcement official said.
The announcement will be made at a news ...
NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Police on Thursday arrested and charged the second of two street-gang-member brothers suspected of shooting into a New Orleans parade on Mother's Day and wounding 20 people.
Shawn Scott, 24, was arrested on Thursday, a day after law enforcement captured his 19-year-old ...
PHOENIX (Reuters) - Jurors weighing the death penalty for Jodi Arias, convicted of murdering her ex-boyfriend in Arizona, heard from his siblings on Thursday about how they had endured nightmares about his brutal death.
Arias, 32, was found guilty last week of murdering Travis Alexander, whose ...
A theft incident report from the Miami-Dade Police Department said the gold, packed in a box, arrived at Miami International early Tuesday morning on an American Airlines flight from Guayaquil, Ecuador.
Miami International serves as a major trans-shipment point for large quantities of gold ...
"The plan is negative for Detroit bondholders because it indicates that the city requires 'significant and fundamental debt relief' to help shore up its finances, a clear indication that a default or bankruptcy is a real option," the credit rating agency said in a report.
Specifically, ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A plan to roll the Empire State Building into a real estate investment trust is a whisker away from obtaining the necessary investor approval for a stock offering allowing the public to own a piece of the iconic skyscraper, according to a regulatory filing on ...
WEST, Texas (Reuters) - Investigators are expected to announce on Thursday the results of a probe into what caused last month's fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas, that killed 14 people and obliterated sections of the small town.
The State Fire Marshal's Office and the Bureau of Alcohol, ...
KANSAS CITY, Kansas (Reuters) - The man convicted of killing Kansas late-term abortion provider Dr. George Tiller is accused by prison officials of trying to intimidate a woman who reopened his clinic in April, a corrections department spokesman said.
Scott Roeder, who is serving a life sentence ...
But continued growth in power demand with only a small increase in power resources could cause problems in Texas, and a prolonged nuclear plant outage could keep power supplies tight in California, the North American Electric Reliability Corp (NERC) said.
NERC is a not-for-profit entity that ...
The CBS News report, citing anonymous sources, said that Tsarnaev used a pen to write the message on an interior wall of the boat, where police found him bleeding from gunshot wounds four days after the April 15 bombing.
The note summed up with the idea that "when you attack one Muslim, you ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top general in the U.S. Armed Forces warned of a crisis of confidence in the growing ranks of women soldiers due to a rash of sexual assault cases that has prompted lawmakers to act.
The warning by Army General Martin Dempsey came hours before President Barack Obama ...
TACOMA, Washington (Reuters) - A U.S. Army sergeant was sentenced to life in prison without parole on Thursday for killing five fellow servicemen in a shooting spree in Iraq, one of the worst cases of violence by an American soldier against other U.S. troops.
In a deal that spared him the death ...
Akein Scott, 19, was arrested in the Little Wood neighborhood of eastern New Orleans, police spokesman Garry Flot said, adding that no other details would be released until morning.
Seven women, 10 men, a girl and a boy were shot when gunfire erupted at the parade on Sunday, sending shockwaves ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With a barrage of legal briefs, a coalition of business groups and Republican-leaning states are taking their fight against Obama administration climate change regulations to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other industry groups, along with states ...
SEATTLE (Reuters) - A 10-year-old Washington state boy was sentenced on Wednesday to up to 5 1/2 years in a juvenile detention facility for his role in a foiled plot to rape and kill a girl at his school and harm other children.
The boy was charged with conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Republican-controlled panel in the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday approved the biggest cuts in food stamps for the poor in a generation and a potentially expensive expansion of federally subsidized crop insurance.
The House Agriculture Committee approved a ...
KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Reuters) - A Catholic diocese in Missouri has agreed to a $600,000 settlement of a civil lawsuit tied to the arrest of one of its priests for taking lewd photos of a young girl in 2006, a church official and a lawyer for the girl said on Wednesday.
The lawsuit filed by the ...
GRANBURY, Texas (Reuters) - All seven of the people listed missing after a monster tornado on Wednesday have now been accounted for in Granbury, Texas, leaving the death toll at six, authorities said on Friday.
Workers were clearing debris to allow residents of the most damaged areas to return to ...
(Reuters) - Police in Missoula, Montana, have agreed to change the way they investigate sexual assault accusations under an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice that follows a similar move by a local university, officials said on Wednesday.
The deal followed a year-long investigation by ...
OLYMPIA, Washington (Reuters) - Key officials helping to create Washington state's potentially lucrative recreational pot market say its success may hinge on preventing consumers from choosing to get high on readily available medical cannabis because of low and sometimes nonexistent taxes on ...
SAN ANDREAS, California (Reuters) - A 12-year-old boy accused of fatally stabbing his 8-year-old sister in their northern California home made a brief appearance on Wednesday in juvenile court, where he was presented with second-degree murder charges but entered no plea.
The boy's arrest on ...
Jeffrey Williams was pronounced dead at 6:36 p.m. local time (1936 ET) at a state prison in Huntsville, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice said in a statement.
Williams, 37, had been driving a stolen Lexus in May 1999 when policeman Troy Blando stopped him in a motel parking lot and tried to ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Justice Department's controversial decision to seize phone records of Associated Press journalists was just one element in a sweeping U.S. government investigation into media leaks about a Yemen-based plot to bomb a U.S. airliner, government officials said on ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A rash of scandals discrediting the U.S. military's efforts to stamp out sexual assault is putting unprecedented pressure on Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to consider options that once appeared off limits to address sex crimes in the armed forces.
On Tuesday, the military ...
Miller resigned after the IRS became embroiled in a controversy over the agency's targeting of conservative groups for extra scrutiny.
"It is with regret that I will be departing from the IRS as my acting assignment ends in early June," Miller said in an internal message that was ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Columbia University, one of the nation's Ivy League schools, has joined an effort to have restrictions removed from a decades-old scholarship offered only to white students.
The Lydia C. Roberts Fellowship, established in 1920, requires that Columbia students who receive ...
WACO, Texas (Reuters) - A Texas paramedic who responded to a fertilizer plant explosion last month pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to possessing pipe bomb components, his lawyer said, after agreeing to postpone his detention hearing.
A hearing for Bryce Reed scheduled for Wednesday afternoon in ...
CHICAGO (Reuters) - The Chicago Teachers Union sued the nation's third-largest school district on Wednesday, saying a plan to close 54 schools this year discriminates against African-American children and those with disabilities.
Two lawsuits filed in federal District Court on behalf of parents of ...
CHARLESTON, South Carolina (Reuters) - More than 100 gallons of water containing radioactive tritium has leaked from a discharge pipe at the Catawba Nuclear Station near Lake Wylie, South Carolina, and could reach groundwater, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said on Wednesday.
The leak, which ...
NEWARK, New Jersey (Reuters) - Rutgers University picked a woman to head its athletic programs on Wednesday, as New Jersey's largest public college looks to move on from a scandal that saw several top sports officials resign.
Julie Hermann, 49, who was a senior executive atheletic director at the ...
ATLANTA (Reuters) - A battle over Bibles is brewing in Georgia, where the governor said on Wednesday the books should be allowed to be placed in the bedside table drawers at state-owned vacation properties after an atheist's objection led to their removal.
Ed Buckner, an author and former ...
LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - O.J. Simpson, the former football star famously acquitted of murder in 1995, offered sometimes emotional testimony in a packed Las Vegas courtroom on Wednesday as he sought a new trial in the robbery case that sent him to prison five years ago.
Simpson, brought to court from ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New Jersey man who confessed to the 1979 killing of Etan Patz should stand trial for murder and kidnapping in the 6-year-old boy's disappearance, a judge ruled on Wednesday.
An attorney for Pedro Hernandez, 51, of Maple Shade, New Jersey, had asked the judge to throw out the ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York State Assemblyman Vito Lopez, a Democratic power broker in Brooklyn, will not face criminal charges over allegations he sexually harassed female staffers, a special prosecutor investigating the case said Wednesday.
The scandal rocked Albany, and Lopez was removed from ...
WACO, Texas (Reuters) - A Texas paramedic who responded to a fertilizer plant explosion last month will plead not guilty to possessing pipe bomb components, after agreeing on Wednesday to defer his detention hearing, federal prosecutors said.
A hearing for Bryce Reed that was scheduled for ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Enbridge Energy Partners said it may be forced to shut down an 80,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) oil-loading rail terminal in North Dakota unless the amount of potentially deadly hydrogen sulfide in crude oil delivered to the facility can be reduced.
Last week, Enbridge asked for a ...
PHOENIX (Reuters) - Jodi Arias, facing the death penalty for murdering an ex-boyfriend in Arizona, was due back in court on Thursday for the final phase of a four-month-long trial.
Arias was found guilty last week of murdering Travis Alexander, whose body was found slumped in the shower of his ...
Holder noted to the House Judiciary Committee that he had recused himself from the leak investigation that prompted the phone records seizure, so the decision was not his.
But lawmakers still pushed him on why the subpoena for the two months of phone records last year was so broad and why the ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A judge on Wednesday threw out an indictment against a New York City police officer charged with manslaughter over the shooting of an unarmed teenager, but prosecutors can present the case again or appeal the decision, lawyers involved in the case said.
Officer Richard Haste ...
Thirteen of the city's 14 deputy fire chiefs in a letter to Mayor Thomas Menino expressed no confidence in city Fire Chief Steve Abraira, the Boston Globe reported on Wednesday. Abraira, who had previously served in Dallas, in 2011 was named Boston fire chief, the first time an outsider was picked ...
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A 12-year-old boy accused of fatally stabbing his 8-year-old sister in their northern California home while their parents were away was due to appear in juvenile court on Wednesday to face murder charges.
Police arrested the boy on Saturday, two weeks after his sister, ...
The 36-year-old welterweight - considered the best defensive boxer of his generation - topped the magazine's Fortunate 50 list, issued on Wednesday. Mayweather also took the top spot last year, earning an estimated $85 million, again from just two fights, the magazine reported.
Miami Heat ...
In May 1999, Jeffrey Williams, now 37, was driving a stolen Lexus when policeman Troy Blando stopped him in a motel parking lot and tried to arrest him.
Williams shot Blando in the chest and fled, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Blando got back into his car and radioed for ...
DETROIT (Reuters) - The city of Detroit hired its fifth police chief in five years as Michigan's largest city grapples with a financial crisis, low officer morale and one of the highest violent crime and homicide rates in the United States.
Mayor Dave Bing and Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr, who was ...
LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - O.J. Simpson, the former football star famously acquitted of murder in 1995, took the witness stand in a Las Vegas courtroom on Wednesday seeking a new trial in an armed-robbery case that sent him to prison five years ago.
Simpson, 65, was called to testify in the third day ...
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A Philadelphia doctor was sent to prison on Wednesday to serve three life terms without parole for murdering babies during late-term abortions and other crimes at his squalid clinic.
In a deal that spared him from the death penalty, Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 72, faced a judge in ...
FALFURRIAS, Texas (Reuters) - Mounds of dirt decorated with fake flowers sit at the northern edge of the cemetery in this town about 80 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border. Small metal placards mark the graves of the unknown, generally by gender, while others simply say "bones" or ...
Officers are investigating the deaths of four people at two homes and a related house fire on Monday in Fernley, about 30 miles east of Reno, the Lyon County Sheriff's Office said in a statement released on Tuesday.
Authorities also are probing a suspicious death on Interstate 80 near the Mustang ...
Kenneth Bae, 44, a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in South Korea, was sentenced on April 30 after a North Korean court convicted him of what it said was an attempt at state subversion.
Members of his family had told U.S. media at the time of his sentencing that Bae had been working as a ...
CLEVELAND (Reuters) - The man charged with holding three women captive and raping them during a decade in his Cleveland home plans to plead not guilty to criminal charges, one of his lawyers said on Wednesday.
The lawyer, Jaye Schlachet, said in a phone interview that the suspect, Ariel Castro, ...
PHOENIX (Reuters) - Jodi Arias, the California woman convicted in a sensational trial of brutally murdering her ex-boyfriend, will face an Arizona jury on Wednesday charged with deciding if she deserves the death penalty for her crime.
Arias was found guilty a week ago of murdering 30-year-old ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - He may have been the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago. He may have written a book extolling constitutional values in a democracy. And he may have run for president on a civil liberties ...
Investigators believe about 20 young, ethnic Somali men left Minnesota from 2007 to 2009 to go to Somalia to fight for al Shabaab, which the United States designated a terrorist organization.
Three men who cooperated with investigators were each sentenced to three years and a fourth man was ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. Army sergeant who worked as a sexual assault prevention coordinator at Fort Hood, Texas, has been accused of sex crimes, the Pentagon said on Tuesday, the second man in the military's anti-sexual assault effort to be accused since last week.
News of the investigation ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Tuesday called the findings in a government report about the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservative groups for extra scrutiny intolerable and said he has directed his administration to hold those responsible for the agency's actions ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said on Tuesday he had ordered the FBI to open a criminal probe in a growing scandal over the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservative political groups for extra tax scrutiny.
Holder's announcement came about four hours before an ...
DALLAS (Reuters) - Billie Sol Estes, a flamboyant Texan who was convicted of bilking millions of dollars from a federal crop subsidy program, died on Tuesday at age 88, police said.
Estes, whose exploits in the 1960s captured headlines across the country, was found dead in his home in Granbury, a ...
MINNEAPOLIS (Reuters) - Governor Mark Dayton on Tuesday made Minnesota the nation's 12th state to allow same-sex couples to marry and only the second in the Midwest, signing a bill on the steps of the state Capitol before thousands of supporters.
The Democratic governor's signature came a day ...
(Reuters) - California will spend an extra $2.9 billion on public education over the next two years thanks to higher-than-expected revenue, money that could help Governor Jerry Brown win support for his plan to funnel funds to the state's poorest districts.
Brown announced the boost in spending on ...
DALLAS (Reuters) - A Texas paramedic, who responded to a fertilizer plant explosion last month, is expected to plead not guilty in federal court on Wednesday to possessing pipe bomb components, his lawyer said.
Bryce Reed, 31, faces one count of unlawfully possessing an unregistered destructive ...
SEATTLE (Reuters) - The Seattle public school system, facing a rebellion that stoked the national protest movement over standardized testing in U.S. public schools, is backing away from the contentious multiple-choice exam for its upcoming school year.
Teachers, educators, and students at several ...
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (Reuters) - As Alabama's Jefferson County readies a workout proposal for its landmark $4.2 billion bankruptcy, officials on Tuesday announced an agreement with creditors JPMorgan Chase and Bayerische Landesbank covering $105 million of defaulted debt.
The deal, one of a series ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A Bronx grand jury indicted a New York woman on Tuesday on suspicion of posing as the aunt of one of the 20 children killed in last year's shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in order to fraudulently solicit donations.
Nouel Alba, 37, is accused of setting up a Facebook ...
SANFORD (Reuters) - Lawyers seeking to overturn the murder conviction of a Honduran man who has been on Florida's death row since 2006 presented new DNA and blood stain evidence in a Florida court on Tuesday.
Clemente Aguirre-Jarquin, 33, was convicted in the 2004 murders of his neighbors at a ...
NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - A Mother's Day shooting in New Orleans marred a century-old tradition: The second line, a community parade designed to strengthen pride in hardscrabble neighborhoods, residents said.
Police are seeking 19-year-old suspect Akein Scott in the Sunday shooting in which 19 ...
DETROIT (Reuters) - The attorney for a Saudi Arabian man arrested at the Detroit airport over the weekend carrying a pressure cooker in his luggage said his client is the victim of a misunderstanding by overzealous U.S. customs agents.
Hussain Al Khawahir, 33, was detained after arriving in ...
CLEVELAND (Reuters) - Two of the women imprisoned in a Cleveland house in conditions described as similar to a prisoner of war camp suffered from severe malnutrition and will require long-term therapy for injuries such as hearing loss and joint and muscle damage, two sources with direct knowledge ...
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A Philadelphia doctor avoided the possibility of the death penalty for murdering babies during late-term abortions by agreeing not to appeal his convictions, and he was sentenced on Tuesday to life in prison, the city prosecutor said.
Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 72, was convicted ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal appeals panel on Tuesday overturned a judge's ruling that the New York City Fire Department intentionally discriminated against minority applicants and pared down a court-ordered plan aimed at boosting diversity in the FDNY.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ...
President Barack Obama is facing renewed pressure from foreign governments and human rights advocates to close the prison who assail it as a lasting stain on the United States' international reputation.
Obama last month renewed his years-old pledge to try to close the camp, where the United States ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A seventh defendant pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to charges he participated in a global ATM heist that stole $45 million from two Middle East banks.
Elvis Rodriguez, 24, was accused of being a member of a "casher" crew that withdrew hundreds of thousands of dollars ...
WINSTON-SALEM, North Carolina (Reuters) - A South Carolina couple sued doctors and state social workers on Tuesday for subjecting a 16-month-old child born with both male and female genitalia to what they say was medically unnecessary and irreversible sex-assignment surgery while the toddler was ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Supreme Court justices on Monday evening sought laughs rather than legal clarity as they weighed a tragic case concerning a despotic Roman general and his overbearing mother.
The three justices were taking part in a mock trial at Washington's Shakespeare Theatre based ...
The government's sixth national crackdown on healthcare fraud since 2010 involved $223 million in fraudulent claims in jurisdictions including Miami, Detroit, Los Angeles and Brooklyn, New York, the Justice Department said.
But Holder said efforts to expand the battle against fraud is being ...
The agreement, one of a series the county has reached since filing a landmark $4.2 billion bankruptcy in late 2011, covers the county's 2001b GO series and was expected to be approved on Thursday by the Jefferson County Commission.
The deal saves the county $2 million in fees and interest payments ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Jackson, the capital of Mississippi, is also the capital of sloth, according to Men's Health magazine which ranked the Southern metropolis as the least active city in the United States.
It was last on the list of 100 cities based on the activity level of its residents, along ...
BOSTON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister David Cameron paid tribute to the victims of the Boston marathon bombing on Tuesday in a visit to the site of the attack, saying Britain stood shoulder to shoulder with the United States against terrorism.
On the second day of a three-day trip to the ...
SEASIDE HEIGHTS, New Jersey (Reuters) - Britain's Prince Harry praised "that great American spirit" on Tuesday during his tour of the recovering Jersey Shore, where crews were dismantling a landmark roller coaster - a symbol of Superstorm Sandy's destruction.
Cheers erupted from the ...
At a meeting in Washington, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) called on state authorities to reduce the legal limit by nearly 40 percent to 0.05 percent. All 50 U.S. states now have a blood alcohol content (BAC) limit of 0.08 percent for drivers aged 21 and over, and younger drivers ...
NEWARK (Reuters) - Police in New Jersey have arrested the father of a 4-year-old boy who fatally shot a 6-year-old friend while playing with one of the father's guns, which had been left unsecured in a bedroom.
The Atlantic City prosecutor's office charged 33-year-old Anthony Senatore with six ...
BOSTON (Reuters) - Vermont is poised to become the third U.S. state to allow doctor-assisted suicide, after its legislature passed a bill allowing physicians to prescribe lethal drugs to terminally ill patients.
The bill passed late on Monday, and the governor has pledged to sign it into law.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon told its civilian workforce on Tuesday that it will put most of them on unpaid leave for one day a week starting in July, a deeply unpopular move that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel blamed on sweeping budget cuts imposed by Congress.
The U.S. defense budget has ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama learned on Monday what can happen to presidents caught up in allegations of scandal: they have to address them instead of anything else.
It happened when the president had to interrupt his news conference with Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain to ...
(Reuters) - A House of Representatives panel is investigating the circumstances surrounding the resignation from the Food and Drug Administration of its acting deputy commissioner for medical products and tobacco.
In a letter to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg on Monday, Republicans on the ...
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Authorities have asked the public for help in tracking down a onetime member of the so-called Billionaire Boys Club who served prison time in connection with his father's slaying and is now sought as a suspect in a San Francisco traffic death last summer.
An arrest ...
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - The lives of urban-dwelling bears are chronicled in neck-cam video clips showing their trash-trawling, birdseed-raiding and bear-bonding antics as several of the burly creatures caroused through Alaska's biggest city.
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game collected ...
ABOARD THE USS GEORGE H.W. BUSH (Reuters) - The U.S. Navy made aviation history on Tuesday by launching an unmanned jet off an aircraft carrier for the first time, taking an important step toward expanded use of drones by the American military with an eye on possible rivals like China and ...
The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board ruling favored petitioner Friends of the Earth, an anti-nuclear group that sought more public input of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) review of steam generator problems at the San Onofre nuclear power plant.
Both reactors at the 2,150-megawatt San ...
The center handles industrial gases including nitrogen, acetylene and oxygen that do not pose an immediate threat to public safety, though a section of adjoining highway has been closed, said Jason Owens, deputy director of public safety at the Putnam County Office of Emergency ...
NEW BRUNSWICK, New Jersey (Reuters) - A New Jersey state trooper who escorted a high-speed caravan of Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Porsches down the Garden State Parkway last year was sentenced to one year of probation after pleading guilty last month to a charge of tampering with records.
Sergeant ...
LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - O.J. Simpson, the ex-football star famously acquitted of murder in 1995, appeared in court on Monday seeking a new trial in a Las Vegas armed robbery case that sent him to prison as witnesses testified to what they said were blunders by his lawyer.
Simpson, 65, appeared ...
CLEVELAND (Reuters) - Two brothers of a former Cleveland school bus driver accused of holding three women hostage in his house for a decade described Ariel Castro as a "monster" and said they hope he "rots in jail" if convicted of kidnapping and raping the women.
Pedro and Onil ...
"As a result of sequester and across-the-board cuts we will have about 500 fewer firefighters at the Forest Service than we would otherwise have," said Vilsack.
Cuts known as sequestration are forcing government agencies to reduce spending. They went into effect on March 1 after a ...
NORTHAMPTON, Massachusetts (Reuters) - A man accused of setting a series of fires that killed a father and son and terrorized a western Massachusetts college town three years ago pleaded guilty on Monday to manslaughter and dozens of other criminal charges.
Prosecutors had accused Anthony Baye, ...
ST. PAUL, Minnesota (Reuters) - Minnesota's Senate on Monday approved a bill that would make Minnesota the 12th U.S. state to allow same-sex couples to marry and only the second in the Midwest, advancing it to the governor, who said he would sign it on Tuesday.
The Democratic-controlled state ...
BOSTON (Reuters) - A school committee member in Worcester, Massachusetts joined two homeless residents in suing the city on Monday, charging that an ordinance intended to block aggressive panhandling violated their right to free speech.
They charged that the ordinances, adopted in January, would ...
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Authorities in Mexico City have arrested two men on suspicion of the fatal beating of the grandson of U.S. civil rights activist Malcolm X in a bar last week and are looking for at least two more people, Mexico City Attorney General Rodolfo Rios said on Monday.
Malcolm ...
(Reuters) - Detroit is clearly insolvent and could face a possible bankruptcy if talks with labor unions and creditors do not make substantial progress on easing the city's cash crunch, the city's emergency financial manager said on Monday.
In his first official report, Emergency Financial Manager ...
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A Philadelphia doctor was found guilty on Monday of murdering three babies during abortions at a clinic serving low-income women in a case that cast a national spotlight on the controversial practice of late-term abortions.
Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 72, who ran the now-shuttered ...
(Reuters) - Vermont's legislature on Monday approved a bill that would decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana, a measure the state's governor expects to sign into law in the coming weeks.
The move sets up the New England state to be the 17th in the United States to remove ...
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A Philadelphia jury has reached a verdict in the murder trial of a doctor accused of killing babies and a patient during late-term abortions at his clinic, CNN and local media reported on Monday.
Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 72, who ran the now-closed Women's Medical Society ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Monday called the targeting of conservative groups by U.S. tax officials "outrageous" and said that any Internal Revenue Service employees involved would be held accountable.
Obama's comments, during a news conference with visiting British ...
LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - O.J. Simpson, the former football star and Hollywood actor who was famously acquitted of his ex-wife's 1994 murder, appeared in a Las Vegas court on Monday seeking a new trial on his conviction on a Nevada armed robbery charge.
Simpson, who appeared in court in blue jail garb ...
"We are looking at about 50 cases that (retired Detective Louis) Scarcella was the lead detective on," said Jerry Schmetterer, the chief spokesman for Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes.
"Our goal right now is to determine if there are any innocent people in jail. If there ...
CENTENNIAL, Colo. (Reuters) - A Colorado judge on Monday opened the door to accused movie theater gunman James Holmes pleading not guilty by reason of insanity to charges he murdered 12 filmgoers last year, in a case that could bring the death penalty if he is convicted.
Arapahoe County District ...
TACOMA, Washington (Reuters) - A military judge ruled on Monday that a U.S. soldier who shot and killed five fellow servicemen at a combat stress clinic in Iraq acted with premeditation, a decision that will almost surely get him life in prison.
U.S. Army Sergeant John Russell, in a deal that ...
Prosecutors in Cleveland, Ohio last week charged Ariel Castro, 52, with four counts of kidnapping and three counts of rape, but brought no charges against brothers Onil or Pedro.
In their first TV interview since the captives escaped last Monday, the men said that for the last decade they had not ...
In a letter to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, Rubio called on Lew and President Barack Obama to demand Miller's resignation, saying, it "is clear the IRS cannot operate with even a shred of the American people's confidence under the current leadership."
(Reporting by Thomas Ferraro; ...
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A Philadelphia jury in its 10th day of deliberations said it was deadlocked on two counts in the murder trial of a doctor accused of killing babies and a patient during late-term abortions at a clinic that served low-income women.
Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 72, who ran the ...
WARREN, Michigan (Reuters) - General Motors Co said it is investing $546 million in two new Michigan data centers in hopes it will free up millions of dollars to boost vehicle quality more quickly.
The largest U.S. automaker unveiled a $288 million data center in the Detroit suburb of Warren on ...
A Schuylkill County dispatcher told Philadelphia's NBC10 that the fire broke out just before midnight on Sunday. Firefighters said no one inside the house made it out alive, the station said.
The victims were identified as a 30-year-old man, his four children and his sister-in-law, 26.
DENVER (Reuters) - Accused Colorado theater gunman James Holmes, who could face execution if convicted of murdering 12 moviegoers last year, returns to a Colorado courtroom on Monday where his lawyers will seek to change his plea to not guilty by reason of insanity.
Holmes, 25, is charged with ...
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Cyber security and warfare are on par with a credible nuclear deterrent in the defense priorities of the United States, the U.S. Navy's top admiral said on Monday, after the Pentagon accused China of trying to hack into its computer networks.
Admiral Jonathan Greenert, the ...
ST. PAUL, Minnesota (Reuters) - The Minnesota Senate is expected to give final approval on Monday to a bill that would make the state the 12th in the United States to allow same-sex couples to marry and only the second in the Midwest.
Leaders in the Senate, where Democrats hold a 39-28 majority, ...
NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - When David Pendery, a corporate public relations specialist, decided to move his family from Colorado to Illinois this year for work, his biggest worry was whether he would be able to sell his home quickly.
It took just three days.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Salaries of presidents of U.S. public universities rose almost 5 percent in the last fiscal year, even as tuition rose and student debt soared, with the median pay package topping $400,000, according to a report released on Sunday.
Penn State's Graham Spanier was the top ...
NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - New Orleans police on Monday identified a suspect in connection with a shooting at a Mother's Day parade that injured 19 people, including two children, as residents expressed outrage over the violence.
Police said the suspect, 19-year-old Akein Scott, remained at large but ...
DETROIT (Reuters) - Six weeks into his work as Detroit's emergency manager, former bankruptcy lawyer Kevyn Orr has found the city's finances in worse shape than expected, with long-term debt at $15 billion, $2 billion worse than figures disclosed before he took the job.
The city has set aside far ...
"I do think we're going to see more whistle blowers. I certainly know my committee has been contacted," Representative Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said in an interview on "Fox News Sunday".
Last week, Republican charges that White House covered up ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Higher-level Internal Revenue Service officials took part in discussions as far back as August 2011 about targeting by lower-level tax agents of "Tea Party" and other conservative groups, according to documents reviewed by Reuters on Monday.
The documents show the ...
KANSAS CITY, Kansas (Reuters) - A body believed to be that of an 18-month-old girl killed in a quadruple homicide in eastern Kansas has been recovered, authorities said on Sunday.
A deputy in Osage County, Kansas, found the body on Saturday, said Sheriff Jeff Richards of neighboring Franklin ...
COLUMBUS, Indiana (Reuters) - An Indiana man returning to a home he shared with his mother discovered two people dead in his living room and called police, who found two other bodies in the house including the man's mother, officials said on Sunday.
All four were apparently shot to death, and the ...
SEATTLE (Reuters) - The Seattle police department, under court-sanctioned scrutiny over the use of excessive force, is set to equip at least a dozen officers with a wearable camera for a year-long trial, a senior police official said.
The plan to equip rank-and-file officers with mobile ...
(Reuters) - Conservationists are criticizing a plan by wildlife managers in Montana that would nearly double the number of wolves a person is allowed to kill each year, lengthen the hunting season and sanction shooting of wolves near baited traps.
The proposal by the Montana Fish, Wildlife and ...
Calaveras County Sheriff Gary Kuntz told reporters the boy was taken into custody on a charge of homicide.
He was arrested in Valley Springs, the community where Leila Fowler was slain on April 27, when the children were home alone, Kuntz said.
NEWTOWN, Connecticut (Reuters) - The day after a task force unanimously recommended razing and rebuilding Sandy Hook Elementary School, residents expressed relief tinged with sadness on Saturday in the small New England town that became a focal point of the national debate on gun control.
No one ...
CLEVELAND (Reuters) - The mother of Gina DeJesus is celebrating the "best Mother's Day" ever on Sunday after her daughter was freed with three other captives last week from a long imprisonment in a Cleveland home.
DeJesus, 23, Amanda Berry, 27, and Berry's 6-year-old daughter were ...
BOSTON (Reuters) - Local officials in Virginia should have been told before the body of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev was interred there, said the funeral director who handled his remains.
Worcester, Massachusetts, funeral home owner Peter Stefan also said Boston city officials ...
DALLAS (Reuters) - A paramedic accused of possessing pipe bomb components will plead not guilty to that charge and denies any involvement in causing the deadly explosion at a Texas fertilizer plant that he was among the first to respond to, his lawyer said on Saturday.
Bryce Reed, 31, appeared in ...
Milwaukee (Reuters) - The murder case prosecutors hope to bring against accused Cleveland abductor Ariel Castro, who police say induced several miscarriages by beating and starving one young woman, will be complicated by a lack of physical evidence and medical records, legal experts say.
The case ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Stacey Kalivas should be celebrating her graduation from college later this week. Instead, the 22 year-old is getting ready to move back home with broken dreams and in debt.
Kalivas is a member of the class of 2013, the fifth successive wave of students to enter into a ...
"The transformer problem was quickly resolved. Electricity and personnel access to the West Wing has returned to normal. The First Family was unaffected," the White House official said in an emailed statement.
Firefighters responded and staff were evacuated briefly, the Secret Service ...
(Reuters) - The mother of Ariel Castro's children repeatedly went to authorities with accusations he was beating, abusing and threatening her. But her complaints never reached the point where Castro was imprisoned or triggered additional police investigations.
The late Grimilda Figueroa's ...
GAINESVILLE, Florida (Reuters) - After a two-year battle with cancer, Joseph Fitzgerald was determined to leave his final resting place to Mother Nature.
On a quiet February day in rural Florida, Fitzgerald's body was carried through the Prairie Creek Conservation Cemetery on a bamboo stretcher ...
"Mel's represented the people of North Carolina in Congress for 20 years, and in that time, he helped lead efforts to put in place rules of the road that protect consumers from dishonest mortgage lenders and give responsible Americans the chance to own their own home," Obama said in his ...
The 21 students, four adult passengers and the driver were all taken to hospitals in nearby Paducah, Kentucky, but all the injuries were classified as non-life-threatening, according to a statement from Trooper Richie Wright.
The accident occurred shortly before 5 p.m. local time on U.S. Route 60 ...
NEWARK, New Jersey (Reuters) - Three children trapped all weekend in a New Jersey bedroom with a gunmen and the dead body of their mother were freed early Sunday when police burst through the door and stopped the gunman with a single shot, authorities said.
The suspect died of his wound shortly ...
Under the panel's recommendation, the school, which has remained closed since the December 14 shooting rampage in Newtown, would be demolished and reconstructed at an estimated cost of $56 million over the next 17 to 21 months.
(Reporting by Richard Weizel; Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by ...
OLYMPIA, Washington (Reuters) - City bus drivers in Seattle are under orders to handle small amounts of marijuana left behind by passengers as normal lost-and-found items that can be recovered by their rightful owners, now that pot is legal under state law, a transit official said on ...
(Reuters) - Hundreds of fast-food employees in Detroit walked off the job on Friday, temporarily shuttering a handful of outlets as part of a growing U.S. worker movement that is demanding higher wages for flipping burgers and operating fryers.
The protests in the Motor City - which is struggling ...
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A man arrested on suspicion of growing pot at the home where he lived was a "person of interest" in the brutal fatal mauling of a Southern California woman by a pack of pit bulls, police said on Friday.
Alex Jackson, 29, was arrested after authorities found what ...
New investigations, indictments and convictions all rose between 5 percent and 12 percent in fiscal 2012 compared to fiscal 2011, the IRS said.
The increases came despite a decline in the number of special agents and professional staff assigned to the criminal investigations effort, according to ...
LITTLETON, New Hampshire (Reuters) - A 45-year-old Greek citizen who fled the United States more than two decades ago, the day before he was convicted of murdering his 2-year-old stepson, has been retried in his home country and sentenced to 18 years in a Greek jail, U.S. law enforcement officials ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The amount of climate-warming carbon dioxide in the atmosphere topped 400 parts per million at a key observing station in Hawaii for the first time since measurement began in 1958, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said on Friday.
To many scientists, ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Postal Service lost $1.9 billion in its second quarter, as the agency cut employees' work hours but struggled with an ongoing drop in mail volumes, the cash-strapped agency announced on Friday.
The loss for the quarter ended March 31 was an improvement from the $3.2 ...
(Reuters) - Hundreds of fast-food employees in Detroit walked off the job on Friday, temporarily shuttering a handful of outlets as part of a growing U.S. worker movement that is demanding higher wages for flipping burgers and operating fryers.
The protests in the Motor City - which is struggling ...
SANTO DOMINGO (Reuters) - An alleged leader of the New York arm of a global cyber crime ring, which stole $45 million from two Middle Eastern banks, was shot dead during an attempted robbery in the Dominican Republic last month, Dominican police said on Friday.
Alberto Lajud-Pena, 23, was killed ...
HAVANA (Reuters) - A Cuban agent who served 13 years behind bars in the United States for his role in an espionage ring showed off a certificate renouncing his U.S. citizenship on Friday and said he was now just a "Cuban patriot."
For Rene Gonzalez, who was born in Chicago but grew up in ...
ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - A former roommate who insisted he tried to protect a Florida college drum major from a fatal hazing ritual in 2011 accepted a plea deal on Friday to avoid facing worse charges at a trial that had been set for next week.
Rikki Wills, 24, who saw drum major Robert ...
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A day after a Southern California woman was fatally mauled by a pack of pit bulls, police were trying to determine on Friday whether any of the eight dogs they seized from a nearby home were involved in the attack, law enforcement officials said.
Homicide detectives serving ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama launched a campaign to promote his signature 2010 healthcare overhaul on Friday in the face of harsh criticism from congressional Republicans who say the program will raise costs and hurt hiring.
"If you're one of the tens of millions who don't ...
NEWTOWN, Connecticut (Reuters) - A special task force of elected town officials on Friday recommended tearing down Connecticut's Sandy Hook Elementary School, where 20 children and six adults were shot to death in December, and rebuilding it on the site of the massacre.
Under the panel's ...
RICHMOND, Virginia (Reuters) - Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev has been buried in a Muslim cemetery in Virginia, after authorities spent a week searching for a final resting place for the ethnic Chechen's remains.
The body of Tsarnaev, who was killed in an April 19 shootout with ...
DPS Director Steven McCraw directed the Texas Rangers to join McLennan County Sheriff Parnell McNamara in the investigation, according to a statement from DPS.
The April 17 fire and blast at West Fertilizer Co killed 14 people dead and injured about 200 others.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal judge in New York on Friday declined to temporarily halt a court order directing the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to make emergency contraception available over the counter to girls of all ages.
However, U.S. District Judge Edward Korman in Brooklyn said he ...
JIM THORPE, Pennsylvania (Reuters) - The small Pennsylvania hamlet named for early 20th century sports hero Jim Thorpe has decided to appeal a recent federal court ruling that could clear the way for the athlete's remains to be moved from his resting place in the town to tribal Indian lands in ...
QUANTICO, Virginia (Reuters) - There has never been a shooting at a Defense Department school and the Marines are doing their best to ensure one never takes place.
Bombs, blood, dozens of gunshots, billowing smoke, screaming teenagers, bodies sprawled on the gym floor - all of it fake - were part ...
Mexico's attorney general's office said a murder investigation was under way. Shabazz, 29, died early on Thursday morning after he was taken to a hospital with a range of injuries.
The ambulance picked up Shabazz in Mexico City's run-down Plaza Garibaldi, home to Mariachi bands, strip clubs and ...
Attorney General Mike DeWine said in a statement that "forensic scientists worked throughout the night to confirm that Castro is the father of the six-year-old girl born in captivity to one of the kidnapping victims."
He added that the tests also found Castro's DNA did not match any ...
DALLAS (Reuters) - U.S. prosecutors charged a paramedic, one of the first to respond to a deadly explosion last month in the Texas town of West, with unlawful possession of pipe bomb components, but authorities said no evidence linked the charge to the fertilizer plant disaster.
Bryce Reed, 31, ...
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A Philadelphia jury ended a ninth day of deliberations on Friday without reaching a verdict in the murder trial of a doctor accused of killing babies and a patient during late-term abortions at a clinic that served low-income women.
Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 72, who ran the ...
(Reuters) - The Wall Street law firm hired to probe how Rutgers University handled the scandal surrounding former head basketball coach Mike Rice has resigned.
Cahill Gordon & Reindel, hired last month to conduct an independent review of how university officials responded to allegations that ...
The spire makes the building the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, 47 feet taller than Chicago's Willis Tower, though it is substantially shorter than towers in the Middle East and Asia.
"I am very happy, but also sad, because why did we have to rebuild this tower? It's a proud day ...
(Reuters) - A federal jury in Texas convicted the brother of two alleged leaders of Mexico's Los Zetas drug cartel of setting up a racehorse enterprise to launder millions of dollars in illicit profits, authorities said on Thursday.
The jury found Jose Trevino Morales, 46, guilty of one count of ...
VISTA, California (Reuters) - Heavy metal singer Tim Lambesis, the frontman for Christian rock band As I Lay Dying, pleaded not guilty on Thursday to a charge of soliciting the murder of his estranged wife.
North San Diego County Superior Court Judge Martin Staven set bail for Lambesis at $3 ...
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A manhunt was under way in Northern California for a father suspected of shooting his wife and two young children to death at their farmhouse, authorities said on Thursday.
Sean Franklin Miller is suspected of shooting his 34-year-old wife Sandy, and daughters Shelby, 8, ...
QUANTICO, Virginia (Reuters) - There has never been a shooting at a U.S. Defense Department school and the U.S. Marines are doing their best to ensure one never takes place.
Bombs, blood, dozens of gunshots, billowing smoke, screaming teenagers, bodies sprawled on the gym floor - all of it fake - ...
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A 63-year-old woman was fatally mauled by a pack of pit bulls while walking near her home in Southern California on Thursday and authorities were still searching for the dogs as darkness fell, law enforcement officials said.
A driver called police Thursday morning to report ...
TACOMA, Washington (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier who killed five fellow servicemen in a shooting spree at a combat stress center in Iraq acted with the tactical precision of a trained soldier as he moved through the clinic, an Army crime scene expert testified on Thursday.
U.S. Army Sergeant John ...
FORT HOOD, Texas (Reuters) - A military judge on Thursday again denied a request from accused Fort Hood gunman Army Major Nidal Hasan to remove the death penalty as a punishment option in his forthcoming court-martial on charges of killing 13 people in a 2009 shooting rampage.
At a pre-trial ...
(Reuters) - The Wall Street law firm hired to probe how Rutgers University handled the scandal surrounding former head basketball coach Mike Rice has resigned.
Cahill Gordon & Reindel, hired last month to conduct an independent review of how university officials responded to allegations that ...
(Reuters) - Kentucky Democratic Governor Steve Beshear said on Thursday he will expand Medicaid coverage under President Barack Obama's healthcare reform law, a move that will cut the state's uninsured population almost in half.
The expansion will extend coverage to adults earning up to 133 ...
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (Reuters) - Alabama's Jefferson County expects to file a plan by late June to exit its landmark $4.2 billion municipal bankruptcy, a lawyer for the county said on Thursday.
The 18-month-old case is a testing ground for how bondholders fare when a local government debtor becomes ...
ARLINGTON, Virginia (Reuters) - Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Krusinski, accused of sexual battery in a case that has acutely embarrassed the military, stood silently in civilian court on Thursday as his attorney argued unsuccessfully for a later trial date.
Krusinski, 41, was chief of the ...
The woman was attacked at about 9:30 a.m. in the community of Littlerock, about 65 miles east of Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care and Control spokeswoman Evelina Villa said.
Villa said the department was working with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department to find the ...
TACOMA, Washington (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier who pleaded guilty to killing five fellow servicemen in a shooting spree at a combat stress center in Iraq acted with the tactical precision of a trained soldier as he moved through the clinic, an Army crime scene expert testified on Thursday.
U.S. ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Lawmakers are preparing for a second run at writing the new U.S. farm law that ended in a stalemate in 2012, and the biggest obstacle is not likely to be soil conservation or crop subsidies, but the billions spent mostly in cities and towns.
Analysts say food stamps for the ...
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - British yacht-racing champion and two-time Olympic medalist Andrew "Bart" Simpson was killed on Thursday when his vessel capsized in San Francisco Bay during training for the America's Cup, his team said.
Simpson, 36, who won a gold medal at the 2008 Summer ...
KANSAS CITY, Kansas (Reuters) - Police arrested an ex-convict suspected in the murder of three adults and possibly a toddler girl who is missing and presumed dead in rural Kansas, they said on Thursday.
Kyle Flack, 27, is being held at Franklin County Jail in Kansas in the killings of Kaylie ...
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (Reuters) - Alabama's Jefferson County expects to file a plan by late June to exit its landmark $4.2 billion municipal bankruptcy, a lawyer for the county said on Thursday.
The 18-month-old case is a testing ground for how bondholders fare when a local government debtor becomes ...
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A Philadelphia jury ended its eighth day of deliberations on Thursday without a verdict in the murder trial of a doctor accused of killing babies and a patient during late-term abortions at a clinic that served low-income women.
Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 72, who ran the ...
A CBS affiliate in San Francisco reported that one member of the boat's crew was killed when the catamaran overturned, but coast guard officials could not immediately be reached to confirm that.
(Reporting by Ronnie Cohen; Writing by Cynthia Johnston; Editing by Dan Whitcomb)
(Reuters) - The University of Montana has agreed to reform how it responds to rape accusations following a year-long investigation by two U.S. government agencies into complaints such cases were mishandled, federal authorities and the school said on Thursday.
The U.S. departments of justice and ...
SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - Several hundred people have been evacuated from a section of Lubbock, Texas, after a leaking tank released a chemical that could turn into highly corrosive hydrochloric acid, the city's Fire Department said on Thursday.
No injuries were reported after emergency officials ...
The 40-16 vote in the Democrat-controlled chamber sends the measure to the House, which last week passed a more comprehensive pension fix pushed by Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan.
It was unclear which plan would prevail or whether some combination of both might pass before the spring ...
ST. PAUL, Minnesota (Reuters) - Minnesota's House of Representatives approved a bill on Thursday to legalize same-sex marriage, a step toward making Minnesota the 12th U.S. state to do so and the third this month after Delaware and Rhode Island.
Representatives in the Democratic-led state House ...
PHOENIX (Reuters) - The death penalty phase in the trial of Jodi Arias, the California woman convicted of first-degree murder in the brutal slaying of an ex-boyfriend, has been postponed until May 15, court officials said on Thursday.
An Arizona jury on Wednesday found Arias guilty of murdering ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Top White House officials and lawmakers met on Thursday to discuss how to toughen up laws to prevent and punish sexual assault in the military, and provide better support for victims of the crimes.
A bipartisan group of nine senators and seven representatives talked about ...
The 40-16 vote in the Democrat-controlled chamber sends the measure to the House, which last week passed a more comprehensive pension fix pushed by Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan.
(Reporting By Joanne von Alroth, additional reporting by Karen Pierog in Chicago; Editing by Greg McCune)
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (Reuters) - Alabama's Jefferson County expects to file a plan by late June to exit its landmark $4.2 billion municipal bankruptcy, a lawyer for the county said on Thursday.
The 18-month-old case is a testing ground for how bondholders fare when a local government debtor becomes ...
Prosecutors in New York said the man, Ahmed Abassi, had met in New York with Chiheb Esseghaier, another Tunisian, who is one of two men being held by Canadian authorities in connection with the alleged train plot.
The prosecutors said Abassi was responsible for radicalizing Esseghaier, and that he ...
"The body showed significant trauma consistent with some kind of shark," said San Diego Lifeguard Lieutenant John Everhart. "The Medical Examiner's initial findings are that it was a post-mortem attack."
The surfer, whose name was not immediately released, had been reported ...
SEATTLE (Reuters) - The website for the Washington State court system has been hacked and up to 160,000 Social Security numbers and a million driver's license numbers may have been accessed, officials said on Thursday.
The disclosure, which follows a number of major hacking incidents in recent ...
TUCSON, Arizona (Reuters) - The trial of former Arizona congressman Richard Renzi, who faces public corruption charges stemming from his involvement in a land swap deal, began in federal court in Tucson on Tuesday.
Renzi, a Republican who represented Arizona's 1st Congressional District for three ...
(Reuters) - The University of Montana has agreed to reform how the school responds to rape accusations after a U.S. probe into complaints that such allegations were not appropriately handled, the U.S. departments of justice and education agencies said on Thursday.
The U.S. government investigated ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The political goal is the same as it was in the mid-1980s: grassroots support for an overhaul of the U.S. tax code. But lawmakers' approach this time is thoroughly modern.
The chairmen of Congress's tax-writing committees on Thursday launched a website they hope will boost ...
WINSTON-SALEM, North Carolina (Reuters) - Three U.S. Marine Corps officers have been relieved of command after an explosion during a training exercise at a Nevada munitions depot in March killed seven fellow Marines, a military spokesman said on Thursday.
The officers will be reassigned to new ...
BOSTON (Reuters) - The body of suspected Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev has been entombed and is no longer in the city of Worcester, Massachusetts, where it had been held at a funeral home, the Worcester Police Department said on Thursday.
The police did not disclose where the body had ...
The case is seen as a testing ground for how bondholders fare when a local issuer becomes insolvent under excessive financial pressure. Jefferson County appears likely to become the first big U.S. local government to impose losses on bondholders since 1930s.
"We are looking at a largely ...
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - German prosecutors said on Friday they had arrested two Dutch citizens suspected of taking part in a $45 million global cyber heist unveiled the previous day by U.S. authorities.
A 35-year-old man and a 56-year-old woman were caught on February 19 withdrawing 170,000 euros ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House has invited about a dozen lawmakers to a meeting on Thursday to discuss how to combat the sharp increase in sexual assaults in the military, a White House official said.
Earlier this week, the Pentagon released its 2012 annual report on sexual assault in the ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Major public events in the United States like the Boston Marathon need tighter security but officials must avoid moving toward a "police state," Boston's police commissioner said on Thursday at a congressional hearing into last month's bombing.
Commissioner Edward ...
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A Philadelphia jury started its eighth day of deliberations on Thursday in the murder trial of a doctor accused of killing babies and a patient during late-term abortions at a clinic that served low-income women.
Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 72, who ran the now-closed Women's ...
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - The parents of Shane Todd, an American engineer found dead in Singapore last year, intend to prove at a coroner's inquiry that he was murdered over a project they say involved the illegal transfer of sensitive technology to China.
But Rick and Mary Todd told Reuters they ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - For Niagara Falls, a city in New York staring at the prospect of insolvency in the face of a weak local economy and soaring employee costs, diverting money earmarked for pensions to cover short-term spending needs seemed like the only option.
"We don't like doing it, so ...
PHOENIX (Reuters) - Jodi Arias, convicted of first-degree murder, will face an Arizona jury on Thursday tasked with determining if she deserves the death penalty for the brutal slaying of an ex-boyfriend in a sensational case that attracted national media attention.
Arias was found guilty on ...
MINNEAPOLIS (Reuters) - The Democratic-led state Legislature in Minnesota is expected to begin a final push on Thursday toward making it the 12th U.S. state to extend marriage rights to same-sex couples and the third this month after Delaware and Rhode Island.
Leaders in Minnesota's state House of ...
AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - President Barack Obama pledged on a trip to Texas on Thursday to take steps to accelerate economic growth, turning his attention to job creation after concentrating on gun-control legislation and immigration reform in recent months.
Obama was kicking off events he has ...
SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - Accused Fort Hood gunman Army Major Nidal Hasan is expected to ask a court on Thursday to remove the death penalty as a punishment option in his forthcoming court-martial on charges of killing 13 people in a 2009 shooting rampage.
At a pre-trial hearing, judge Colonel Tara ...
DENVER (Reuters) - The Colorado legislature passed and sent to the governor on Wednesday a bill to establish what would be the first tax ever collected on commercial sales of marijuana purchased for recreational use in the United States.
The measure, which would impose a 15 percent excise tax plus ...
Foreclosure activity - which includes default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions - was seen on 144,790 properties last month, down 5 percent from March, and down 23 percent from a year earlier. It was the lowest level since February 2007.
The housing market has been a bright spot ...
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Charles Ramsey, the Cleveland dishwasher who became an overnight sensation for his street-wise poise under the media spotlight after helping save three women from an alleged decade-long kidnapping ordeal, has won a shout-out from McDonald's and legions of fans on social ...
SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - The former child actor who was the voice of Charlie Brown in the 1960s "Peanuts" animated television specials was sentenced to a year in jail on Wednesday and immediately ordered to a residential drug treatment center by a California judge who told him: "Don't ...
OAKLAND, California (Reuters) - The police chief of violence-plagued Oakland, whose force is working to implement reforms agreed upon in a civil rights settlement, said in a surprise move on Wednesday that he was taking a medical leave and planned to retire.
Howard Jordan, 47, made the ...
(Reuters) - An oil field worker was killed and two others injured in a fire near a production well in Utah owned by the Newfield Exploration Company, a company official said Wednesday.
The fire broke out in equipment near the well in Utah's Uintah County at 8:30 p.m. local time on Tuesday while ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A former New York state senator from Queens secretly recorded seven lawmakers as part of a political corruption probe, according to a court document unsealed Wednesday.
Shirley Huntley, 74, a Democrat who pleaded guilty in January to embezzling $87,700 from a nonprofit ...
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Barge shipping returned to normal this week on most of the Illinois River after spring floods, but lock repairs will halt navigation on a northern stretch for at least a week beginning on Friday, the Army Corps of Engineers and Coast Guard said.
Marseilles Lock and Dam near ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A former U.S. diplomat in Libya gave a dramatic account on Wednesday of the attack on the mission in Benghazi that killed the U.S. ambassador, and told lawmakers that more could have been done to stop the assault by suspected Islamist militants.
Gregory Hicks, the second in ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Air Force officer charged in a sex assault case this week had served in Iraq and Afghanistan, received five non-combat medals and passed a review of his military records before he was selected to head a sexual assault prevention and response branch.
A records review is ...
The mint has been allocating sales of its more popular American Eagle silver bullion coins to its authorized dealers since late January following a brief suspension.
The surge in demand following gold's plunge to two-year lows and a selloff in silver in mid-April have forced the U.S. Mint, one of ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Foreign workers could gain visas for year-round work in U.S. meat processing plants under a proposal by the meat industry and the meatpackers union for immigration reform designed to create a steady supply of workers for slaughterhouses.
The proposal, expected to be part of ...
(Reuters) - A 17-year-old soccer player accused of punching a referee in the head during a match in Utah was charged with homicide on Wednesday over the assault that ultimately killed referee Ricardo Portillo, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said in a statement they were charging the boy with ...
PHOENIX (Reuters) - An Arizona jury found Jodi Arias guilty on Wednesday of first-degree murder in the death of her ex-boyfriend in a trial that captured national attention for months with graphic sexual evidence and tales of a tumultuous relationship.
Arias, who could face the death penalty, has ...
DENVER (Reuters) - The Colorado legislature passed and sent to the governor on Wednesday a bill to establish what would be the first tax ever collected on commercial sales of marijuana purchased for recreational use in the United States.
The measure, which would impose a 15 percent excise tax plus ...
INDIANAPOLIS (Reuters) - The daughter of Ariel Castro, the chief suspect in the Cleveland abduction of three women freed on Monday, is serving time in an Indiana prison for attempted murder after she slashed her baby's throat four times with a knife, court documents show.
Emily Castro, 25, was ...
CLEVELAND (Reuters) - In hindsight, there were signs of a darker side to Ariel Castro, the Cleveland man suspected of abducting three girls and holding them captive for around a decade.
Divorced years ago and never seen in the company of women, Castro suddenly started showing up in the largely ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The case of a U.S. Air Force official who headed a sexual-assault prevention unit and was arrested for allegedly groping a woman will be handled in civilian court despite the military's request for jurisdiction, a prosecutor said on Tuesday.
Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey ...
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A Philadelphia jury ended its seventh day of deliberations on Wednesday without a verdict in the murder trial of a doctor accused of killing babies and a patient during late-term abortions at a clinic that served low-income women.
Dr Kermit Gosnell, 72, who ran the ...
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The western Los Angeles County branch of the Boy Scouts of America has become the latest chapter to break with the national organization over its proposed lifting of a ban against gay scouts while continuing to exclude homosexual adults as troop leaders.
The council, which ...
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - San Francisco city leaders, after losing a key round in court against the cell phone industry, have agreed to revoke an ordinance that would have been the first in the United States to require retailers to warn consumers about potentially dangerous radiation levels.
In a ...
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - The parents of Shane Todd, an American engineer found dead in Singapore last year, intend to prove at a coroner's inquiry that he was murdered over a project they say involved the illegal transfer of sensitive technology to China.
But Rick and Mary Todd told Reuters they ...
CLEVELAND (Reuters) - Michelle Knight, freed earlier this week as the longest-held of four captives in a dungeon-like Cleveland house, was discharged from the hospital on Friday and went into seclusion.
Two other women held with Knight - Amanda Berry, 27, and Gina DeJesus, 23, along with a ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The spring auctions got off to a strong start on Tuesday with Sotheby's solid sale of Impressionist and modern art which took in $230 million, led by a $42 million Cezanne still life and a $26 million Modigliani portrait.
A year after Sotheby's set the world auction record for ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Anti-tax advocates on Wednesday applauded an effort by Senator Rand Paul to roll back important sections of a U.S. law designed to fight tax evasion by Americans with assets stored overseas.
In a move tax experts said would effectively gut the Foreign Account Tax Compliance ...
DENVER (Reuters) - Lawmakers took a key step toward implementing Colorado's recreational marijuana law on Tuesday when they set blood-level limits for driving, but a measure to tax retail pot was in limbo a day before the legislative session was set to end.
Along with Washington state, Colorado ...
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Three people who helped authorities find a fugitive former Los Angeles police officer after he eluded them following a grudge-driven killing spree should split a $1 million reward in the case, a panel of retired judges ruled on Tuesday.
The three-judge panel found that a ...
RIVERSIDE CA (Reuters) - California's public pension fund said on Tuesday that the bankrupt city of San Bernardino has a lot more cash than it had previously disclosed and more than enough money to pay off its debts to the retirement system.
Crisis-hit San Bernardino, a city of 210,000 located 65 ...
(Reuters) - New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's choice of gastric banding has prompted questions about why he opted for a weight-loss procedure less favored by bariatric surgeons and patients.
Lap-Band stirred excitement a decade ago when the anti-obesity device was introduced in the United ...
TACOMA, Washington (Reuters) - A survivor of a shooting spree that killed five U.S. servicemen at a combat stress clinic in Iraq testified on Tuesday that he remembered the gunman, a fellow soldier, chuckling after he shot an unarmed man who had been trying to hide.
U.S. Army Sergeant John Russell ...
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A bride and four friends who died over the weekend trapped inside a burning limousine on a bridge over San Francisco Bay were formally identified by a coroner on Tuesday, but the cause of their death and of the fire are still under investigation.
New bride Neriza Fojas, ...
TUCSON, Arizona (Reuters) - The trial of former Arizona congressman Richard Renzi, who faces public corruption charges stemming from his involvement in a land swap deal, began in federal court in Tucson on Tuesday.
Renzi, a Republican who represented Arizona's 1st Congressional District for three ...
A contractor was fatally injured on Monday while working at a site in Karnes County, the company said. Karnes County is about 200 miles west of Houston.
"Operations at the site were immediately stopped and a full investigation is under way," BHP said, without providing further details.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy on Tuesday introduced a gay rights amendment to the Senate's immigration bill, prompting one of the measure's Republican sponsors to repeat his prediction that it would sink the legislation.
"It'll kill the bill" if ...
DENVER (Reuters) - Accused Colorado theater gunman James Holmes, who could face the death penalty if convicted of murdering 12 moviegoers in a rampage last year, intends to plead not guilty by reason of insanity, according to court records released on Tuesday.
Holmes, 25, is charged with multiple ...
BOSTON (Reuters) - Kenneth Feinberg, America's Solomon of catastrophe compensation, spoke in Boston on Tuesday on how the city can navigate what he called the biblical choices in getting money to victims of the April 15 bombings.
He also tamped down hopes of big payouts.
Some 11,101 gun-related homicides were reported in the United States in 2011, a figure that is down 39 percent from the 1993 peak, the Justice Department reported. Nonfatal firearm crimes declined by 69 percent to 467,300 in the same period.
Amid an intense national debate about gun control - ...
(Reuters) - New York's main banking regulator has opened a probe into pension advance companies that persuade retirees and military veterans to sign over pension checks in return for cash payments.
The Department of Financial Services, at the direction of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, has ...
The horses were on their way to a rendering plant in Quebec on Monday evening when the incident occurred on Interstate 81 near the town of Lisle, about 55 miles south of Syracuse, police said.
Driver Clarence Phelps, 56, told police he noticed flames coming from the passenger side of the vehicle. ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal judge criticized the Food and Drug Administration over its refusal to make emergency contraception available to girls of all ages without a prescription, saying the agency's move to restrict distribution to consumers aged 15 and older was not realistic.
District ...
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A Philadelphia jury ended its sixth day of deliberations on Tuesday without a verdict in the murder trial of a doctor accused of killing babies and a patient during late-term abortions at a clinic serving low-income women.
Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 72, who ran the now-closed ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers voiced outrage on Tuesday that the officer in charge of the Air Force anti-sexual assault office was himself arrested on sexual battery charges and sharply questioned Air Force leaders about whether the military should keep jurisdiction over sex crimes.
Air ...
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A county coroner formally identified a bride and four friends on Tuesday who died over the weekend trapped inside a burning limousine on a bridge over San Francisco Bay, but said the cause and manner of their death was still under investigation.
New bride Neriza Fojas, ...
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - In the midst of the bitter national debate on gun violence, gun manufacturers and videogame makers are delicately navigating one of the more peculiar relationships in American business.
Violent "first-person shooter" games such as "Call of Duty" are ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - CIA Director John Brennan has chosen a 30-year veteran of the spy agency to head the clandestine service, which conducts covert operations and recruits agents overseas.
CIA spokesman Todd Ebitz on Tuesday described the new head of the National Clandestine Service as a ...
JACKSON, Mississippi (Reuters) - A Mississippi inmate due to be executed on Tuesday was granted a last-minute reprieve because of overstated evidence, while Texas executed a man convicted of killing another person during a robbery in 2003, authorities said.
The Mississippi state Supreme Court ...
A unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit struck down the rule, finding that federal law prohibits the labor board from punishing a business for speech, or lack of it, as long as the business does not issue threats.
Freedom of speech ...
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A Philadelphia jury began its sixth day of deliberations on Tuesday in the murder trial of a doctor accused of killing babies and a patient during late-term abortions at a clinic serving low-income women.
Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 72, who ran the now-shuttered Women's Medical ...
NEW YORK/NEWARK (Reuters) - New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who has struggled with obesity for much of his adult life, said on Tuesday he underwent lap band surgery in February to lose weight, a move he said had nothing to do with a possible run for the White House in 2016.
The blunt-spoken, ...
The actual cause of the fire and subsequent blast at the West Fertilizer Co facility is still being determined, investigators said.
The fire marshal's office has been leading the investigation of the April 17 blast, along with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
CHARLESTON, South Carolina (Reuters) - Former Republican Governor Mark Sanford made a stunning political comeback on Tuesday, rebounding from a sex scandal to beat Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch in a personality-driven election for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives that put a national ...
DOVER, Delaware (Reuters) - Delaware legalized gay marriage on Tuesday, making it the 11th U.S. state to extend marriage rights to same-sex couples.
The state Senate approved the bill by a vote of 12-9 on Tuesday and Governor Jack Markell signed it into law half an hour later.
The suspects, ages 50, 52 and 54, were arrested based on information given to investigators by the three women after their rescue, according to Deputy Cleveland Police Chief Ed Tomba, who said the women had probably been held in that house since they vanished.
(Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The officer in charge of a program to curb sexual assault in the U.S. Air Force was arrested over the weekend for allegedly grabbing a woman by the breasts and buttocks in a parking lot not far from the Pentagon, officials said on Monday.
Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey ...
TACOMA, Washington (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier who pleaded guilty to shooting dead five fellow servicemen at a military counseling center in Iraq sought help from healthcare workers in securing an early exit from the Army but was rebuffed before the killings, a military prosecutor said on ...
KNOXVILLE, Tennessee (Reuters) - An elderly nun and two other peace activists will be sentenced in September on their convictions for damaging a Tennessee defense facility where enriched uranium for nuclear bombs is stored, a federal judge said on Thursday.
U.S. District Court Judge Amul Thapar ...
ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - A lawyer for a Florida man charged in the shooting death of unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin is asking a judge to bar voice-recognition experts from testifying at his murder trial on grounds their techniques are not scientifically valid.
Prosecutors are expected ...
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The bodies of a new bride and four friends who died trapped inside a burning limousine on a bridge over San Francisco Bay were found pressed against an opening between the passenger compartment and driver's seat, a county coroner said on Monday.
Four other women managed ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - With the blast of an airhorn, ironworkers on Monday began bolting into place the first of 610 steel pieces of the soaring wing-like arches of the World Trade Center's new transportation hub.
Not due to open until 2015, the 800,000-square-foot (74,322-square-meter) transit hub ...
TACOMA, Washington (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier who pleaded guilty in the shooting deaths of five fellow servicemen at a military counseling center in Iraq faced a court-martial on Monday in which a judge's sentence will hinge greatly upon whether he finds premeditation.
Army Sergeant John Russell ...
JACKSON, Mississippi (Reuters) - A Mississippi inmate is facing execution on Tuesday despite an admission last week by federal authorities that statements made during his 1994 murder trial about a hair sample pushed the limits of science and were 'invalid'.
Willie Jerome Manning, 44, was convicted ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The officer in charge of the Air Force effort to curb sexual assault in the military was arrested over the weekend for allegedly grabbing a woman by the breasts and buttocks in a parking lot not far from the Pentagon, officials said on Monday.
Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey ...
KNOXVILLE, Tennessee (Reuters) - Jury selection began on Monday in the trial of an elderly nun and two other environmental activists who broke into a supposedly secure facility that stores enriched uranium for nuclear bombs, embarrassing the U.S. government.
The three activists are charged with ...
The Forest Service has awarded five companies contracts to supply the planes, which dump fire-retardant chemicals on blazes, the agency said on Monday. Financial terms were not released.
"It is critical that we complete the next generation air tanker contracting effort as quickly as possible ...
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Investigators sought to determine on Monday what caused a stretch limousine to erupt into flames as it crossed a bridge over the San Francisco Bay, killing a new bride and four of her friends, law enforcement officials said.
Four other women suffered burns or smoke ...
AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - The Texas House of Representatives on Monday gave final approval to a proposal to allow concealed handgun license holders to carry guns into buildings on college campuses.
The proposal, which was approved on a vote of 102-41, would allow public colleges and universities ...
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The California Supreme Court dealt a blow to the state's faltering medical-marijuana industry on Monday by ruling that local governments may outlaw dispensaries that sell the federally banned drug.
The unanimous opinion, which comes as elected officials across the nation ...
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A Philadelphia jury ended its fifth day of deliberations on Monday without reaching verdicts in the murder trial of a doctor accused of killing babies and a patient during late-term abortions at a clinic serving low-income women.
Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 72, who ran the ...
JIM THORPE, Pennsylvania (Reuters) - The tiny hamlet of Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, could lose its namesake, an American sports hero whose interment put the town on the map.
A family squabble has turned into a federal court battle over the remains of the legendary Native American athlete and Olympic ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A handcuffed teenage fugitive was captured by New York police on Monday six hours after he escaped custody by knocking over a detective and fleeing into the city's subway system, forcing a partial shutdown of four train lines, officials said.
What seemed to be a routine arrest ...
Arias, 32, could face the death penalty if convicted of murdering 30-year-old Travis Alexander, whose body was found in the shower of his Phoenix valley home in June 2008. He had been shot, stabbed multiple times and had his throat slashed.
She has admitted to shooting Alexander, but said it was ...
BOSTON (Reuters) - The body of suspected Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev remained in limbo on Monday as his family searched for a cemetery that would accept the remains.
Several Massachusetts cemeteries have refused to bury Tsarnaev, and protesters have staked out the Worcester funeral ...
Harrisburg, which is under state receivership after its finances became mired by a scheme to upgrade a trash incinerator, agreed to settle the charges without admitting or denying the findings, the SEC said.
The SEC said It was the first time it has charged a municipality for making misleading ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York state senator from Brooklyn was charged on Monday with stealing proceeds from sales of foreclosed properties to finance a failed run for district attorney, prosecutors said, making him the state's latest politician to face federal criminal charges.
John Sampson, 47, ...
TACOMA, Washington (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier who pleaded guilty in the shooting deaths of five fellow servicemen at a military counseling center in Iraq faced a court-martial on Monday in which a judge's sentence will hinge greatly upon whether he finds premeditation.
Army Sergeant John Russell ...
GM said it knew of two trunk fires related to the condition but added that there were no injuries or crashes as a result of the issue.
The largest U.S. automaker is recalling the Chevrolet Malibu Eco as well as the Buick LaCrosse and Regal sedans from the 2012 and 2013 model years. The 38,197 ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A leading U.S. think tank headed by former Republican Senator Jim DeMint drew fire from fellow conservatives Monday for concluding that the citizenship proposals in a sweeping immigration reform bill would cost taxpayers trillions.
The clash underscored divisions within the ...
KANSAS CITY, Kansas (Reuters) - A woman fell out of a bachelorette party bus onto a busy freeway in Kansas and died when she was struck by at least three vehicles on Saturday, the same night five women in a bridal party reportedly died in California when their limousine caught fire.
Jamie N. ...
MINNEAPOLIS (Reuters) - Authorities disrupted a terror plot and possibly saved lives when they raided a home in western Minnesota last week and recovered several guns including an assault rifle and explosive devices, the FBI said on Monday.
Federal, state and local law enforcement officers on ...
BOSTON (Reuters) - The teenager accused of lying to FBI agents in the Boston Marathon bombing case was freed on $100,000 bail on Monday pending a later trial date, and investigators said bomb fragments suggest they were less sophisticated than homemade ones used by insurgents.
While out on bail, ...
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A Philadelphia jury began its fifth day of deliberations on Monday in the murder trial of a doctor accused of killing babies and a patient during late-term abortions at a clinic serving low-income women.
Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 72, who ran the now-shuttered Women's Medical ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As Congress imposes deep spending cuts on everything from national defense to child care, shipping industry executives are urging lawmakers to spend hundreds of millions of dollars more on a river network that accounts for a declining share of the nation's domestic ...
The convention ended with a prayer breakfast and a presentation by rock musician Ted Nugent, which was closed to the media.
Speakers throughout the weekend included NRA Chief Executive Wayne LaPierre, Texas Governor Rick Perry and former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will travel on Thursday to Austin, Texas, the first stop in a new series of day trips designed to draw attention to policies and programs that help spur the economy, and build support for his economic policies, the White House said on Sunday.
In ...
COLUMBUS, Ohio (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Sunday urged college graduates to participate in politics and said that without broad public involvement special interest groups can defeat legislation supported by the majority.
Obama, who said he is "obsessed with this issue" of ...
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Investigators were trying to determine on Monday what caused a stretch limousine to burst into flames as it crossed a bridge over the San Francisco Bay, killing a new bride and four of her friends, law enforcement officials said.
Four other women suffered burns or smoke ...
The 17-year-old player struck the referee, Ricardo Portillo, in the head on April 27 after Portillo penalized the teenager during a soccer game in a Salt Lake City suburb, according to the Unified Police of Greater Salt Lake.
Portillo, 46, died late on Saturday at an area hospital, the police said ...
HAMDEN, Connecticut (Reuters) - Colossal numbers of cicadas, unhurriedly growing underground since 1996, are about to emerge along much of the U.S. East Coast to begin passionately singing and mating as their remarkable life cycle restarts.
This year heralds the springtime emergence of billions of ...
JAY, New York (Reuters) - Rebecca Hoskins poked through the debris in her flood-wrecked house: a TV here, a light fixture there. Someone had been in and taken down the curtains. She blinked back a tear. It was a crisp early spring day and her first visit in year-and-a half to what had been her ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Joseph Szczesny's modest Staten Island home was inundated when Superstorm Sandy slammed into the U.S. East Coast in October.
Now six months later, the 63-year-old bridge repairman and his fiance are all but alone in their Oakwood Beach neighborhood on the borough's flood-prone ...
The new funds would help about 1,200 health centers hire and train staff, conduct community outreach efforts and assist consumers in applying for benefits under the law, which provides coverage through subsidized insurance markets and an expansion of the Medicaid program for the poor, the U.S. ...
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - A remote but long-restless Alaska volcano rumbled to life on Saturday with three explosions and started emitting a continuous plume of ash, steam and gas in an area important to air traffic, scientists said.
The low-level explosions at Cleveland Volcano, which lies ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Immigration authorities would give preference to better-educated and trained visa-seekers who can contribute to the American economy under a less-noticed provision of the immigration bill in the Congress.
The bi-partisan bill in the Senate would rewrite the half-century-old ...
HOUSTON (Reuters) - Alabama lawyer Jim Porter, in line to become the next president of the National Rifle Association, is expected to spearhead the group's court challenges of gun-control laws enacted in several states since the Newtown, Connecticut, school shooting massacre.
Porter, 64, the son ...
HOUSTON (Reuters) - The National Rifle Association is showcasing women members and emphasizing that increasingly it's not just men who own firearms and oppose gun-control efforts.
Female membership is up, the nation's leading advocate for gun ownership says, and its revamped website features ...
PORTLAND, Oregon (Reuters) - Grain shipper Columbia Grain on Saturday locked out longshore workers in the U.S. Pacific Northwest in the latest escalation of a simmering labor dispute.
The company, owned by Japanese trader Marubeni Corp, said it took action because members of the International ...
BISHKEK (Reuters) - Remains of two bodies have been found in the wreckage of a U.S. military plane that crashed in Kyrgyzstan, and authorities are still looking for a third person who was on board, officials said.
The refueling plane exploded in mid air when its cargo of fuel ignited on its way to ...
(Reuters) - After a gut-wrenching and tearful meeting, officials expressed doubt that the Connecticut elementary school where 20 children and six adults were shot to death last December could ever be reopened.
The 28-member Sandy Hook School Building Task Force has been charged with considering ...
SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (Reuters) - President Barack Obama signaled on Friday that a proposal to add a same-sex partnership measure to an immigration overhaul should not be allowed to derail the entire legislative effort.
Obama has used the prospect of new immigration laws as a major selling point ...
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The mystery deepened on Friday over the death of an 8-year-old girl who was stabbed to death last week in her northern California home while left alone with her 12-year-old brother, as one witness recanted her story.
Leila Fowler was killed on Saturday afternoon in her ...
BOSTON (Reuters) - A Massachusetts funeral home owner said he is struggling to find a graveyard willing to accept the body of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, killed in a shootout with police four days after an attack that left three dead and 264 injured.
Peter Stefan, owner of ...
The Pentagon estimates it spends about $150 million each year to operate the prison and military court system at the U.S. Naval Base in Cuba, which was set up 11 years ago to house foreign terrorism suspects. With 166 inmates currently in custody, that amounts to an annual cost of $903,614 per ...
(Reuters) - A Utah soccer referee who suffered head injuries when he was punched in the face by a teenage player remained hospitalized in a coma on Friday, almost a week after the incident.
A 17-year-old player struck the referee, Ricardo Portillo, in the head on Saturday after Portillo penalized ...
BOSTON/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Investigators believe Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his younger brother, Dzhokhar, likely made the bombs they are suspected of setting off at last month's Boston Marathon in Tamerlan's home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, law enforcement officials said on Friday.
FBI agents have ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Department of Homeland Security, criticized for failing to check the student status of a Kazakh man charged in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing, has tightened procedures for admitting foreigners with student visas, a U.S. official said on Friday.
The ...
MIAMI (Reuters) - A Cuban spy on probation after 13 years behind bars in the United States can remain in Cuba, where he returned on a court-approved visit last month, if he renounces his U.S. citizenship, a federal judge in Miami ruled on Friday.
Rene Gonzalez, 56, one of what Cuba calls its ...
HOUSTON (Reuters) - A man who caused a panic when he fired a Glock semi-automatic pistol in the air at a busy Houston airport terminal and then killed himself, left a suicide note that spoke of "the monster within me," police said on Friday.
Houston Police Chief Charles McClelland said ...
It estimates less than 10 gallons of oil leaked from the pipeline.
Graham White, a spokesman for the company, said in an email that its Line 81, which runs from Minot, North Dakota, to Clearbrook, Minnesota, and serves producers in the Bakken oil field, is expected to reopen on Saturday after the ...
(Reuters) - The Coast Guard reopened a stretch of the Mississippi River near Hartford, Illinois early on Friday as the waterway was deemed safe for navigation following a vessel accident and oil spill near the confluence with the Missouri River.
The river had been closed from mile markers 194 to ...
(Reuters) - Months after a gunman killed 20 first graders and six adults at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, local officials in Newtown, Connecticut, will gather on Friday to discuss what to do with the vacant school building that is the site of one of the worst school shootings in U.S. ...
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - The jury in the murder trial of a Philadelphia doctor accused of killing babies and a patient during late-term abortions at a clinic serving low-income women ended its fourth day of deliberations on Friday without reaching verdicts.
Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 72, who ran the ...
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Melvyn Weiss, who dominated the field of shareholder class-actions for three decades before pleading guilty to paying plaintiffs kickbacks, has avoided a return to jail after violating the terms of his supervised release from prison.
Weiss, 77, reached a deal with federal ...
OLYMPIA, Washington (Reuters) - A school in perpetually wet Washington state is taking a novel twist on the classical snow day, welcoming in the warm air and blue skies of spring on Friday with a rare break from classes it is dubbing a "sun day."
The idea, said Bob Sampson, principal of ...
PHOENIX (Reuters) - An Arizona jury on Friday was set to begin deliberations over whether Jodi Arias committed murder in killing her ex-boyfriend in a high-profile case involving "sex, lies and dirty little secrets."
Arias, 32, could face the death penalty if convicted of murdering ...
NEWARK, New Jersey (Reuters) - Police in Newark, New Jersey, on Friday were investigating the shooting of five people, including a 10-year-old girl, at a vigil for a city resident who died in a car accident, but said they had no suspect.
A gunman shot into the crowd that had gathered on a street ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Navy posted the final rules for a long-delayed, multibillion dollar competition for a new fleet of presidential helicopters, saying it planned to award a contract about a year from now despite looming U.S. defense budget cuts.
"We're moving forward as we ...
The Liscio Report, an economic newsletter, said that the percentage of states that met their expectations for tax withholdings rate in April compared to more than 80 percent of states in March.
April is typically a key month for the taxes withheld from employees' paychecks and paid directly to the ...
(Reuters) - The Coast Guard reopened a stretch of the Mississippi River near Hartford, Illinois early on Friday as the waterway was deemed safe for navigation following a vessel accident and oil spill near the confluence with the Missouri River.
The river had been closed from mile marker 194 to ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Two crude oil storage tanks were on fire Friday at a Denbury Resources Inc facility in Denham Springs, Louisiana, after an explosion in one of the tanks on Thursday night, according to company, state and parish officials.
The fire prompted the evacuation of 30 homes in the ...
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A Philadelphia jury began a fourth day of deliberations on Friday in the murder trial of a doctor accused of killing babies and a patient during late-term abortions at a clinic serving low-income women.
Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 72, who ran the now-shuttered Women's Medical ...
Lieutenant Luke Riley of the Sterling Heights police department said the spill was contained by booms in the Red Run drain, which leads into the nearby Clinton River near Warren, about 20 miles north of Detroit
Warren Mayor James Fouts said the spill was estimated at 50 gallons of oil-based ...
BISHKEK (Reuters) - A U.S. military refueling plane on its way to Afghanistan exploded in mid air and crashed in Kyrgyzstan on Friday when its cargo of fuel ignited, the Central Asian country's Emergencies Ministry said.
The aircraft took off from the U.S. military transit center at Kyrgyzstan's ...
A solar-powered airplane that developers hope eventually to pilot around the world landed safely in Phoenix on the first leg of an attempt to fly across the United States using only the sun's energy, project organizers said.
The plane, dubbed the Solar Impulse, took 18 hours and 18 minutes to ...
A filing with the Illinois Emergency Management Agency said loose barges floating adrift in the upper Mississippi river collided with Kirby Inland Marine barges, which were docked at the Marathon Oil Dock.
Coast Guard spokesman Colin Fogarty said the incident occurred around midnight and initial ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Texas fertilizer plant that exploded two weeks ago, killing 14 people and injuring about 200, was a repeat target of theft by intruders who tampered with tanks and caused the release of toxic chemicals, police records reviewed by Reuters show.
Police responded to at least ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon on Thursday cleared BlackBerry and Samsung mobile devices for use on Defense Department networks, a step toward opening up the military to a wide variety of technology equipment makers while still ensuring communications security.
Lieutenant Colonel Damien ...
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Nevada health officials acknowledged on Thursday that a state-run hospital improperly bused 10 newly discharged psychiatric patients out of the state with deficient plans for their care, while Los Angeles launched a criminal probe into the alleged "patient ...
ANCHORAGE (Reuters) - A U.S. Army soldier was sentenced on Thursday to nearly 12 years in a military prison for shooting and killing a fellow soldier early on Christmas Day, officials said.
Army Specialist Marshall Drake, stationed at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, shoGrant Wis ...
PHOENIX (Reuters) - Arizona Governor Jan Brewer vetoed a measure on Thursday that would have made gold and silver legal tender in the state, saying the legislation could have resulted in lost tax revenue.
The Republican-controlled state legislature voted through the measure last month in a ...
KANSAS CITY, Kansas (Reuters) - A recently enacted law in Kansas intended to block enforcement of federal gun regulations is unconstitutional, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder wrote in a letter released on Thursday.
The law, which seeks to keep guns or ammunition from being subject to any federal ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - One of seven men arrested in a sting operation for allegedly selling drugs to people they believed were Taliban militants pleaded guilty on Thursday to conspiring to smuggle cocaine into the United States.
Francis Sourou Ahissou, a 48-year-old citizen of Togo in West Africa, ...
WEST, Texas (Reuters) - Two weeks after 14 people were killed when a Texas fertilizer plant exploded, investigators searching through the charred rubble said they still do not know how much fertilizer was at the plant, including potentially dangerous ammonium nitrate.
Investigators said on ...
PHOENIX (Reuters) - Prosecutors seeking to convict Jodi Arias of murdering her ex-boyfriend told an Arizona jury in closing arguments on Thursday that she meticulously planned the slaying and then lied to cover her tracks.
The 32-year-old California woman could face the death penalty if convicted ...
HOUSTON (Reuters) - Heavy-handed gun laws and a culture disapproving of gun ownership put citizens in a vulnerable position during the door-to-door search for Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev last month, NRA Chief Executive Wayne LaPierre said on Saturday.
"How many ...
CORONADO, California (Reuters) - The U.S. Navy introduced its first squadron that combines combat helicopters with unmanned aerial vehicles at an air base near San Diego on Thursday, calling the approach the future of warfare.
The squadron of about 140 sailors, called the Magicians, will work off ...
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Thursday he is comfortable with a U.S. government agency's decision to allow over-the-counter purchases of a morning-after pill for anyone 15 and older.
Some critics have complained girls that young should not be allowed to purchase the pills ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of names on a highly classified U.S. central database used to track suspected terrorists has jumped to 875,000 from 540,000 only five years ago, a U.S. official familiar with the matter said.
Among those was suspected Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, ...
TALLAHASSEE, Florida (Reuters) - The Florida Senate sent Governor Rick Scott a bill on Thursday designed to reduce the state's exposure to catastrophic financial losses from a hurricane by gradually steering homeowners away from the state-run Citizens Property Insurance Corp.
The Senate had ...
BOSTON/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The two brothers suspected of carrying out the deadly attacks on the Boston Marathon had originally planned to set off their bombs on July 4, a law enforcement official said.
The official said the suspects, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, advanced the date of their ...
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Up in arms against the leadership it blames for San Bernardino's bankruptcy, a group of business people and residents on Thursday launched a campaign to recall the California city's council, mayor and city attorney.
The group, looking for a "clean sweep" inside ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - One of seven men arrested in a sting operation for allegedly selling drugs to people they believed were Taliban militants pleaded guilty on Thursday to conspiring to smuggle cocaine into the United States.
Francis Sourou Ahissou, a 48-year-old citizen of Togo in West Africa, ...
BOSTON (Reuters) - The body of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev was claimed on behalf of his family on Thursday, an official said.
Tsarnaev's body had been kept at a Boston facility for more than a week after he was killed in a shootout with police on April 19, four days after the ...
PHOENIX (Reuters) - Prosecutors seeking to convict Jodi Arias of murder for killing her ex-boyfriend told an Arizona jury in closing arguments of an often lurid trial on Thursday that she meticulously planned the slaying and then lied to cover her tracks.
The 32-year-old California woman could ...
(Reuters) - Rhode Island lawmakers gave final approval to a bill to legalize gay marriage on Thursday, making it the 10th U.S. state to extend marriage rights to same-sex couples and the last of the six New England states to do so.
Governor Lincoln Chafee, an independent, signed the bill into law ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal jury on Thursday convicted two former fundraising associates of John Liu, a Democratic candidate for mayor of New York City, a setback in his attempt to emerge from a crowded field to succeed Michael Bloomberg as mayor later this year.
Jia Hou, the Liu campaign's ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A once prominent biotechnology investor was handed four years in prison on Thursday after pleading guilty to stock manipulation, the second time he has run afoul of U.S. securities laws.
David Blech, 57, pleaded guilty in May 2012 to securities fraud charges stemming from ...
The FBI did not call the three men suspects in the attacks, saying only that they "may be able to provide information to help in the investigation."
"The FBI is now asking Libyans and people around the world for additional information related to the attacks," the U.S. ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York City's upcoming public bike share program, Citibike, has already irked parking space seekers, food cart vendors and locals who resent seeing a Citibank sponsor logo on nearly every block.
Now, heavier New Yorkers can be added to the list.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York state court on Thursday ruled that two towns should be able to choose whether or not they can ban a controversial oil and gas drilling technique known as "fracking."
In a decision that could set precedent in the state and create a major setback to oil and ...
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - MGM Resorts International CFO Dan D'Arrigo said the company was still deciding whether or not to launch an Internet poker website in Nevada and the state may be too small to provide a lucrative online market on a standalone basis.
"We have to make an assessment on the ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg presented an updated budget proposal for the coming fiscal year on Thursday with largely cosmetic changes before the budget goes to the city's legislature for debate.
Bloomberg presented the adjusted figures for fiscal year 2013-14 as a last ...
(Reuters) - When Superstorm Sandy hit the U.S. East Coast on October 29, it inundated low-lying pump stations with silt and seawater at the sewage treatment plant in Sayerville, New Jersey.
As a result, sewage burst up from manholes into the streets. In total darkness, two divers swam into about ...
SEATTLE (Reuters) - The Seattle Police Department plans to form a special task force to investigate crimes committed during a violent May Day rally in which eight police officers were injured and 17 protesters arrested, authorities said on Thursday.
The unrest erupted on Wednesday evening at ...
NEWARK, New Jersey (Reuters) - A convicted killer and former Black Liberation Army member who fled to Cuba became the first woman to be put on the FBI's most wanted terrorists list on Thursday, and the reward for her capture was doubled to $2 million.
Joanne Chesimard, 65, still lives in Cuba ...
HOUSTON (Reuters) - A man sparked a panic at a busy Houston airport terminal on Thursday when he pulled out a gun and shot at the ceiling, then either shot himself or was killed by a security officer who confronted him.
Houston police spokesman Kese Smith said the man who died was 30 years old, ...
TUPELO, Mississippi (Reuters) - A federal judge ruled on Thursday that there was enough evidence for a grand jury to consider indicting a Mississippi man accused of mailing poison-laced letters to President Barack Obama and other U.S. officials.
James Everett Dutschke, a 41-year-old martial arts ...
AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of National Rifle Association members gather in Houston this weekend for the first time since the Senate rejected a plan last month to expand background checks for gun buyers, but officials say attendees will not sit back to celebrate victory.
"We ...
The blast killed 15 people and injured scores more.
Representative Henry Waxman of California, ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, his counterpart on the House Homeland Security Committee, asked President Barack Obama on Thursday to set up an ...
Once a beacon is installed, the tower will stand 1,776 feet high, making it the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, though still well short of the world's tallest structure.
Ironworkers will finish installing the spire at a later date.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Cool winds and rain helped firefighters mop up the remains of a fast-burning California wildfire on Monday that had threatened 4,000 homes in an early start to an expected busy wildfire season.
The Springs Fire, which started in the Southern California community of ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The suicide rate among Americans aged 35 to 64 rose sharply between 1999 and 2010, a trend that could reflect the stresses of a sharp economic downturn as well as other traditionally overlooked challenges of middle age, according to a federal report released on Thursday.
The ...
MILWAUKEE (Reuters) - An unseasonable winter storm system dropped more than 1 foot of snow across the central Plains and the upper Midwest on Thursday, closing roads and causing power outages in Minnesota and Wisconsin, according to the National Weather Service.
The system has resulted in about 18 ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - At an undisclosed location 10 miles from Washington, Senate employees in protective garb go envelope by envelope through millions of letters destined for the Capitol to thwart mail-borne bioterrorism threats like the recent ricin scare.
With suspect James Everett Dutschke ...
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - States and casinos racing to legalize online gaming may find some unwelcome visitors on their websites: product liability lawyers.
A group of 10 lawyers and academics with experience in prior liability cases met in Indianapolis in mid-April to discuss whether a lawsuit ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The nation's largest health insurers are far from leaping at the chance to join new state health insurance exchanges under President Barack Obama's reform law, making it likely that some markets will have little or no competition next year.
These new insurance marketplaces are ...
ALMATY (Reuters) - Going to study in America was a dream come true for Kazakh students Dias Kadyrbayev and Azamat Tazhayakov, an escape from a regimented life under authoritarian rule in their Central Asian homeland.
Their arrest on charges of impeding the investigation into the Boston Marathon ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Maryland became the 18th U.S. state to abolish the death penalty on Thursday when Governor Martin O'Malley signed a bill outlawing capital punishment in the state.
O'Malley, a Democrat mentioned as a potential presidential candidate in 2016, had pledged to sign the bill, ...
SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - The first woman Air Force training instructor to face a court martial in a scandal involving sex with recruits at a Texas military base has entered a guilty plea, and faces up to a year in prison.
Staff Sergeant Emily Allen admitted to having a sexual relationship with a ...
NEWARK (Reuters) - A wide-body jet clipped the tail of a smaller plane as they were taxiing for departure at Newark international airport, but no injuries were reported, federal officials said on Thursday.
The National Transportation Safety Board will lead the investigation of the Wednesday night ...
CHICAGO (Reuters) - For years, headlines about Catholic schools in the United States have told gloomy tales of falling enrollment and multiple closings.
Between 2000 and 2013, 2,090 U.S. Catholic schools closed or consolidated and enrollment fell 24.5 percent, according to the National Catholic ...
The fire, which started in a detached garage at 385 White Plains Road in the Wakefield section of the Bronx at 6:16 a.m. (1016 GMT), quickly engulfed neighboring buildings. It was reported through a 911 call, and 198 firefighters rushed to the scene, the FDNY spokeswoman said.
No injuries were ...
BOSTON (Reuters) - A federal judge has rejected accused mobster James "Whitey" Bulger's plan to argue that he cannot be prosecuted for 19 murders because of an immunity agreement worked out with a now-deceased prosecutor.
In a court filing made public on Thursday, District Court Judge ...
(Reuters) - Rhode Island lawmakers were expected to give final approval to a bill legalizing gay marriage on Thursday, making it the 10th U.S. state to extend marriage rights to same-sex couples and the last of the six New England states to do so.
Gov. Lincoln Chafee, an independent, was expected ...
Students Azamat Tazhayakov and Dias Kadyrbayev, both 19, were charged by U.S. authorities with conspiring to obstruct justice by hiding a backpack and fireworks they found in the dorm room of one of the suspected bombers.
They face up to five years in prison if found guilty.
(Reuters) - With his renewed vow to close the detention camp for foreign terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, President Barack Obama has effectively assigned himself a list of possible ways to take the prison's population down from 166 to zero.
Some would be more easily achieved than others.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A few dozen words rushed into law days after the September 11, 2001, attacks have been used to justify U.S. counterterrorism efforts from the war in Afghanistan to warrantless wiretapping and drone strikes, all on orders of the White House - and with little congressional ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal jury weighed fraud charges on Thursday against two former fundraising associates of John Liu, a Democratic candidate for mayor of New York City.
U.S. prosecutors said Jia Hou, the Liu campaign's former treasurer, and Xing Wu Pan, a fundraiser for the candidate, were ...
DETROIT (Reuters) - Ford Motor Co is adding more than 2,000 jobs at its pickup truck factory in Kansas City as growth in the U.S. housing and oil sectors trigger a boom in truck sales.
The second-largest U.S. automaker said on Thursday that it will add 900 jobs and a third shift at its Kansas City ...
LOS ANGELES, May 1, 2013 - As many as 3,000 prison inmates in central California deemed to be at risk from a potentially lethal lung disease may need to be moved to other regions under an order from a court-appointed federal overseer.
The directive, issued on Monday, marks the latest effort to ...
(Reuters) - A 76-year-old Wisconsin woman was sentenced on Wednesday to 10 years in prison for killing her infant daughter more than half a century ago, after the girl's brother persuaded police to reopen the case.
Ruby Klokow, who pleaded no contest to second-degree murder in February, was ...
(Reuters) - The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday appealed a court order directing the agency to make "morning-after" emergency contraception pills available without a prescription to all girls of reproductive age.
Lawyers with the Justice Department filed the appeal with the 2nd ...
SEATTLE (Reuters) - Seattle police said on Thursday they would form a task force to investigate any crimes committed during a violent May Day rally which saw eight police officers injured and 17 protesters arrested.
Protesters and police had exchanged a chaotic barrage of rocks, bottles and pepper ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon is expected to clear Apple, Samsung and BlackBerry mobile devices for use on Defense Department networks in the next few weeks, part of an effort to ensure the military has access to the latest communications technology, a spokesman said on Wednesday.
The ...
CHICAGO (Reuters) - The Illinois Senate passed a bill on Wednesday that would bring much-need revenue to the cash-strapped state by expanding gambling and giving Chicago its first casino.
The 32-20 vote in the Democrat-controlled Senate sent the measure to the House.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Private bank loans are riding a wave of popularity among cities, counties and other local governments, leaving the $3.7 trillion municipal bond market racing to assess and contain any risks they may pose, a white paper said on Wednesday.
"Bank loans provide issuers with ...
The five-foot long metal piece, identified as part of the wing of a Boeing 767 jet, was discovered last week wedged between an apartment complex and a building at 51 Park Place in lower Manhattan, the site of a proposed mosque and Islamic Community Center, three blocks from Ground Zero.
"It's ...
SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - Investigators hope to determine by next week what caused the explosion at a Texas fertilizer plant that killed 14 people and injured about 200, the state Fire Marshal said at a state legislative hearing on Wednesday.
Dozens of investigators remain on the ground in West, ...
If he does so, it would be the first action by the U.S. government since Obama vowed on Tuesday to make a renewed effort to close the camp, where about 100 inmates are on hunger strike to protest against their years in detention without trial.
"One of the options available to us that we're ...
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A Philadelphia jury ended a second day of deliberations on Wednesday without reaching verdicts in the murder trial of a doctor accused of killing babies and a patient during late-term abortions at a clinic serving low-income women.
Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 72, who ran the ...
A federal jury in Davenport found that Hill Country Farms, doing business as Henry's Turkey Service, of Goldthwaite, Texas, had created an unlawful hostile environment for the men and discriminated against them on the basis of their disability. Jurors awarded them $7.5 million each, following a ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Compassionate release programs at overcrowded U.S. federal prisons are poorly run and lack clear standards, resulting in some eligible inmates dying before they can be freed, the Department of Justice said on Wednesday.
Few prisoners are released early on compassionate ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Most Americans do not see the Boston Marathon bombing and its suspects as an immigration issue, according to a poll released on Wednesday that also found the U.S. public still relatively inattentive to the debate on revising immigration laws.
While discussion of the ...
NASHVILLE, Tenn (Reuters) - A 2-year-old girl was accidentally shot and killed by her 5-year-old brother with a rifle he received as a birthday gift, Kentucky authorities said on Wednesday.
The shooting occurred on Tuesday afternoon in Burkesville, Kentucky, a community in the south-central part ...
(Reuters) - J.C. Penney Co Inc, recognizing it made mistakes in its attempt to re-invent itself last year, launched a social media and television campaign on Wednesday that asked shoppers who left in droves to come back.
Last year, sales plunged 25 percent after recently ousted Chief Executive Ron ...
(Reuters) - Exxon Mobil Corp's near 70-year-old Pegasus oil pipeline spilled a small amount of crude on Tuesday into a residential yard in Ripley County, Missouri, a month after the same pipe spewed thousands of barrels of crude in Arkansas.
A resident notified the company of the spill after ...
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which oversees the grid for most of the state, said power reserves - the minimum capacity needed to cushion against extreme weather or unplanned outages - will fall to about 9 percent this summer, well below the agency's minimum target of 13.75 ...
BOSTON (Reuters) - U.S. authorities on Wednesday charged three men with interfering with the investigation of the Boston Marathon bombing, saying they hid fireworks and a backpack belonging to one of the suspected bombers as a manhunt was under way.
The three, two students from Kazakhstan and a ...
Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis, Massachusetts Undersecretary for Homeland Security Director Kurt Schwartz and U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman have been asked to testify.
The committee will hold a series of hearings examining the events leading up to last month's attack, which killed three ...
Steven T. Smith, 46, was put to death at 10:29 a.m. ET (1439 GMT) by lethal injection at a state prison in Lucasville, Ohio, according to the state corrections department.
Smith answered "no," when asked by the prison warden if he had any final words before his death, according to ...
"I grew up in a strong faith-based family," she told News 14 Carolina after attending a YMCA prayer breakfast in Charlotte, North Carolina, where she lives.
"I think I have selected to return to those roots for strength, for my family, for myself and to protect our children and to ...
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A Philadelphia jury began its second day of deliberations on Wednesday in the murder trial of a doctor accused of killing babies and a patient during late-term abortions at a clinic serving low-income women.
Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 72, who ran the now-shuttered Women's Medical ...
GROZNY, Russia (Reuters) - When it was last in the international spotlight, Chechnya was in ruins, its capital Grozny reduced to dust by the deadliest artillery and air onslaught in Europe since World War Two.
Today, when the naming of two Chechens as suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings has ...
CLEVELAND (Reuters) - Ohio is set to execute a man on Wednesday who was convicted of killing a six-month-old girl during a drunken sexual assault in 1998.
Steven T. Smith, 46, is scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection at a state prison in Lucasville, Ohio, according to the state ...
DENVER (Reuters) - Lawyers for accused Colorado theater gunman James Holmes are questioning the constitutionality of the state's insanity defense law, court records released on Tuesday show, and raising the possibility that they may enter an insanity plea over his objections.
Public defenders for ...
(Reuters) - The fatal mauling of a Montana animal trainer last year could have been prevented if captive grizzly bears had been properly secured while he cleaned their cage, federal regulators said on Tuesday.
Benjamin Cloutier was cleaning the enclosure of two grizzlies in November when the ...
(Reuters) - Monster Beverage Corp has sued San Francisco's city attorney over an investigation the city launched last year into the safety and marketing of Monster energy drinks.
In the lawsuit filed on Monday in California federal court, the company accused City Attorney Dennis Herrera of ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Closing arguments began on Tuesday in the fraud trial of two former fundraising associates of John Liu, a Democratic candidate in New York City's mayoral race, with prosecutors saying that he would have known the campaign routinely used illegal methods to solicit ...
PHOENIX (Reuters) - The Arizona Senate on Tuesday approved a measure to make gold and silver legal currency in the state, in a response to what backers said was a lack of confidence in the international monetary system.
The legislation cleared the Republican-controlled Senate by an 18-10 vote ...
(Reuters) - Already home to the Las Vegas strip with its casinos and high-stakes games, Nevada on Tuesday became the first state where residents can legally play poker online for money.
Station Casinos went live with UltimatePoker.com after Nevada legalized online poker in February. New Jersey and ...
PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island (Reuters) - The widow of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev wants a medical examiner to release his remains to the Tsarnaev family, her lawyer said on Tuesday.
"It is Katherine Russell's wish that his remains be released to the Tsarnaev family, and we ...
DENVER (Reuters) - An Army private believed to be the first female U.S. soldier to seek refuge in Canada rather than return to duty in Iraq was sentenced to 10 months in prison after pleading guilty to desertion, military officials in Colorado said on Tuesday.
Kimberly Rivera, who said she grew ...
NEWARK, New Jersey (Reuters) - Two New Jersey men convicted of conspiring to join an al Qaeda-linked militant group have appealed their sentences, arguing that prosecutors were unduly influenced by the Boston Marathon bombing, one of their attorneys said on Tuesday.
Mohamed Alessa, 23, and Carlos ...
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (Reuters) - The Alabama Supreme Court justice chosen just last week to help steer the state's Jefferson County through the biggest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history stepped down on Tuesday after apparently deciding he was not a good match for the job.
Mike Bolin, 65, could ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - When death penalty expert Judy Clarke joined the defense team for the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, she spent months trying to establish a rapport so she could convince him to accept a plea deal that would spare him capital punishment.
Though she and his other lawyers angered ...
The State Department said it reached the agreement with Massachusetts-based Raytheon after an extensive enforcement review showed the company's "numerous violations demonstrated a recurring, corporate-wide weakness" in maintaining effective controls of its compliance with U.S. export ...
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A northern California woman has been arrested on suspicion of spiking orange juice bottles with a deadly dose of rubbing alcohol and stocking the bottles at a Starbucks coffee shop, law enforcement officials said on Tuesday.
Ramineh Behbehanian, 50, was arrested at her ...
(Reuters) - The Justice Department said on Tuesday that a federal court had authorized the Internal Revenue Service to seek information on U.S. taxpayers who may have accounts at Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce FirstCaribbean International Bank (FCIB).
In a move resembling a recent IRS inquiry ...
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan on Tuesday proposed a comprehensive plan to fix the state's sagging public pension system - the worst-funded state pension system in the country - with only a month to go in the legislature's spring session.
The 271-page measure sets a cap ...
JACKSON, Mississippi (Reuters) - A dust mask and other items seized from the martial arts studio of a Mississippi man charged with sending poison-laced letters to President Barack Obama and two other public officials tested positive for ricin, according to a court document released on ...
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Fingerprints and DNA evidence from the northern California home where an eight-year-old girl was stabbed to death over the weekend, apparently by an intruder, were sent to a state crime lab on Tuesday as detectives sought to identify a suspect, police said.
The death of ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Official watchdogs for the U.S. intelligence community have launched a review of how information was shared before the Boston Marathon bombing and how it can be improved.
"We want to see, is there, in fact, additional protocols and procedures that could be put in place ...
(Reuters) - A trade group representing makers of artificial limbs on Tuesday promised to provide prosthetics free of cost to the estimated 20 to 25 victims of the Boston Marathon bombings who underwent amputations.
The American Orthotic and Prosthetic Association offered initial services and ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With his fight for tighter gun control measures defeated and prospects for a deficit reduction pact dim, President Barack Obama sought on Tuesday to project an image of a leader still in control of a faltering domestic policy agenda.
At a surprise news conference, Obama made ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The District of Columbia has begun a review of century-old rules limiting building heights that could let the low-rise U.S. capital grow upward without harming views of landmarks such as the Washington Monument and U.S. Capitol.
The city has hired consultants to conduct the ...
Knox, 25, spent four years in prison for the murder of Meredith Kercher while they were exchange students in Perugia, a hilltop Italian university town popular with foreigners. Knox, who became a tabloid sensation in Britain and Italy, was acquitted on appeal in 2011. She returned to her ...
(Reuters) - The Justice Department said on Tuesday that a federal court had authorized the Internal Revenue Service to seek information on U.S. taxpayers who may have accounts at Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce FirstCaribbean International Bank (FCIB).
In a move resembling a recent IRS inquiry ...
NEWARK, New Jersey (Reuters) - A U.S. Army major and his wife were arrested and charged on Tuesday with child endangerment for physically abusing their three foster children, whom they later adopted, and forcing their three biological children to help cover up the abuse.
Federal prosecutors said ...
Defect investigations by NHTSA are not recalls, but sometimes lead to them.
NHTSA has opened an investigation into model year 2005 to 2008 Ford Motor Co Crown Victoria police models for a potential steering issue. A connection between upper and lower shafts of the steering column may have failed, ...
RICHMOND, Virginia (Reuters) - Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell on Tuesday declined to confirm a newspaper report that the FBI was investigating his relationship with a political campaign donor but said that any probe would not affect his ability to govern the state.
McDonnell, a Republican who has ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senator Barbara Boxer said on Tuesday she plans to investigate the explosion at a Texas fertilizer plant earlier this month that killed 15 people and injured scores more.
California's Boxer, the head of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said the panel will ...
The online survey of 1,050 workers who finished school in the past two years and 1,010 who will receive their degree in 2013 also found that many graduates, some heavily in debt because of the cost of their education, say they are in jobs that do not require a college degree.
Thirty-four percent ...
ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - Neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman told a court in Florida on Tuesday he would wait until his June trial to argue that he acted in self-defense when he shot and killed unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin last year.
Prosecutors say Zimmerman, 29, profiled ...
"I think it's harder, there's no doubt about it," Obama told reporters on Tuesday. "It puts more of a burden on us."
The state-based exchanges, created under the 2010 healthcare law, were designed to offer individuals a centralized place to buy health insurance policies for ...
"Based on what I've seen so far, the FBI performed its duties, Department of Homeland Security did what it was supposed to be doing, but this is hard stuff," Obama told reporters in a news conference.
The president added that he is asking his counterterrorism team to look at what more ...
BOSTON (Reuters) - Voters in Massachusetts on Tuesday go to the polls to pick the Democratic and Republican contenders for the state's open seat in the U.S. Senate, after campaigns that were briefly suspended by the Boston Marathon bombings.
All five candidates, two Democrats and three ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Six months after Hurricane Sandy ripped into the East Coast and triggered one of the worst energy crises in decades, there is scattered evidence companies and state agencies have moved to strengthen complex fuel supply networks against future storms.
But the measures taken by ...
CHARLESTON, South Carolina (Reuters) - Former Governor Mark Sanford deflected criticism of an extramarital affair leveled in a debate on Monday by his opponent for a South Carolina congressional seat, political newcomer Elizabeth Colbert Busch.
Sanford, a Republican, is hoping to revive his ...
PHOENIX (Reuters) - Arizona Governor Jan Brewer on Monday signed legislation forcing municipalities to resell firearms from gun buy-back programs rather than destroy them, closing a loophole in the conservative state's laws.
Brewer, a Republican and staunch gun rights advocate, signed the bill ...
The National Weather Service said it expects the north-flowing river to rise to 35.5 feet on Wednesday in Fargo, down from an estimate of 37 feet issued on Sunday and a forecast for as much as a 40-foot crest less than a week ago.
"It's still a big flood, it's just not as big a flood as it ...
(Reuters) - Prominent criminal defense lawyer Judy Clarke, who has represented defendants in some of the most high-profile death penalty cases in recent years, has joined the legal defense team for accused Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, according to court documents.
San Diego-based ...
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Three recreational abalone divers died in separate drownings over the weekend in a 24-hour period along northern California's coast, police and coroner officials said on Monday.
Diving for abalone, a prized mollusk, can be dangerous, but law enforcement officials said ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Army will hold a flight demonstration on Tuesday of a newly upgraded version of the Vietnam-era OH-58 Kiowa Warrior helicopter, an Army-led initiative that officials say will save $600 million in coming years.
The Army managed the project, which first began in ...
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A Philadelphia jury ended its first day of deliberations on Tuesday without reaching verdicts in the murder trial of a doctor accused of killing babies and a patient during late-term abortions at a clinic serving low-income women.
Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 72, who ran the ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York judge signaled on Monday he would probably allow the group that controls the Empire State Building to include the fabled New York landmark in a public stock offering, despite objections of dissident investors.
Malkin Holdings wants to roll the 102-story tower in ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Five senators - four Republicans and one Democrat - could face voter backlash for opposing President Barack Obama's bid to expand background checks for gun buyers, opinion polls released on Monday showed.
According to the surveys conducted by Public Policy Polling, a private ...
U.S. law enforcement officials took Rodolphe Jaar into custody on Saturday after he was extradited to the United States, said Mia Ro, a spokeswoman for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
Jaar, who lives in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, is involved in several businesses in Haiti ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Ending a three-decade quest, Debbie Long on Monday met the American "kid" soldier who freed her mother from a World War II Nazi concentration camp. She threw her arms around Eldon Ooton, now 90, and sobbed.
Long and Ooton were among the former concentration camp ...
BOSTON (Reuters) - Investigators on Monday removed bags of evidence including some containing DNA samples from the home in Rhode Island where the widow of suspected Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev has been living, according to a person familiar with the investigation.
FBI agents spent ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer was released from the hospital on Monday after being injured in a fall from his bicycle last week, a court spokeswoman said.
Breyer, 74, had shoulder surgery on Saturday at Georgetown University Hospital to repair a broken bone in his ...
BOSTON (Reuters) - One tourist wanted to eat at a restaurant as close to the Boston Marathon finish line as possible. Other well-wishers made a point of buying shoes at the running store just a few steps away from a bomb blast site.
With their dining and shopping dollars, throngs of visitors to ...
SAN RAFAEL, California (Reuters) - A retired photographer accused of the serial "Alphabet murders" in California went on trial on Monday acting as his own attorney, joining prosecutors in picking jurors who will decide whether he is guilty of slaying four prostitutes.
Joseph Naso, 79, ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court said on Monday states are free to allow public records access only to their own citizens, delivering a blow to freedom of information advocates who had challenged a Virginia law.
In a unanimous ruling, the court said two out-of-state men did not have a ...
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - The attorney for a Philadelphia doctor accused of killing four infants during late-term abortions wrapped up his defense on Monday, arguing that prosecutors hyped the case for publicity and denying his client's clinic was a "house of horrors."
Dr. Kermit Gosnell, ...
(Reuters) - A New York judge signaled on Monday he would probably allow the group that controls the Empire State Building to proceed with a plan to sell off the fabled New York landmark as part of a public stock offering despite the objections of dissident investors.
Malkin Holdings wants to roll ...
MIAMI (Reuters) - The Navy sent extra medical personnel to the Guantanamo detention camp because of a growing hunger strike, and the American Medical Association questioned whether doctors were being asked to violate their ethics by force-feeding prisoners.
The reinforcements arrived at the ...
TALLAHASSEE, Florida (Reuters) - The Florida Senate sent Governor Rick Scott a package of capital-punishment reforms on Monday designed to prevent condemned killers from spending decades on Death Row, despite warnings that speeding up the legal appeals process could lead to innocent prisoners ...
Under the deal, Chicago will pay Chicago Parking Meters LLC $8.9 million, instead of the $49 million the company demanded in compensation for out-of-service meters due to street closures and other reasons covering a two-year period that ended on March 31. The agreement will be presented on May 8 ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Enrollment in U.S. preschools stalled over the past year as states recovering from the recent recession struggle to fund early education for the nation's youngest students, researchers said.
In a report released on Monday, education experts pointed to a record drop of more ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Boeing Co. said it was confident that a piece of aircraft, found wedged between two buildings in lower Manhattan recently, came from one of two airplanes that struck the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001.
Authorities are still trying to determine which of the two planes the ...
(Reuters) - South Dakota is finding it difficult to change time-worn names of locations that are seen as offensive by African-Americans and Native Americans, such as "Negro" and "squaw" creeks, canyons and mountain ridges.
The state issued a plea this month for public ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court on Monday said states are free to allow public records access only to their own citizens, delivering a blow to freedom of information advocates who had challenged a Virginia law.
In a unanimous ruling, the court said two out-of-state men did not have a ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Veteran basketball player Jason Collins announced on Monday that he was gay, smashing through one of the final frontiers in U.S. sports with a frank personal statement and winning warm praise as a groundbreaker.
Collins, a 12-year player in the National Basketball Association ...
(Reuters) - A New York judge said on Monday he was leaning toward allowing a group that wants to roll the Empire State Building into a real estate investment trust to force any holdouts to surrender their holdings for a fraction of their value.
New York Supreme Court Justice O. Peter Sherwood said ...
The Texas case, on the university's race-conscious admissions policy, was argued in October. The next day the court could issue rulings is on Monday, May 13.
The court is deciding whether the university policy has violated the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection by giving preferences to ...
Green Township Police Chief Bart West said the school was briefly put on lockdown after the student pulled out a gun and shot himself in a classroom early Monday. The lockdown has since been lifted.
"All the other students in the building are OK," West said during a televised news ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Enrollment in preschools stalled over the past year as states recovering from the recent recession struggle to fund early education for the nation's youngest students, researchers said.
In a report to be released later on Monday, education experts pointed to a record drop in ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court rebuffed the state of Alabama on Monday by deciding not to intervene in a case where federal judges blocked a state law that criminalizes the harboring of illegal immigrants.
By refusing to hear Alabama's appeal of the Obama administration's lower court ...
About 123,308 Altimas from model year 2013 are affected by the recall, according to documents filed the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Due to a production issue that has since been corrected, the spare tires in some of the recalled cars may have too much or not enough air in ...
The recall affects 2012 and 2013 model year Fit Sport cars. The cars may tilt too far during sharp turns, possibly leading to loss of tire traction and increasing the risk of a crash, according to documents filed with the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
About 2,000 cars are ...
ORLANDO (Reuters) - Prosecutors in Florida want George Zimmerman to state publicly at a court hearing on Tuesday whether he will pursue his immunity defense in the 2012 shooting death of teenager Trayvon Martin on the basis of the state's "Stand Your Ground" law, or waive his right to ...
TUPELO, Mississippi (Reuters) - A Mississippi martial arts instructor suspected of mailing letters containing the deadly poison ricin to President Barack Obama and other U.S. officials appeared in federal court on Monday for a brief hearing.
James Everett Dutschke, 41, was arrested on Saturday in ...
EL RENO, Oklahoma (Reuters) - Federal Reserve officials, as a rule, can expect a tough crowd when they visit places like Oklahoma where suspicion of big government runs deep.
Esther George, president of the Kansas City Fed, is an exception. As she surveyed the cattle ranchers, energy bosses and ...
By Dave Warner
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - The Philadelphia abortion clinic that prosecutors called a "house of horrors" is now being cited as powerful evidence by both abortion and anti-abortion rights groups.
The business association found that Utah, population 2.8 million, ranked third among all states in overall economic performance - a measure of how states' economies have fared over time in terms of jobs, gross domestic product, productivity and income.
Moreover, Utah was the only state to make the ...
(Reuters) - A man visiting a Catholic church in Albuquerque, New Mexico, stabbed four choir members as they were singing the closing hymns of a Mass on Sunday, police said.
Parishioners at St. Jude Thaddeus Catholic Church jumped on the unidentified man after the attack and were restraining him ...
Marathon declined to discuss operations at the refinery on Sunday. On Saturday, Marathon said there were no injuries due to the blaze and the refinery continued to operate normally.
The cause of the fire is unknown, according to the notice, which became available to the public on Sunday.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - For the past four years, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has rarely passed up the chance to chide American drivers for using mobile phones and other devices while driving, often speaking directly to drivers in radio ads during the morning commute.
The loquacious LaHood ...
Congressman Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House Of Representatives intelligence committee said better cooperation from Russia was needed in Washington's probe of the two suspected bombers' recent contacts and activities.
Speaking on ABC's "This Week," Rogers said he ...
Thom, 68, a former editor of Ms. Magazine, crashed her motorcycle on the Saw Mill Parkway on Friday evening, said Eleanor Smeal, publisher of Ms. Magazine and a close friend of Thom.
An accomplished author, editor and journalist, Thom devoted her career to giving voice to women's rights issues in ...
Residents of Valley Springs, California, 60 miles southeast of Sacramento, were warned to stay inside their homes with their doors locked as investigators fanned out across the region, hunting for the girl's attacker.
Detectives interviewed potential witnesses, family members and collected ...
UNDISCLOSED LOCATION IN NORTH CAUCASUS, Russia (Reuters) - The parents of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects have retreated to a village in southern Russia to shelter from the spotlight and abandoned plans for now to travel to the United States, the father of the suspects told Reuters on ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Thirty-five years after the Supreme Court set the terms for boosting college admissions of African Americans and other minorities, the court may be about to issue a ruling that could restrict universities' use of race in deciding who is awarded places.
The case before the ...
Richard Senneff, the first witness in the civil trial, testified that he was initially unaware that the person lying in pajamas on a bed in the rented Los Angeles mansion was the world famous pop singer.
"The patient appeared to be chronically ill to me," Senneff testified, saying he ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama poked fun at the media, his critics and himself on Saturday at the annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner, a star-filled event where journalists and celebrities mixed with the Washington elite.
Joined at the dinner by his wife, first ...
The only survivor was 11-year-old Nautica McCrary, who was woken up during the blaze by her mother and told "to run, that the house was on fire," according to a statement by the Newnan police department.
The fire erupted before 1:15 a.m. (0515 GMT) and was thought to have been sparked by ...
No injuries were reported at the refinery from the blaze in a tank containing wastewater from the refining process, said Marathon spokesman Shane Pochard.
"We're working with Melvindale police to return residents to their homes," Pochard said. "That has not yet been completed."
LOUISVILLE, Kentucky (Reuters) - In an emotional ceremony filled with tears and applause, a 70-year-old Kentucky woman was ordained a priest on Saturday as part of a dissident group operating outside of official Roman Catholic Church authority.
Rosemarie Smead is one of about 150 women around the ...
SACRAMENTO (Reuters) - A controversial plan to shift billions of dollars in education funding toward the poorest school districts and away from wealthier ones is fast becoming a personal crusade for California Governor Jerry Brown, who this week promised "the battle of their lives" to ...
Breyer, 74, injured his right shoulder in a fall from his bicycle on Friday afternoon near the Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington. He was taken by ambulance to Georgetown University Hospital, where he had surgery on Saturday morning, the court said in a statement.
Breyer, who was appointed ...
BALDWIN CITY, Kansas (Reuters) - Young people have been leaving rural America for decades, but Mike Bosch, 34, is happy to swim against the tide.
Instead of moving his fast-growing information technology services company to his hometown of Dallas last year, Bosch chose to stay in Baldwin City, ...
(Reuters) - A black wreath hangs on the door of the brick City Hall in West, Texas, which was closed Thursday and Friday so workers could attend funerals for some of the 14 people killed in the fertilizer plant explosion last week.
One block south, at the volunteer fire department, well-wishers ...
The suspension follows passage on Friday of a bill allowing the agency to shift money within its budget to halt furloughs of air-traffic controllers that started April 21.
The furloughs, prompted by automatic budget cuts, caused thousands of flight delays and hundreds of cancellations throughout ...
(Reuters) - Investigators have removed from its Watertown, Massachusetts, backyard the now-famous boat used as a hiding spot by one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects, and have taken it to an evidence storage facility, the FBI said on Saturday.
The boat was the scene of high drama when ...
ATLANTA (Reuters) - A mother and four children died in a suburban Atlanta house fire early Saturday, police said.
Before she died in the blaze, the 28-year-old mother was able to wake her 11-year old daughter, who escaped the home and was the only survivor, according to a statement by the Newnan, ...
TUPELO, Mississippi (Reuters) - A Mississippi martial arts instructor was charged on Saturday with attempting to use a biological weapon after a ricin-laced letter was sent to President Barack Obama earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Justice said.
Everett Dutschke, 41, was arrested at his ...
TALLAHASSEE, Florida (Reuters) - Public university students in Florida next year will be able to start working toward college degrees without actually going to college, under a law Governor Rick Scott signed on Monday in front of educators and business lobbyists.
The state-run University of ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As he nears the end of a dozen years as director of the FBI, Robert Mueller finds himself defending the agency over its handling of two high-profile cases. It is a familiar spot for the low-key ex-Marine.
At the request of President Barack Obama, Mueller stayed on for two ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama chided Republicans on Saturday for approving a plan to ease air-traffic delays caused by federal spending cuts while leaving budget cuts that affect children and the elderly untouched.
The Senate and the House of Representatives backed a plan this week ...
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - Digging a large mine in southwest Alaska would inflict widespread ecological damage, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said in a report on Friday that could hurt the chances of a proposed project in that region winning regulatory approval.
A large scale ...
DETROIT (Reuters) - Detroit is not exactly among America's top 10 tourist destinations. But a local nonprofit hopes to alter public perceptions of one of the nation's poorest big cities, where more than a quarter of its residents live below the poverty line.
Hostel Detroit, which marks its second ...
SEATTLE (Reuters) - Seattle's interim police chief has apologized for appearing in a 1986 video that showed him and other officers mocking the homeless in what the city's police department this week called an "ugly piece" of its history.
Interim Chief Jim Pugel, who is implementing ...
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A Los Angeles judge on Friday ordered a UCLA chemistry professor to stand trial on charges stemming from a 2008 fire in his university lab that fatally burned a 23-year-old research assistant, rejecting a defense request to dismiss the case.
Patrick Harran faces up to 4 1/2 ...
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Federal authorities have taken disciplinary action against a Las Vegas hospital cited for improperly sending newly released psychiatric patients by bus to neighboring California and other states in a practice called "patient dumping."
The Rawson-Neal Psychiatric ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York City investigators have uncovered a pattern of sexual abuse of children at the prestigious Horace Mann School between the 1960s and 1990s, but the complaints are now too old to prosecute under the statute of limitations, the Bronx District Attorney's office said on ...
(Reuters) - An Oklahoma fugitive who escaped from a county jail 14 years ago while being held on charges of murdering his ex-wife and her boyfriend turned himself in on Friday, saying he was tired of running from the law.
Comanche County Sheriff Department deputies took David Lee Kemp, 43, into ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A piece of landing gear believed to be from one of the commercial airplanes that crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, has been discovered, wedged between two lower Manhattan buildings, police said on Friday.
The piece of landing gear found in a narrow ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Air Force Secretary Michael Donley said on Friday he was stepping down after nearly five years leading the service, during a time it faced scrutiny for mishandling nuclear weapons, a spate of sexual assaults and recurrent acquisition challenges.
Defense Secretary Chuck ...
DETROIT (Reuters) - Detroit is not exactly among America's top 10 tourist destinations. But a local nonprofit hopes to alter public perceptions of one of the nation's poorest big cities, where more than a quarter of its residents live below the poverty line.
Hostel Detroit, which marks its second ...
(Reuters) - Police on Friday identified the body of a second Virginia State University student who had gone missing last week while attempting to cross the Appomattox River during what they call a hazing incident.
Seven male students were swept away as they tried to cross the river on April 20 as ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A man was sentenced on Friday to five years in prison for plotting to blow up synagogues in New York City, only the third conviction under a state terror statute passed in the wake of the September 11, 2001 World Trade Center attacks.
Mohamed Mamdouh, 22, a Moroccan-born U.S. ...
CHARLESTON, South Carolina (Reuters) - A South Carolina woman has been charged with four counts of homicide by child abuse in the deaths of her four young children who were home alone when they died in a mobile home fire, police said on Friday.
Hope Kaneshia Hawkins, 21, was also charged with four ...
"BP failed to disclose to shareowners the serious risks involved in its offshore drilling operation," Comptroller John Liu said. "After the spill began, it misleadingly attempted to minimize the extent of the damage and the cost to shareowners."
The lawsuit, filed in the ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Friday declined to rule on a legal challenge filed by business groups against a Securities and Exchange Commission rule that would force energy and mining companies to disclose payments to foreign governments.
The unanimous decision by the three-judge ...
The shutdown was the latest blow to confidence in the way U.S. financial markets operate. It prevented trading in options on two of the stock market's most closely watched indicators throughout Thursday morning.
Volume in index options was down by more than 12 percent from the day before as a ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Congress on Friday approved a plan to ease nationwide air-traffic delays caused by federal spending cuts, seeking to calm irritated travelers but sparking a backlash from groups still being hit by budget cuts.
The Senate unanimously voted for the plan late Thursday ...
NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The two brothers suspected of carrying out last week's deadly Boston Marathon bombing decided, after the FBI released photos of them, to drive to Manhattan and detonate more explosives in Times Square, New York City officials said on Thursday.
Their plan unraveled ...
(Reporting by Scott Malone; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)
NEWARK, New Jersey (Reuters) - A Jersey City man was charged with having explosives material at his home and on a train just days before the Boston Marathon bombings, but authorities said there was no indication he planned to detonate the devices, the Jersey Journal reported on Thursday.
The ...
MIAMI (Reuters) - The Department of Labor has ordered Florida to improve access to jobless benefits for people with disabilities or limited English proficiency in a ruling that could help make the state's unemployment insurance program more accessible to everyone, employment rights and legal ...
Richard Cobb, 29, was given a lethal injection and pronounced dead at 6:27 p.m. CDT (7:27 p.m. EDT) at a state prison in Huntsville, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice said in a statement.
In his final statement, Cobb said: "Life is too short to harbor feelings of hatred and anger. ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The FBI said on Thursday that more tests may be necessary to determine the potency of a granular material identified as ricin that was packed into letters sent to President Obama, a U.S. senator and a Mississippi judge.
Last week, the FBI said laboratory testing had ...
CLEVELAND (Reuters) - Cleveland community activists are planning to protest against what they see as the use of excessive force by city police after a review found 100 officers broke rules in a car chase in which an unarmed driver and his passenger were shot dead.
Activist Kathy Coleman told ...
WACO, Texas (Reuters) - President Barack Obama, standing before a line of flag-draped coffins, consoled family and friends on Thursday at a memorial service for firefighters killed in a massive explosion last week at a Texas fertilizer plant.
The deaths of 14 people, nearly all of them emergency ...
DENVER (Reuters) - Colorado medical marijuana patients can lose their jobs for using pot because it remains illegal under federal law, a state appeals court ruled on Thursday, upholding the firing of a quadriplegic who was terminated after testing positive for cannabis.
In a split decision, a ...
(Reuters) - A northern stretch of the Illinois River, a main artery for shipping bulk commodities to export terminals at the Gulf of Mexico, is expected to remain closed for several weeks as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers works to repair a lock damaged during recent heavy flooding.
Severe ...
(Reuters) - A Utah compound where polygamist sect leader and convicted child rapist Warren Jeffs had planned to live if ever released from a Texas prison was sold on Thursday to his estranged bodyguard at a court-ordered auction, officials said.
The six-acre (2.4-hectare) compound in Hildale, one ...
An estimated 14,000 to 17,000 people are smuggled into the United States each year and forced to work as domestic servants, laborers or in the sex trade, according to estimates from the DA's office.
"All sorts of electronic and digital fingerprints are left when you have a crime committed or ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. prosecutors on Thursday alleged that a former federal government lawyer helped the Cuban intelligence service recruit a woman who was later sentenced to 25 years in prison for spying.
An indictment filed in 2004 was unsealed in the U.S. District Court for the District ...
Skakel's testimony came during a wrongful imprisonment trial in Vernon, Connecticut, before a state judge, who will decide whether to grant him a new trial on the grounds that his previous defense attorney, Mickey Sherman, did not competently defend him.
Skakel, 52, testified on Thursday that ...
(Reuters) - The City Council of San Jose, in the heart of California's Silicon Valley, wants to quit the state's public pension fund - which covers its current and former members - because it fears it can't afford the rising contributions.
There's just one problem. It also can't afford the ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - In a closely watched case in the art world, American artist Richard Prince won a federal appeals court order Thursday holding that he did not infringe the copyrights of a photographer by incorporating his images into 25 paintings and collages.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of ...
BOSTON (Reuters) - A body found floating in the Providence River was that of a 22-year-old Brown University student who had been missing for more than a month, Rhode Island officials confirmed on Thursday.
The body of Sunil Tripathi, who had been missing since March 16, had been found by the ...
AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - Texas on Thursday is scheduled to execute a man convicted of murder after he and an accomplice robbed an East Texas convenience store in 2002, kidnapping a male customer who was later shot to death and two women who worked there.
Richard Cobb, 29, is due to be put to ...
In his decision, U.S. District Judge Stefan Underhill said S&P and its parent McGraw-Hill Cos waited too long to try to move the lawsuit, which began in March 2010.
He rejected the defendants' argument that the February 5, 2013 filing against them of 13 similar lawsuits by other states in ...
OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) - Oklahomans would face stricter requirements for receiving food stamps under a measure approved by lawmakers this week and now awaiting Governor Mary Fallin's signature.
The bill, approved by large margins in both chambers of the Republican-controlled legislature and ...
One source said the Tsarnaev brothers' original intent when they hijacked a car and its driver in Boston last Thursday night was to drive to New York with seven bombs to set them off.
But the abducted driver escaped when the car pulled into a gas station and both brothers got out, one to pump the ...
WILMINGTON, Delaware (Reuters) - A Delaware judge said on Thursday he was leaning toward siding with a United Auto Workers trust in a dispute with Fiat SpA over the sale of a stake of car maker Chrysler Group LLC.
Fiat has a call option to buy from the trust a 3.3 percent stake in Chrysler and has ...
Both reactors at the Arkansas Nuclear One station have been down since March 31, when an industrial accident related to a refueling shutdown at the 834-megawatt Unit 1 killed one worker and injured eight others.
Denault said Unit 2, rated at 989-MW, will restart in May.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Senate moved quickly late on Thursday to end air traffic controller furloughs that were causing widespread airline flight delays related to last month's automatic federal spending cuts.
Without any debate, the Senate unanimously passed legislation giving the Department ...
"We do not have a cause at this time and operational assessment is under way," Alon Energy spokesman Blake Lewis said of the fire, which broke out at the unit in Krotz Springs, Louisiana.
A spokeswoman for the St. Landry Parish Sheriff's Office said earlier that workers were being ...
MAKHACHKALA, Russia (Reuters) - The parents of the two main suspects in the Boston bombings said on Thursday their sons had been framed and accused U.S. authorities of killing the older brother to put on a display.
Anzor Tsarnaev, the father, banged the table in anger as he announced plans to go ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The push for comprehensive immigration legislation faces an uncertain fate in the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives even as Senate supporters voiced optimism on Thursday for overwhelming backing in that chamber.
As the Democratic Party-controlled Senate ...
DALLAS (Reuters) - George W. Bush basked in warm praise from President Barack Obama and three fellow former U.S. presidents on Thursday as Bush's library was dedicated in a ceremony that emphasized his resolute response to terrorism while skirting controversies such as his decision to invade ...
WEST, Texas (Reuters) - When Dr George N. Smith saw a plume of smoke rise from a Texas fertilizer plant, he rushed to the nursing home where he worked to save the elderly residents.
He and others quickly moved 127 residents from the side facing the plant, which was less than a quarter mile away, ...
SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - U.S. border officers in California are seizing a large number of smuggled bladders from an endangered fish that are prized for use in Chinese soups, with seven people charged since February in connection with the trade, authorities said on Wednesday.
The bladders of the ...
MOBILE, Alabama (Reuters) - Fires sparked by explosions engulfed two gasoline barges in the Mobile River, injuring three workers who remained in critical condition on Thursday, authorities said.
The blasts on Wednesday night aboard the fuel barges off the shore of Mobile, Alabama, forced officials ...
KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Reuters) - A federal grand jury indicted a Catholic priest in St. Louis on Wednesday on child pornography charges involving Internet images of a boy under the age of 18, in the latest sex accusation to rock the Church.
William Vatterott, 36, was charged with possession of ...
Hiring freezes and other cost-cutting measures will allow the Justice Department to keep its prosecutors, and agents at the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, on the job.
That is in contrast with other parts of the government such as the Federal Aviation ...
SEATTLE (Reuters) - A thief with a soft-hearted streak, who inadvertently nabbed some cremated remains along with thousands of rare gems in a truck burglary in Washington state, has anonymously mailed back the ashes to their owner, police said on Wednesday.
The truck owner had been golfing in a ...
WACO, Texas (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will assume a familiar role consoling family and friends of disaster victims on Thursday when he speaks at a Texas memorial for firefighters killed in a massive explosion at a fertilizer plant.
Just a week after he traveled to Boston following the ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A judge has denied Deutsche Bank AG's bid to dismiss a lawsuit by the city of Los Angeles accusing it of letting hundreds of foreclosed properties fall into disrepair and illegally evicting low-income tenants, a representative for the city's attorney said on Wednesday.
Los ...
SEATTLE (Reuters) - Seattle police call it one of the boldest attempted drug thefts they have seen: A woman impersonating a nurse, apparently addicted to painkillers, crept through the hospital rooms of patients and tried to steal medication from their IV machines.
"It's pretty unusual, ...
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Los Angeles may boast some of the best weather among U.S. cities while scoring high in celebrity sightings, but the Southern California metropolis remains unable to shake off its more notorious No. 1 rankings for worst smog and heaviest traffic.
Los Angeles, the nation's ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The two bombs that went off at the Boston Marathon, killing three people and wounding 264, were detonated with the kind of remote device used to control a toy car, U.S. investigators told a House of Representatives panel on Wednesday.
"It was a remote control for toy ...
HOUSTON (Reuters) - Two former Houston police officers accused of using excessive force against a teenage burglary suspect in a high-profile incident pleaded no contest on Wednesday to official oppression, a misdemeanor, their attorneys and a special prosecutor said.
The 2010 case made national ...
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A convicted felon suspected in the kidnapping and rape of a 10- year-old California girl who was snatched from her bedroom last month was arrested early on Wednesday in Mexico and returned to Los Angeles, FBI officials said.
Tobias Dustin Summers, also a reputed member of a ...
Sandra Avila Beltran, 52, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to being an accessory after the fact to a drug trafficking organization once led by Juan Diego Espinosa Ramirez, an ex-boyfriend.
Espinosa, a Colombian who served as a link between Colombia's Norte del Valle drug cartel and Mexico's Sinaloa ...
The state House had approved a similar measure in January, but the bill will now go back to the House for a new vote because it was amended. Gordon Fox, the speaker of the House, said he will schedule that vote for May 2.
"Pending the final vote by the House of Representatives, Rhode Island ...
SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - A former Air Force training instructor was sentenced on Wednesday to six months in prison for his role in a military sex scandal that has led to changes in training practices.
Tech Sergeant Bobby Bass was also ordered reduced in rank one grade, to staff sergeant, and was ...
(Reuters) - General Electric Co discovered it was financing a small number of firearm purchases in the wake of the Newtown, Connecticut, school shootings - despite deciding five years ago to avoid the practice - and moved to stop future loans, the company said on Wednesday.
Many of the ...
"We spend months planning for the marathon. We did a tabletop exercise the week before that included a bombing scenario in it," Kurt Schwartz, the state's undersecretary for homeland security, told a panel at Harvard University.
Two bombs went off at the finish line of the race, one of ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force in Boston was alerted when one of the two brothers who later allegedly carried out the Boston Marathon bombings traveled to Russia, U.S. officials said on Wednesday in one of several disclosures that cast new light on the government's ...
FARGO, North Dakota (Reuters) - Flood-weary residents of North Dakota bracing for a possible record inundation got their first touch of good news on Wednesday when officials said the swollen Red River would crest at lower than anticipated levels next week.
Residents in Fargo and neighboring ...
ALBANY, New York (Reuters) - Attorneys for New York City and the state on Wednesday urged the New York Court of Appeals to uphold a state law expanding street hail taxi service and allowing the city to sell 2,000 new taxi medallions, a plan deemed to raise $1.4 billion.
The 2011 law, known as the ...
The state House had approved a similar measure in January, but the bill will now go back to the House for a new vote because it was amended. Gordon Fox, the speaker of the House, said in a statement that he will schedule that vote for May 2.
"Pending the final vote by the House of ...
Firefighters were quickly on the scene but too late to save the trapped children, including twin 1-year-old girls, Hartsville Public Information Officer Russell Cox told The Morning News in South Carolina.
The children's mother was in the home's yard when firefighters arrived, Darlington County ...
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Defense lawyers for a Philadelphia abortion doctor accused of killing babies in a clinic that mainly serves low-income women rested their case on Wednesday without calling any witnesses in the high-profile murder trial.
Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 72, is charged with killing four ...
Tobias Dustin Summers, also a reputed member of a white supremacist street gang in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles, was wanted on 37 criminal counts stemming from the March 27 kidnapping, the FBI said.
The girl was abducted from her home in the middle of the night, driven to various ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The National Football League will step up its efforts to fight discrimination based on sexual orientation, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said on Wednesday.
The action comes after at least three college football players said they had been asked about their sexual ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. Justice Department lawyer said on Wednesday that if a judge agreed to consider a Republican bid to get administration documents related to a botched operation against gun-trafficking it would prompt a flood of requests for courts to referee Washington political ...
(Reuters) - A body found floating in the Providence River by members of Brown University's men's rowing team is "quite possibly" a 22-year-old student missing since March 16, police said on Wednesday.
Providence police said the body they pulled from the river on Tuesday could be that of ...
Local governments receive only 5 percent of their revenue directly from the U.S. government, and school districts also only get a sliver of their funding from federal programs, Moody's said. On the whole, the rating agency expects local governments' revenue declines to be limited from ...
Richard Falk, U.N. special rapporteur for human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, wrote on his blog on Sunday that "the American global domination project is bound to generate all kinds of resistance in the post-colonial world."
U.S. officials say ethnic Chechen brothers, ...
By Dave Warner
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Defense lawyers for a Philadelphia abortion doctor accused of killing babies in a clinic that mainly serves low-income women rested their case on Wednesday without calling any witnesses in the high-profile murder trial.
JACKSON, Mississippi (Reuters) - Federal law enforcement agencies investigating ricin-laced letters sent to President Barack Obama and other officials broadened their search for clues on Wednesday by targeting the former business of a Mississippi martial arts instructor.
Members of an ...
(Reuters) - A federal judge said Wednesday the U.S. government can proceed with a lawsuit accusing Bank of New York Mellon Corp of overcharging clients for trading currencies, a case brought under a rarely-used financial fraud law.
While dismissing some of the fraud claims, U.S. District Judge ...
Same-sex marriage is legal in nine states and the District of Columbia, and besides Rhode Island, the issue is also under consideration in state legislatures in Minnesota, Illinois and Delaware.
In January, the Rhode Island state House voted in favor of the bill, but the measure has less support ...
Speaking on NBC's "Today" show in a segment originally filmed before the Boston Marathon bombings, President Barack Obama revealed the strategy he and First Lady Michelle Obama have been using to keep their daughters away from tattoos.
"What we've said to the girls is, 'If you guys ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Flight delays in the United States linked to the furlough of thousands of air traffic controllers have not been as bad as expected so far, the head of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration said on Wednesday.
FAA Administrator Michael Huerta told lawmakers the agency could ...
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Five people, including two small boys, were shot to death in their home early on Wednesday in Manchester, Illinois, before the suspect was killed in a shootout with police, state police said.
Illinois State Police also said that a 6-year-old girl was critically injured in the ...
The charter amendment on the budget was approved by 83 percent of voters in a Tuesday special election that drew a 10 percent turnout, the Board of Elections said that evening.
The amendment is part of the 68-square-mile (177-square-km) district's argument that it needs more self-government. ...
His new appointment will begin in August at CUNY's Macaulay Honors College.
Before joining the CIA, Petraeus was a four-star general who commanded U.S. forces during troop surges in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he is credited with helping to pull Iraq from the brink of all-out civil war.
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval on Tuesday defended his state against a report that a Las Vegas psychiatric hospital improperly sent hundreds of discharged patients by bus to California and other states, a practice known as patient dumping.
The Republican governor ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - When a bipartisan group of U.S. senators began writing legislation to overhaul the nation's immigration laws in January, many Republican leaders embraced the effort as a savvy strategy for fixing the party's tattered image with Hispanic voters.
But since the bill was rolled ...
SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) - Idaho officials on Tuesday dropped a requirement that transgender residents show proof of surgery to alter sex designation on their driver's licenses, bringing the state in line with policies in most other parts of the country.
The change, which comes after a complaint by ...
SALT LAKE CITY (Reuters) - A Mormon bishop armed with a Samurai sword came to the defense of his neighbor on Tuesday in a Salt Lake City suburb by helping to chase away a man who had accosted the woman, police said.
The 37-year-old suspect, Grant Eggertsen, later turned himself in to authorities ...
(Reuters) - The U.S. government filed court documents Tuesday laying out its case against cyclist Lance Armstrong, who is accused of defrauding the Postal Service by taking millions of dollars in sponsorship money while flouting professional cycling rules by doping.
The U.S. Department of Justice ...
LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (Reuters) - Arkansas's Democratic governor signed into law on Tuesday a plan to extend health insurance to more of the state's low-income residents in a move that could offer a model for other states wrestling with opposition to the federal government's Medicaid expansion ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The computer network on the U.S. Navy's newest class of coastal warships showed vulnerabilities in Navy cybersecurity tests, but the issues were not severe enough to prevent an eight-month deployment to Singapore, a Navy official said on Tuesday.
A Navy team of computer ...
The settlement, which allows both sides to avoid a trial, brings the Los Angeles Police Department nearer to closing what had been an embarrassing chapter in its search for Dorner. The department still is reviewing the actions of two officers.
Dorner, a former Los Angeles police officer accused of ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Henry "Hank" Morris, once chief political adviser to disgraced ex-New York State Comptroller Alan Hevesi, will be out of prison by June 3 after serving more than two years for his role in a "pay-to-play" scheme at the state pension fund.
A board granted ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal officials reported flight delays at U.S. airports for a third consecutive day on Tuesday, fueling a political blame game as Republicans and Democrats accused each other of causing the furloughs of thousands of air-traffic controllers.
On Capitol Hill and at the White ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An alleged al Qaeda-backed plot to derail a U.S. passenger train in Canada sought to exploit the vulnerabilities of railroads that have not gotten much attention from the American public.
While the United States has sharply tightened security around airlines since the ...
WEST, Texas (Reuters) - A rail car filled with extremely hazardous ammonium nitrate did not cause the fiery explosion at a Texas fertilizer plant, investigators said on Tuesday, in their first statement ruling out possible sources of the deadly blast six days ago.
Fourteen people died in the ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A former Washington schoolteacher on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list for child pornography was ordered detained after an initial appearance in a U.S. court on Tuesday following extradition from Nicaragua, officials said.
The man, Eric Justin Toth, 31, was arrested on Saturday ...
(Reuters) - The owner of a fertilizer plant that exploded last week killing 14 people and destroying dozens of homes and an apartment complex in a tiny Texas town is being sued by a single mom and by several insurance companies.
Two lawsuits, filed in McLennan County district court, have accused ...
RICHMOND, Virginia (Reuters) - Four men have been charged with hazing following the drowning of at least one Virginia State University student, who was swept to his death as he attempted to cross the Appomattox River as part of an initiation rite, police said on Tuesday.
A second student remained ...
TACOMA, Washington (Reuters) - Attorneys for a U.S. soldier accused of killing 16 Afghan civilians in two rampages from his Army post last year must advise military prosecutors next month if they plan to pursue a mental health defense, a judge ruled on Tuesday.
Prosecutors are seeking the death ...
(Reuters) - Barge shipping on the Illinois River and parts of the Mississippi River will remain impeded until at least early next week as the flood-swollen waterways slowly recede from record- or near-record-high crests, according to the U.S. Coast Guard and Army Corps of Engineers.
But the date ...
Still, the Defense Intelligence Agency said the FBI took samples and would conduct further tests. It described the investigation as "ongoing."
The United States is on edge following the Boston bombings last week and the discovery of letters laced with ricin addressed to President Barack ...
(Reuters) - A New Jersey principal's ban on strapless dresses at a junior high school dance because they would be "distracting" to boys has enraged parents, who called on Tuesday for its reversal on the grounds it violates their daughters' constitutional rights.
The dress code shreds the ...
In its summer assessment, the Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator (MISO), the grid operator, forecast it would have a 28.1 percent reserve margin, which is nearly double the grid's 14.2 percent requirement.
Reserve margin is the percent of excess power generation above expected peak ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Supreme Court justices on Tuesday wrestled with the sensitive issue of whether a thirsty Texas water district has the right to access water across the Oklahoma state line.
The case arose under the Red River Compact, an agreement between Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas and ...
The archdiocese sent a subpoena to President Barack Obama's administration in February asking for documents from White House staff, including Obama himself, for use in a church lawsuit against the contraception mandate.
Citing the burden involved and calling a subpoena of the president's office ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that a legal immigrant is not subject to mandatory deportation after being convicted of possessing a small amount of marijuana.
The court held on a 7-2 vote that Adrian Moncrieffe, a Jamaican citizen, could not be subject to mandatory ...
TUPELO, Mississippi (Reuters) - U.S. prosecutors dropped charges on Tuesday against a Mississippi man accused of sending ricin-laced letters to President Barack Obama, a U.S. senator and a state judge, according to court documents.
The surprise decision came hours after Paul Kevin Curtis was ...
PROVIDENCE, R.I./BOSTON (Reuters) - The wife of the dead Boston Marathon bombing suspect is assisting authorities and she is in absolute shock that her husband and brother-in-law were accused of the deadly blasts, her lawyer said on Tuesday.
The 19-year-old brother-in-law Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - As if Suffolk County, home of the Hamptons and playground of the rich and famous on New York's Long Island, didn't have enough financial problems already.
A regulatory filing on behalf of the county dated April 16 shows it accidentally missed an interest payment on some of its ...
(Reporting by Scott Malone; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick)
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A Pennsylvania judge dismissed three murder charges on Tuesday against a Philadelphia abortion doctor accused in a high-profile case of killing babies in what was described as a squalid clinic serving low-income women.
Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 72, still faces charges of killing ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A former Washington schoolteacher on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list for child pornography is scheduled to appear in a U.S. court on Tuesday after being extradited from Nicaragua, officials said.
The man, Eric Justin Toth, 31, was arrested on Saturday in Esteli, a city some ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that a legal immigrant is not subject to mandatory deportation after being convicted of possessing a small amount of marijuana.
The court held on a 7-2 vote that Adrian Moncrieffe, a Jamaican citizen, could not be subject to mandatory ...
LONDON (Reuters) - In the United States, two Chechen immigrants are accused of the Boston Marathon bombings. In Canada, a doctoral student at a Montreal university is one of two non-citizens accused this week of plotting to derail a passenger train.
The headlines in North America in the past week ...
(Reuters) - FedEx Corp launched a new service to let customers select from a range of options to schedule dates, locations and times of delivery, catching up to rival UPS, which offered its "UPS My Choice" service more than a year ago.
Residential shoppers, who are a growing part of the ...
WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - The top U.S. transportation safety agency is looking beyond what caused a Boeing Co Dreamliner battery to fail in January at larger lessons that can be applied to the airplane certification process and new technologies.
A two-day hearing at the National ...
Authorities have revised the number of injured several times over the past week as additional cases proved to be linked to the explosions on April 15. The latest count is higher than earlier estimates and reflects patients who may not have sought medical help at the scene but later checked in to ...
SEATTLE (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier charged with killing 16 civilians, most of them women and children, near his Army post in Afghanistan last year is set to appear at a pre-trial hearing on Tuesday, as lawyers prepare a defense based on his mental state.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty ...
WEST, Texas (Reuters) - When Texas farmer Donald Adair bought the floundering West Fertilizer Co in 2004, his neighbors in the rolling countryside near West were grateful he had saved them from driving extra miles to Waco or Hillsboro to buy fertilizer, feed and tools.
After the plant exploded ...
HOLLOMAN AIR FORCE BASE, New Mexico (Reuters) - The tide of war may be receding, as President Barack Obama is fond of saying, but U.S. military demand for unmanned drones and their remote pilots is growing.
Here in the New Mexico desert, the U.S. Air Force has ramped up training of drone operators ...
WEST, Texas (Reuters) - The only one of four schools in a Texas town to escape damage from a deadly fertilizer plant blast reopened on Monday with hugs for students and parents, as some residents expressed frustration they had not been allowed to return to damaged homes.
Fourteen people were ...
Dr. Kermit Gosnell's attorney, Jack McMahon, was sidelined with a chest ailment on Monday but was expected to begin calling witnesses on Tuesday as he mounts his defense, a court clerk said. Prosecutors rested their case on Thursday.
Gosnell is charged with eight counts of murder in the deaths of ...
The decision, announced in a letter to TSA employees after a week of heightened security tensions following the Boston Marathon bombings, was greeted with cautious relief by flight attendant unions, which have been waging a high-profile campaign to overturn the plan.
"The 90,000-member Flight ...
SEATTLE (Reuters) - Washington state's governor signed into law on Monday the final piece of a six-year effort to rewrite state laws using gender-neutral vocabulary, replacing terms such as "fisherman" and "freshman" with "fisher" and "first-year ...
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Two California men who pleaded guilty to hacking into the email account of a professional poker player and trying to extort him with naked pictures found there have been sentenced to prison terms, federal prosecutors said on Monday.
Prosecutors say Tyler Schrier, 23, and ...
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - San Francisco's city attorney said on Monday he has opened an investigation into recent newspaper reports that a Nevada mental hospital was illegally busing hundreds of newly discharged psychiatric patients to California and other states.
In a letter to the Nevada ...
Six alternate jurors were chosen on Tuesday following the selection a day earlier of a jury of six men and six women for what is expected to be an emotional three-month trial.
The conclusion of the month-long search for a jury set the stage for opening statements to begin in Los Angeles Superior ...
(Reuters) - Air travelers experienced delays at some U.S. airports on Monday as staff cuts at control towers took effect, but the widespread havoc and hour-long waits that regulators had predicted last week largely failed to materialize.
Instead, the U.S. air system operated as it would if only a ...
TALLAHASSEE (Reuters) - Public university students in Florida next year will be able to start working toward college degrees without actually going to college, under a law Governor Rick Scott signed on Monday in front of educators and business lobbyists.
The state-run University of Florida plans ...
(Reuters) - Commercial shipping traffic was moving again on the Mississippi River south of St. Louis after a pair of barge accidents that forced the U.S. Coast Guard to close the waterway over the weekend, but navigation remained severely impaired further north.
Flooding following torrential rains ...
CHARLESTON, South Carolina (Reuters) - Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch has a nine-point lead over former South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, her Republican opponent in the race for the state's open congressional seat, according to a poll released on Monday.
In the first independent poll taken ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A decision to charge the Boston Marathon bombing suspect in a civilian rather than a military court means he will face the same legal process as other federal criminal defendants in U.S. courts.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, was charged on Monday with using a weapon of mass ...
The suspect, former Washington schoolteacher Eric Justin Toth, was arrested on Saturday in Esteli, a city some 150 km (90 miles) north of Managua, said police chief Aminta Granera, adding that Toth had entered Nicaragua in February.
Granera said Toth had been caught with a fake U.S. passport, a ...
SEATTLE (Reuters) - A gunman suspected of slaying his girlfriend in a Seattle-area apartment they shared before killing a neighbor and two other men was himself shot to death by police officers called to the scene, authorities said on Monday.
The deadly burst of gun violence unfolded Sunday night ...
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit set a May 22 deadline for the two sides to file documents in the case, which pits the Airlines for America (A4A), the main U.S. airline industry group, against the FAA.
A4A filed suit on Friday asking the court to "vacate" ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama hopped on a mountain bike that was mounted on blocks and pedaled away, taking part in a science experiment on how to filter unsafe drinking water during an emergency.
The invention was the brainchild of Kiona Elliott, 18, and Payton Kaar, 16, two ...
(Reuters) - Nearly 800 students and teachers were evacuated from a suburban Utah elementary school on Monday after a custodian found a pipe bomb on the roof, a school official said.
No one was injured and police detonated the bomb using a high-pressure water cannon at Mountain View Elementary ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Supreme Court justices appeared divided on Monday as they considered a challenge to a law requiring non-profit organizations to adopt an anti-prostitution policy in order to obtain federal funding for HIV/AIDS programs abroad.
Several justices voiced concerns that the law ...
The delays "will change throughout the day depending on staffing and weather," the agency said in a statement.
"Staffing challenges" exist at facilities controlling airports in New York, Los Angeles, Dallas-Fort Worth and Jacksonville, Florida, the agency said. Because of ...
TORONTO (Reuters) - Canadian police have arrested two men and charged them with plotting to derail a Toronto-area passenger train in an operation that they say was backed by al Qaeda elements in Iran.
"Had this plot been carried out, it would have resulted in innocent people being killed or ...
MIAMI (Reuters) - The U.S. military is sending additional medical personnel to the Guantanamo prison camp, where more than half the captives have joined a hunger strike to protest their open-ended detention, a camp spokesman said on Monday.
Reinforcements numbering fewer than 40 will arrive by the ...
(Reuters) - Barge shipping on the Illinois River and parts of the Mississippi River was at a standstill on Monday as flooding forced the closure of numerous locks and crews worked to recover dozens of barges that broke free in flood-swollen currents.
The U.S. Coast Guard will close a section of ...
WEST, Texas (Reuters) - The only one of four schools in a Texas town to escape damage from a deadly fertilizer plant blast reopened on Monday with hugs for students and parents, as some residents expressed frustration they had not been allowed to return to damaged homes.
Fourteen people were ...
All totaled, the industry trade group said, Sandy will end up having generated $18.8 billion in claims, making it the third-costliest storm in U.S. history. Only the hurricanes Katrina and Andrew caused more damage, when adjusted for inflation to 2012 dollars.
In the early days after the storm, ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York City took the first step on Monday in outlawing sales of cigarettes to anyone under age 21, in an effort to reduce smoking among the age group in which most smokers take up the habit.
The bill, which was introduced by the City Council and has the backing of Mayor ...
BEIJING (Reuters) - The United States' top military officer on Monday defended the re-orientation of U.S. foreign policy towards Asia in front of his Chinese counterpart, a week after Beijing criticized Washington for ramping up its military presence in the region.
China is uneasy with what the ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a tobacco industry challenge to a federal law that expanded restrictions on the advertising and marketing of cigarettes.
The provisions of the 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act under attack included one ...
SEATTLE (Reuters) - Five people were shot dead, at least one by police, during a Sunday night gunfight at an apartment complex about 20 miles south of Seattle, a police official said.
Police officers responding to an emergency call at roughly 9:30 p.m. heard gunshots when they arrived at a ...
TACOMA, Washington (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier pleaded guilty on Monday to murder for shooting dead five fellow servicemen at a military counseling center in Iraq, a plea made in a deal with military prosecutors to avoid the death penalty.
U.S. Army Sergeant John Russell was accused of killing two ...
(Reuters) - A film installation celebrating the words of Nelson Mandela, the former South African president, is taking over many of the electronic billboards of New York's Times Square for a few minutes every night for the month of April.
The short film was commissioned by the Tribeca Film ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - As the clock ticks down to the start of a U.S. healthcare overhaul, companies from device makers to hospital chains have been surprised to see Americans make even fewer trips to the doctor's office.
Use of non-emergency medical services has been weak for several years in the ...
There could be a potential release of carbon dioxide and a mixture of gases, the filing said.
The company is the U.S. refining subsidiary of Venezuela's national oil firm Petroleos de Venezuela S.A.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Travelers waited more than an hour for flights in New York and experienced delays at other U.S. airports on Sunday evening as furloughs of air traffic controllers began, reducing the ability of busy hubs to handle arrivals and departures, the Federal Aviation Administration ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Travelers waited more than an hour for flights in New York and experienced delays at other U.S. airports on Sunday evening as furloughs of air traffic controllers began, reducing the ability of busy hubs to handle arrivals and departures, the Federal Aviation Administration ...
The package was found shortly after 4 p.m. EDT (2000 GMT) in the baggage room area of Concourse B in Terminal 4, said Chris Valens, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
After about 90 minutes, the terminal was re-opened.
The 68-year-old sportscaster was pulled over on Michigan Avenue in Santa Monica after two officers saw him make an illegal U-turn, Santa Monica Police Sergeant Rich Lewis told Reuters.
The officers administered a sobriety test after they observed that Michaels smelled of alcohol and had slurred ...
WEST, Texas (Reuters) - Texas officials released the names of four volunteer firefighters on Sunday killed in a deadly blast in this close-knit Texas town, as authorities identified the center but not the cause of last week's deadly fertilizer plant blast.
Among the dead named at a news conference ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The fertilizer plant that exploded on Wednesday, obliterating part of a small Texas town and killing at least 14 people, had last year been storing 1,350 times the amount of ammonium nitrate that would normally trigger safety oversight by the U.S. Department of Homeland ...
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, was in "very serious" condition at a Boston hospital after being captured Friday night, Menino told ABC's "This Week" program.
"And we don't know if we'll ever be able to question the individual," he said without elaborating.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation still on Sunday had been unable to interview the suspect, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, who was injured on Friday while on the run from police, Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis told CBS-TV's "Face the Nation" program.
U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz, the ...
MAKHACHKALA, Russia (Reuters) - If Tamerlan Tsarnaev was already plotting the Boston Marathon bombings when he stayed in this bustling Russian city at the heart of an Islamist insurgency last year, neighbors say he hid it well.
The ethnic Chechen killed in a shootout with U.S. police last week ...
MOSCOW (Reuters) - A group leading an Islamist insurgency against Russia said on Sunday it was not at war with the United States, distancing itself from last week's Boston Marathon bombing.
Ethnic Chechen Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, who was killed in a gunfight with police following a manhunt that shut ...
"Tragically, Officer Collier from the MIT police was murdered by these individuals as they started their rampage," Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis said on "Fox News Sunday."
Sean Collier, 26, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus police, was fatally shot ...
NASHVILLE (Reuters) - The bassist for rock band 3 Doors Down has been charged with vehicular homicide by intoxication after he was involved in a crash that killed another driver, Nashville police said on Saturday.
The musician, Todd Harrell, 41, of Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, was driving his Cadillac ...
Abdella Ahmad Tounisi of Aurora, Illinois, was taken into custody late on Friday as he prepared to board a plane at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport bound for Turkey, the FBI said in a statement.
It added that Tounisi was a friend of Adel Daoud, an American accused of trying to stage a ...
Clear Creek County Sheriff Don Krueger told Reuters that the snowboarders apparently triggered the avalanche at the 11,990-foot (3,651-meter) pass about 75 miles west of Denver.
The avalanche occurred at about 1 p.m. just above the Loveland Ski Area, he said. The bodies are being recovered.
One person was shot in the leg and another was "also down with unknown injuries," Denver police said on their Twitter page. Police said it occurred at Civic Center Park, which was the site of a large marijuana rally.
(Reporting by Keith Coffman; Writing by Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by ...
DENVER (Reuters) - Two people were shot and wounded at a pro-marijuana rally on Saturday, disrupting the first celebration of a symbolic drug culture holiday since Colorado voters legalized the recreational use of pot.
A man and a woman were each shot in the leg, but those wounds were not ...
Petty Officer Richard Brahm said the Coast Guard received a distress signal from the 50-foot (15-metre) fishing boat at about 3:30 a.m. CDT Friday.
A Coast Guard jet dispatched to the area spotted a man waving his arms aboard an orange raft. The man, who was rescued by helicopter, reported that ...
(Reuters) - Make no mistake: the Czech Republic is not Chechnya. That's a distinction the Czech ambassador to the United States wants to make crystal clear after news emerged that the two suspects in Boston Marathon bombing had Chechen origins.
"The Czech Republic and Chechnya are two very ...
TOKMOK, Kyrgyzstan (Reuters) - One trail in the search for clues about why two ethnic Chechen brothers may have carried out the Boston Marathon bombings leads to a sleepy town in Kyrgyzstan where former neighbors recall a quiet family that was never in trouble.
Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev are ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The fertilizer plant that exploded on Wednesday, obliterating part of a small Texas town and killing at least 14 people, had last year been storing 1,350 times the amount of ammonium nitrate that would normally trigger safety oversight by the U.S. Department of Homeland ...
(Reuters) - They dressed like typical American teenagers, enjoyed playing sports and strived to fit in after arriving in the United States with their family from the southern Russian province of Dagestan a decade ago.
The schoolmates, teachers and neighbors of Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev said ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As lawmakers gathered in the U.S. Senate on Wednesday to vote on a plan to expand background checks for gun buyers, staffers in the office of Alaska Democratic Senator Mark Begich fielded a steady stream of calls urging him to break with his party and vote against the ...
Neuharth died after sustaining injuries in a fall at his home in Cocoa Beach, Florida, USA Today said.
He founded USA Today in 1982, shaking up the newspaper industry by introducing a color newspaper that emphasized shorter stories, graphics, expanded sports and entertainment coverage.
(Reuters) - As Boston shut down during a day-long manhunt for a suspect in the marathon bombing that culminated on Friday, another cost was added to the human and emotional toll: lost business.
From the postponed baseball game at the Red Sox' beloved Fenway Park to canceled classes at Harvard ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Top industry groups and a dozen states have asked the Supreme Court to review a lower court decision upholding the Obama administration's plan to limit greenhouse gas emissions generated by power plants and vehicles.
The parties, which had until Friday to submit petitions to ...
DETROIT (Reuters) - Detroit's emergency manager indicated for the first time that he may end collective bargaining with city employees as part of his effort to shore up the city's sagging finances.
Kevyn Orr, a former bankruptcy lawyer, alerted state labor officials on Thursday that he has no ...
(Reuters) - Barge shipping was halted on Friday on parts of the Illinois and Mississippi rivers as flooding forced the closure of several locks until at least the middle of next week, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said.
The closures come three months after near-record-low water along the ...
WACO, Texas (Reuters) - Clive Doyle is still a staunch Branch Davidian loyal to the teachings of David Koresh, whose tiny church outside Waco, Texas, was destroyed in a deadly inferno at the end of a standoff with federal agents 20 years ago.
Doyle was one of the lucky followers of Koresh who ...
HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania (Reuters) - The first simulated test of a terrorist attack on a nuclear power plant was a success, federal officials said on Friday of the event that was coincidentally scheduled a day after the Boston Marathon bombing on Monday.
The test's location at Three Mile Island ...
MOBILE, Alabama (Reuters) - Accused jihadist Randy "Rasheed" Wilson pleaded guilty on Friday in U.S. District Court to conspiracy to travel to Africa with another man to support efforts to "maim, murder and kidnap" in the name of Islam.
Clad in a beige prison jumpsuit with his ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An already contentious immigration bill became the lightning rod for more controversy on Friday when a senior Republican senator linked the measure to the Boston Marathon bombings and the hunt for the two ethnic Chechen suspects.
"Given the events of this week, it is ...
CHICAGO (Reuters) - An Indiana man is missing and another is dead after their vehicles were overtaken by flood waters north of Indianapolis, police said Saturday, as high water caused by heavy rains continues to plague the Midwest.
Torrential rains over the last few days have led to flooding in ...
SEATTLE (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier accused of shooting dead five fellow servicemen at a military counseling center in Iraq has struck a plea deal with Army prosecutors that would spare him from facing the death penalty, his lawyer said on Friday.
Army Sergeant John Russell is accused of going on a ...
DAKAR (Reuters) - A U.S. drugs sting targeting Guinea-Bissau's top military brass may freeze cocaine smuggling through the tiny West African state in the short term but could jeopardize efforts to restore order after a 2012 coup.
The U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday accused Armed Forces ...
In a commentary, Moody's said graduate school enrollments for the coming autumn term increased by just 1 percent, or the smallest increase in 11 years, according to data from the Council of Graduate Schools.
Private universities took the biggest blow, with applications from typically higher-paying ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Superstorm Sandy shifted the sands of the New Jersey shore's summer rental landscape, where some resort towns are suffering lasting effects of the barrage and others are, as they say, cleaning up.
Summer rentals are a backbone of the tourist season along the 127-mile stretch ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama, moving swiftly after the Senate rejected a measure to expand background checks for gun buyers, acted on Friday to patch holes in the existing database dealers use to ensure they are not selling weapons to criminals or the mentally ill.
The Health and ...
(Reuters) - The streets of Boston's financial district, usually bustling, were empty on Friday as a virtual lockdown for a police manhunt disrupted the largest center for U.S. mutual funds and affected trading across markets.
Much of the city's financial community worked from home on Friday after ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Boy Scouts of America on Friday proposed lifting a ban on gay scouts but maintaining a prohibition on gay adults from leading troops, a compromise that attempts to end a bitter split in the century-old American institution.
Reaction from scouting supporters ranged from ...
"Despite the near-term pressure, in the long run the increased contributions are likely to benefit both local governments and the State of California," the Wall Street credit-ratings group said in a commentary released on Friday.
California is rated A1, with a stable outlook, Moody's ...
The Japanese automaker said in the United States it is recalling about 128,000 Honda CR-V SUVs and 59,000 Honda Odyssey minivans from the 2012 and 2013 model years, and 17,500 Acura RDX SUVs from the 2013 model year to replace a part of the brake shift interlock system.
In Canada, the recall ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The government's effort at cutting spending across the board is hurting a population once considered among the most financially stable - dual income families where both partners are government employees.
Starting on Monday, employees at agencies such as the Federal Aviation ...
BOSTON (Reuters) - The surviving suspect in last week's Boston Marathon bombing was moved to a prison medical center outside Boston on Friday, while the body of his older brother who died in a shootout with police remained unclaimed, officials said.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a 19-year-old ethnic Chechen ...
SEATTLE (Reuters) - A Washington state florist who refused to sell flowers to a gay couple for their wedding has been sued by the American Civil Liberties Union, in the second legal action accusing the vendor of discrimination.
Florist Barronelle Stutzman already faced a consumer protection ...
HOUSTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Despite being located within a short walk of a nursing home, school and residential buildings, West Fertilizer Co in central Texas had no blast walls and had filed no contingency plan to the Environmental Protection Agency for a major explosion or fire at the site.
It ...
WATERTOWN, Massachusetts (Reuters) - Police killed one suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing during a shootout and were engaged in a house-to-house search for a second man on Friday in the Boston suburb of Watertown after a bloody night of shooting and explosions in the city's ...
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - California's proposed bullet train cleared a key legal hurdle on Thursday, as farmers in the state's major agricultural region removed their opposition as part of a legal settlement.
The high-speed rail line, a major priority of Democratic Governor Jerry Brown, would send ...
HELENA, Montana (Reuters) - Montana's governor on Thursday signed into law a bill that formally decriminalizes homosexual sex, a move gay rights activists in the state called a watershed moment in their battle for equality.
The measure removed from the books a law classifying gay sex as a felony. ...
In her memoir, excerpts of which were obtained by ABC Television News and released on Thursday, Knox said she "imagined myself a corpse" while in prison and began considering killing herself if her sentence was increased to life in prison from her initial 26-year sentence.
"I ...
Los Angeles Police Department spokesman Commander Andrew Smith said the college made the decision to close the campus of California State University, Los Angeles, and evacuate staff and students.
"The CSULA campus is closed as of noon, April 18, as a precaution. Those on campus should ...
The Postal Service, which is losing millions of dollars everyday as more Americans communicate by email and the Internet, has said it could require a $47 billion taxpayer bailout by 2017 if Congress doesn't permit cuts.
At a hearing on Wednesday before the House Committee on Oversight and ...
Two bomb-sniffing dogs found the parcel during a routine security check, said a spokeswoman for the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office. Explosives experts investigated the package before saying it was harmless.
As a precaution, the sheriff's office evacuated the terminal building being used by ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Flight delays of up to 3-1/2 hours are expected at some busy U.S. airports this summer because of furloughs of air-traffic controllers, the top U.S. aviation regulator warned on Thursday.
The estimate from the Federal Aviation Administration is the first to detail, in ...
The two men are seen on videotapes and the FBI said that suspect No. 1 is wearing a dark hat while suspect No. 2 has a white hat. The second suspect was seen planting the bag that eventually exploded, the FBI said at news conference in Boston.
(Reporting By Svea Herbst-Bayliss)
(Reuters) - The Internal Revenue Service has rejected a reward claim made by a whistleblower, former banker Joseph Insinga, who had sued the agency in a closely watched case.
In a letter dated April 15, the IRS told Insinga that he was not entitled to a reward. A copy of the letter was provided to ...
BOSTON (Reuters) - Several gold-colored medals strung on yellow-and-blue ribbons for runners of Monday's Boston Marathon were being offered for sale on eBay on Thursday, listings the manufacturer described as "disgusting" because of the twin bombings at the finish line.
Dan Ashworth, ...
(Reuters) - New York utility regulators approved the construction of three power transmission lines needed to keep the state's electric system reliable in case the giant Indian Point nuclear power plant shuts at the end of 2015.
There is no certainty that Indian Point will close.
The estimate from the Federal Aviation Administration puts in sharper focus the potential impact of the agency's decision to furlough 10 percent of its staff starting Sunday as it struggles to meet budget cuts required under so-called sequestration.
The average delay would be much shorter than the ...
OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) - Blood tests conducted on patients treated at an Oklahoma oral surgery practice that has been closed over health concerns show that 57 have hepatitis C, three have hepatitis B and as many as three have HIV, the virus than can lead to AIDS, officials said on ...
(Reuters) - A U.S. Supreme Court decision to limit the sweep of a 1789 law used to fight human rights abuses worldwide left a window slightly ajar for victims to sue companies, especially U.S. companies, accused of aiding such abuses.
"A majority of these cases are against U.S. companies, and ...
Los Angeles Police Department spokesman Commander Andrew Smith said the college made the decision to close the campus of California State University, Los Angeles, and evacuate staff and students.
"The CSULA campus is closed as of noon, April 18, as a precaution. Those on campus should ...
(Reuters) - The New York Public Service Commission on Thursday approved a plan to build the Champlain Hudson transmission line, which will be capable of moving 1,000 megawatts of hydropower from Québec to New York City.
The project will create an average of more than 300 jobs during the ...
OMAHA, Nebraska (Reuters) - U.S. construction workers, environmentalists and company executives squared off on Thursday at a raucous meeting on the Keystone XL oil pipeline, but it was unclear the gathering changed any minds on the controversial project.
U.S. State Department officials hosting the ...
CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - Canada is playing up its record as a reliable oil supplier to the United States compared to politically volatile Venezuela, as it seeks to win favor in Washington for the contentious Keystone XL pipeline to Texas refineries.
Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver said ...
(Reuters) - A former Texas court official who lost his law license after a theft conviction last year has been charged with capital murder in the killings of the two attorneys that prosecuted his case and one of the men's wives, authorities said Thursday.
Eric Williams, a former justice of the ...
Seven contract workers remain in a hospital in Galveston, Texas, for treatment of their injuries, said a spokeswoman for the University of Texas Medical Branch. Four of the men are being treated for burns suffered in the fire.
Five other contractors injured in the blaze were treated at area ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The House of Representatives passed legislation on Thursday designed to help companies and the government share information on cyber threats, though concerns linger about the amount of protection the bill offers for private information.
This is the second go-around for the ...
(Reuters) - The New York Public Service Commission on Thursday approved a plan to build the Champlain Hudson transmission line, which would be capable of moving 1,000 megawatts of hydropower from Quebec to New York City.
Privately held Transmission Developers Inc, whose lead investor is Blackstone ...
DAKAR (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Justice has accused Guinea-Bissau's top military official of plotting to traffic cocaine to the United States and sell weapons to Colombian rebels, according to court documents seen by Reuters on Thursday.
The accusation against General Antonio Indjai - ...
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Heavy rains and flooding brought havoc to the Chicago area on Thursday, shutting major expressways, delaying commuter trains for hours, cancelling flights, flooding basements and closing dozens of suburban schools.
The National Weather Service has issued flash flood warnings ...
The parcel was found by two bomb-sniffing dogs during a routine security check, said a spokeswoman for the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office. Experts on explosives were investigating the package.
As a precaution, the sheriff's office evacuated the terminal building being used by Royal Caribbean ...
(Reuters) - Seven Mississippi River locks between Muscatine, Iowa, and Saverton, Missouri, were expected to close beginning on Friday as the rain-swollen waterway rises above flood stage, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said on Thursday.
The closures of Locks 16 through 22 will effectively shut ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Younger Americans are increasingly struggling with the burden of student loan debt, and appear to be retreating from homeownership and car debt, according to a recently released study.
Historically the median age of first home purchases has been about 30 years old, and ...
Security screeners saw the item shortly after 5 a.m. and called the Miami-Dade Police bomb squad, which determined that the business-card-sized lighter was not an explosive, Detective Alvaro Zabaleta said.
The surrounding area was evacuated and three security checkpoints on Concourse D were closed ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration asked Congress for more money on Thursday to improve food safety, police imports and develop countermeasures against chemical and biological threats.
FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg told a Senate appropriations subcommittee ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama is preparing to name a new regulator to oversee mortgage financiers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and economist Mark Zandi is a leading choice among the candidates, according to people familiar with the process.
Zandi would consider the post if offered ...
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A California couple who said their teenage daughter killed herself after classmates shared a photo of her being sexually assaulted filed a legal claim against school officials, who denied the girl ever reported being bullied.
Saying school administrators mishandled their ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - In the end, nothing could persuade enough U.S. senators to approve the most significant gun legislation in two decades:
Not the carnage from Newtown, Connecticut, where 20 children and six adults were massacred by a gunman in December, igniting a national debate on gun control.
KAUFMAN, Texas (Reuters) - The wife of a former Texas justice of the peace confessed to her involvement with the fatal shootings of a district attorney, his wife and another prosecutor and fingered her husband as the triggerman, an arrest warrant released on Wednesday showed.
The two slain ...
WEST, Texas (Reuters) - Officials began allowing some residents to return to their homes on Saturday for their first look at the damage three days after a deadly blast at a Texas fertilizer plant flattened sections of a small town.
JoAnn Nors, 70, worried about her cat, Princess, who had gone ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York judge has dismissed a civil lawsuit against the coach of the champion University of Connecticut women's basketball team brought by a security official who accused him of grabbing her and trying to kiss her.
The official, Kelley Hardwick of New York, works for the ...
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Ten states have threatened to sue the Environmental Protection Agency, which missed an April 13 deadline to finalize rules on new power plant emissions, unless it issues guidelines promptly.
New York state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman issued a statement on Wednesday ...
DENVER (Reuters) - A federal judge refused on Wednesday to dismiss wrongful death and personal injury claims brought against a movie theater chain on behalf of victims of last summer's mass shooting at a suburban Denver screening of the Batman film "The Dark Knight Rises."
U.S. District ...
The airline also said it halted 81 flights on Wednesday to reposition crews and planes after the outage. The carrier had a total of more than 300 flight cancellations for the day, most of them tied to bad weather in the Chicago area.
At Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW), American's ...
Curtis is "believed to be responsible for the mailings of the three letters sent through the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, which contained a granular substance that preliminarily tested positive for ricin," the FBI said.
The letters were addressed to a U.S. senator, the White House and ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Most Americans see the biggest threat to public safety coming from random acts of violence committed by other Americans, rather than foreign terrorism, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll taken in the two days since the Boston Marathon bombing.
The poll suggested that Americans ...
The delay comes as officials grapple with how to regulate pot months after Washington and Colorado became the first U.S. states to legalize the drug for adult recreational use in landmark twin votes in November.
The move by the two states to allow recreational marijuana puts them on a potential ...
It ended only three days before the three-year anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, which killed 11 people and caused the worst U.S. offshore spill.
District Judge Carl Barbier said he would allow 60 days for the filing of briefs, and then 20 more days for reply briefs, as the parties ...
By Laila Kearney
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A California teen's parents who said she killed herself after classmates passed around a photo of her being sexually assaulted have filed a legal claim against school administrators, accusing them of mishandling their daughter's bullying complaints.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The eight senators who crafted comprehensive legislation to overhaul the immigration system went to great lengths to balance the competing priorities of dozens of interest groups in an 844-page bill introduced on Wednesday in hopes it would improve the chances for passage of ...
CHICAGO (Reuters) - The Illinois House of Representatives voted narrowly on Wednesday to legalize the use of marijuana for medical purposes, bringing the state a step closer to becoming the 21st in the United States to allow some form of pot use to treat illness.
The chamber voted 61 to 57 in ...
BOSTON (Reuters) - Victims of the Boston Marathon bombings will eventually win some kind of compensation, but it is far too early to know how much money there will be, whether private donors or insurers will provide most of it, and how long it might take to distribute.
Late on Tuesday, state and ...
The airline also said it halted about 100 flights on Wednesday to reposition crews and planes, and because of bad weather in the Chicago area.
At Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW), American's biggest hub, the carrier canceled 37 fights for Wednesday but was operating on schedule, ...
A security officer walked out of the courthouse and waved a green flag, signaling that employees could return.
A court official who declined to be identified confirmed by phone that the courthouse was reopened, but only to employees.
CHARLESTON, South Carolina (Reuters) - The National Republican Congressional Committee on Wednesday ended its role in Mark Sanford's campaign to regain his old seat in Congress, after revelations that the former South Carolina governor had been accused by his ex-wife of trespassing at her ...
MIAMI (Reuters) - Guantanamo war crimes prosecutions of five prisoners charged with plotting the September 11 hijacked planes attacks will be delayed by two months because of lost files caused by Pentagon computer problems, U.S. military officials said on Wednesday.
A weeklong pretrial hearing had ...
The fire was at a shut hydrotreater heat exchanger, according to sources familiar with operations at the refinery.
Exxon did not identify the unit but confirmed the fire broke out at 10:30 a.m. CDT (11.30 a.m. EDT) on a shut unit undergoing planned maintenance work at the refinery. The blaze was ...
(Reuters) - Federal prosecutors filed criminal charges on Thursday against a Mississippi man, who worked as an Elvis impersonator, for threatening to harm President Barack Obama by sending him a letter that initially tested positive for the deadly poison ricin.
Paul Kevin Curtis, 45, was believed ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In a closely watched ruling that left many questions unanswered, the Supreme Court said on Wednesday that federal courts do not have jurisdiction to hear lawsuits against foreign corporations accused of aiding in human rights abuses abroad.
In one of its biggest human rights ...
DAKAR (Reuters) - U.S. anti-drugs agents who snared Guinea-Bissau's former Navy chief in a high-seas sting last week were also targeting the head of the West African state's army, sources familiar with the operation told Reuters.
Guinea-Bissau General Antonio Indjai - widely seen as the coup-prone ...
LITTLETON, New Hampshire (Reuters) - A New Hampshire state representative apologized on Wednesday for using "vagina" as a synonym for "woman" in a mass email to lawmakers as part of a gun-law debate.
Representative Peter Hansen was responding to fellow Republican Representative ...
City Hall and surrounding buildings were evacuated while police inspected a U-Haul van parked outside the government buildings. Police said the van had been stolen and that it was reported as unattended by a nervous citizen.
The incident happened just two days before the anniversary of the April ...
WASHINGTON - (Reuters) - Republican Senator Rand Paul, a favorite of the conservative Tea Party movement, fueled speculation on Wednesday that he will follow in his father's footsteps and run for president in 2016.
Paul, a freshman senator from Kentucky, told reporters he will visit early voting ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court on Wednesday limited the ability of police to take involuntary blood samples from suspected drunken drivers without a search warrant.
The court voted 8-1 on the general point that police cannot always take blood samples without a warrant. But the justices ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A letter addressed to President Barack Obama contained a substance that preliminarily tested positive for the deadly poison ricin, authorities said on Wednesday.
News that the letter to Obama was being investigated came as a flurry of other reports of suspicious letters and ...
In one of its biggest human rights cases in years, the justices ruled unanimously that a court in New York could not hear claims made by 12 Nigerians who accused Anglo-Dutch oil company Royal Dutch Shell Plc of complicity in a violent crackdown on protesters from 1992 to 1995.
(Reporting by ...
KAUFMAN, Texas (Reuters) - The wife of a former Texas justice of the peace confessed to her involvement in shooting deaths of the local district attorney, his wife and a prosecutor who had helped to convict her husband for stealing computer monitors, the Kaufman County Sheriff's Office said on ...
A government official, who declined to be identified, made the pictures available to Reuters.
It was not immediately clear what fresh light the photographs shed on the attack. The official said they were taken by Boston's Joint Terrorism Task Force at the scene where two bombs killed three people ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Democrat Anthony Weiner, who resigned from Congress in disgrace two years ago, is weighing a bid for New York mayor, but a poll released on Tuesday suggests his political comeback would be an uphill battle.
Only 40 percent of city voters say they would consider voting for him, ...
The changes proposed by actuarial staff of the California Public Employees' Retirement System, known as Calpers, include reduced periods for so-called smoothing and amortization of assets aimed at getting the pension system fully funded in 30 years.
If the Calpers board approves the accounting ...
PHOENIX (Reuters) - Arizona lawmakers, stepping into the contentious national gun control debate, approved a controversial measure on Tuesday mandating that cities and counties resell firearms turned in during gun buyback programs rather than melt them down.
The Republican-controlled Arizona state ...
OXNARD, California (Reuters) - California farm worker Antonia Espinoza would likely be throwing in the towel and heading back to her native Mexico to see her children, if not for the work of eight U.S. senators in Washington.
The bipartisan group of senators unveiled on Tuesday their proposal for ...
FORT HOOD, Texas (Reuters) - A military judge ruled on Tuesday that a terrorism expert may testify in the trial of the accused Fort Hood gunman, Army psychiatrist Nidal Hasan, but he will not be allowed to weigh in on whether Hasan is a terrorist.
The testimony of Evan Kohlmann, who has taken the ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Federal authorities have charged a prominent New York art dealer and one of Russia's top reputed mobsters with operating high-stakes gambling rings in New York and Los Angeles that catered to billionaires, bank executives, movie stars and professional athletes.
Among 34 people ...
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A Silicon Valley power substation was damaged after rifle shots were fired at it early on Tuesday morning, leading the California grid operator to call for electricity conservation.
Electricity in the tech capital has not been interrupted so far, as residents and ...
NACO, Arizona (Reuters) - A Senate immigration plan seeking billions of dollars to secure the porous Mexico border sparked some skepticism in southern Arizona, where wary residents of the border area said previous efforts to ramp up enforcement had failed to stop illegal crossings.
"They ...
AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - A Texas man convicted of shooting a 17-year-old outside a nightclub in 2001 was executed on Tuesday, the third person put to death by lethal injection in the state this year.
Ronnie Threadgill ran up and shot Dexter McDonald as he sat in the back seat of a car after ...
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - The daughter of a woman who died after an abortion at a Philadelphia clinic testified on Tuesday at the murder trial of the clinic's owner about the final hours of her mother's life.
Karnamaya Mongar, 41, died on November 20, 2009, after undergoing the procedure at the ...
(Reuters) - An Illinois jury on Tuesday found in favor of Johnson & Johnson's DePuy orthopedics unit in a second product liability trial of nearly 11,000 lawsuits over the company's recalled ASR metal hip implant.
The outcome contrasts with an earlier separate trial in which a Los Angeles jury ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Authorities on Tuesday intercepted a letter sent to Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker that preliminary tests showed contained the deadly poison ricin, and the Capitol police, FBI and other agencies have launched an investigation.
The letter has been sent for further analysis ...
BOSTON (Reuters) - Shaken but determined, Bostonians struggled to get back to their workday routines on Tuesday, the day after a twin bombing wreaked havoc during the city's world-famous marathon and led to the closure of a wide area of Boston's city center.
The explosions, which killed three ...
By Svea Herbst-Bayliss
BOSTON (Reuters) - Doctors attending to long-distance runners usually see overheating and dehydration, but on Monday after the bombings on the Boston Marathon finish line the injuries were so gruesome that some had no choice but to amputate once healthy legs.
BOSTON (Reuters) - Neighbors gathered around a chalk rainbow on a sidewalk outside 8-year-old Martin Richard's home while friends of Krystle Campbell, 29, posted notes on Facebook, all grieving on Tuesday for two of the people killed in Monday's bombing at the Boston Marathon.
The third fatality ...
FBI Special Agent in Charge Richard DesLauriers said investigators also had recovered fragments of BBs and nails from the scene of Monday's back-to-back explosions, which killed three people and wounded more than 170 others. The devices may have been constructed from pressure cookers, he ...
FORT HOOD, Texas (Reuters) - A military judge ruled on Tuesday that a terrorism expert may testify in the trial of the accused Fort Hood gunman, Army psychiatrist Nidal Hasan, but he will not be allowed to weigh in on whether Hasan is a terrorist.
The testimony of Evan Kohlmann, who has taken the ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Federal authorities have charged a prominent New York art dealer and one of Russia's top reputed mobsters with operating high-stakes gambling rings in New York and Los Angeles that catered to billionaires, bank executives, movie stars and professional athletes.
Among 34 people ...
About 2 dozen protesters opposed to Michigan Governor Rick Snyder's appointment last month of an emergency manager to run Detroit linked arms and sang protest songs, forcing Council President Charles Pugh to call for a recess that lasted 90 minutes.
The council reconvened after about a dozen ...
Mayor Michael McGlynn said he had confirmed the death with Campbell's father, William Campbell.
"Mr. Campbell said that she certainly was a dream daughter, the daughter that every father dreams to have and friends of hers said that she was eager about life. She Had a great sense of humor and ...
TALLAHASSEE, Florida (Reuters) - The Florida Senate voted unanimously on Tuesday to ban texting while driving, sending the proposal to likely passage in the House of Representatives.
"It's become an epidemic," said Senator Nancy Detert, a Republican who has been trying for five years to ...
Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jonathan Greenert said budget requests required under sequestration had cut about $6.1 billion, or 8 percent, from the Navy's investment programs in fiscal year 2013, which ends September 30.
He said those cuts would likely result in reductions in the numbers of ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Supreme Court justices appeared conflicted on Tuesday as they debated the delicate question of whether an American Indian father could take custody of his child from a couple who legally adopted her.
The nine-member court has to determine whether the Indian Child Welfare ...
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A Silicon Valley power substation was damaged after shots were fired at it early on Tuesday morning, leading the California grid operator to call for electricity conservation in the face of what appeared to be an act of vandalism.
Gunfire was heard about 1:46 a.m. at the ...
BOSTON (Reuters) - Shaken but determined, Bostonians struggled to get back to their workday routines on Tuesday, the day after a twin bombing wreaked havoc during the city's world-famous marathon and led to the closure of a wide area of Boston's city center.
The explosions, which claimed three ...
American, which operates more than 3,500 daily flights worldwide, said it saw no evidence that its technical problems were related to recent events in Boston, where bombings at the finish line of the city's marathon on Monday killed three and injured many others .
The problem with the computer ...
MILWAUKEE (Reuters) - Police have arrested a suspect who was seen carrying what turned out to be a fake gun at Wisconsin's Carroll University earlier on Tuesday, and a lockdown at the college has been lifted, it said.
Waukesha, Wisconsin, police have the suspect in custody, according to a press ...
SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - Accused Fort Hood gunman, Army psychiatrist Nidal Hasan, was due in court Tuesday for a hearing that could be key in determining whether he will face the death penalty for the murders of 13 people during a shooting rampage at the military post in November 2009.
Military ...
LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (Reuters) - Arkansas lawmakers on Tuesday approved extending health insurance to more of the state's low-income citizens through a measure that could be a model for other conservative-leaning states as a compromise to implement President Barack Obama's signature health reform ...
AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - A Texas man convicted of shooting a 17-year-old youth outside a nightclub in 2001 is due to be executed for murder on Tuesday, in what would be the third lethal injection in the state this year.
Dexter McDonald had just left a club in Navarro County, south of Dallas, on ...
ANCHORAGE (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier was sentenced to 19 years in prison for attempted espionage and related charges after he admitted to trying to pass on classified information to someone he believed was a Russian agent, federal officials said.
Army Specialist William Colton Millay, 24, was ...
The Jackson Women's Health Organization faced a state license revocation hearing on Thursday because its doctors had not been able to comply with the 2012 law - which the clinic's supporters say was imposed to shut the facility down.
Pro-abortion campaigners say the law imposed arbitrary and ...
BOSTON (Reuters) - Investigators released pictures and video of two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing on Thursday, enlisting the public's help in identifying two men wearing backpacks and baseball caps in the crowd minutes before bombs exploded near the finish line.
A 30-second video shows ...
(Reuters) - As smoke cleared from the deadly explosions at the Boston Marathon finish line, horrified runners were comforted by acts of kindness carried out by city residents offering aid.
Gestures as small as offering a drink of orange juice and use of a home bathroom were recounted on Twitter in ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A group of Democratic and Republican senators on Tuesday unveiled long-awaited landmark legislation to remove the threat of deportation for millions of illegal immigrants and give them an opportunity to eventually become U.S. citizens.
Under the proposal, undocumented ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Senate immigration bill outlined Tuesday attempts to meet long-sought demands from America's technology sector for more high-skilled workers from abroad to fill the gap created by a shortage of American candidates.
Under the proposed bipartisan legislation outlined ...
(Reuters) - Financial services firms like Wells Fargo and Loomis Sayles said they are hoping to re-open their Boston offices on Tuesday, but will also allow employees to work remotely as a part of the center of the city is likely to remain cordoned off by authorities investigating twin blasts that ...
BOSTON (Reuters) - At Boston Children's Hospital, the list of the wounded included a 2-year-old boy with a head injury, a 9-year-old girl with leg trauma and six other children under the age of 15.
Over at Massachusetts General Hospital, which was caring for 29 victims, injuries ranged from cuts ...
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A push by California Democrats to undo part of Proposition 13, the measure to limit the growth of property taxes that started a nationwide revolt, appeared to be losing ground on Monday, as leaders in both houses of the state's Legislature distanced themselves from the ...
SAN JOSE, California (Reuters) - A California teen who family members say killed herself after classmates circulated a photo of her being sexually assaulted by three boys was also scribbled with "markings" that "served to taunt and demean her," her parents' lawyer said on ...
The man barricaded himself in a house about half a mile from where he had allegedly shot the woman after being pursued by police on a nearby highway, said Sherri Jeffrey, a spokeswoman for the Dallas Police Department.
The woman and her unborn child died, Jeffrey said.
(Reuters) - A social entrepreneur is accusing a Connecticut designer who worked with Newark, New Jersey police to melt illegal guns into jewelry of stealing his idea and business model, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court.
Peter Thum, a co-founder of an organization called Fonderie 47, ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Taxpayers lined up at New York City's main post office to mail their returns on Monday, but the crowds were a far cry from the days when masseurs once offered back rubs and stilt walkers entertained last-minute filers.
The growing popularity of electronic filing means calmer ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Air Force on Monday said it took steps to fully fund the first increment of a new ground-based radar to track satellites and other objects in space in its fiscal 2104 budget proposal, but there was no funding for a second site for now.
Jamie Morin, acting ...
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A city medical examiner described fetal body parts stored in pet food containers during his testimony on Monday at a murder trial that has drawn a national spotlight after anti-abortion groups complained that it was being ignored.
The graphic testimony came in the fifth ...
WASHINGTON/MIAMI (Reuters) - An independent task force issued a damning review of Bush-era interrogation practices on Tuesday, saying the highest U.S. officials bore ultimate responsibility for the "indisputable" use of torture, and it urged President Barack Obama to close the Guantanamo ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - One day after suffering a crippling defeat on gun-control legislation, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Thursday set aside President Barack Obama's plan to curb gun violence but promised to keep searching for a compromise.
Reid said Democrats would keep negotiating on ...
(Reuters) - A 84-year-old Texas woman in jail for theft was charged on Monday with attempting to hire a hit man to kill the local district attorney who filed the theft charge and to make the killing look similar to the recent murder of a district attorney in Kaufman County.
Dorothy Canfield was ...
NEWARK, New Jersey (Reuters) - Two New Jersey men were sentenced in federal court on Monday to spend at least two decades in prison for conspiring to join the al Qaeda-linked militant group al Shabaab and wage a holy war against non-Muslims.
Mohamed Alessa, 23, and Carlos Almonte, 27, were ...
(Reuters) - Prosecutors selected a grand jury on Monday that will investigate whether more crimes were committed when a 16-year-old girl was raped last year by high school football players in Steubenville, Ohio, authorities said.
Quarterback Trent Mays, 17 and wide receiver Ma'lik Richmond, 16, ...
MIAMI (Reuters) - Federal immigration officials in south Florida are failing to abide by an Obama administration directive to focus deportation efforts on dangerous criminals, according to a report Monday by a Miami-based immigration advocacy group and researchers from a Florida university.
A ...
Lewiel was driving a Maybach sports car when he was shot to death late Thursday on Interstate 20 by someone in a white sport utility vehicle, said DeKalb County police spokeswoman Mekka Parish.
No arrests have been made, Parish said. "We have not determined the motive. It's still an active ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A former New York City high school librarian and a Massachusetts hospital police official were charged on Monday with conspiring to kidnap, torture and kill women and children, in a case that grew out of the investigation of so-called New York ‘cannibal cop' Gilberto Valle, ...
Recovery workers found the body of Shjon Brown buried under six to eight feet of snow and beneath the snowmobile he was riding on a glacier near Paxson, Alaska, according to state trooper spokeswoman Megan Peters.
His body will sent to the state medical examiner's office for an autopsy, she said.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel rolled back a decision by his predecessor, Leon Panetta, who two months ago unveiled a "Distinguished Warfare Medal" outranking the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart, awarded to wounded troops.
Hagel, a Vietnam veteran with two Purple Hearts, said instead the ...
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A city medical examiner described fetal body parts stored in pet food containers during his testimony on Monday at a murder trial that has drawn a national spotlight after anti-abortion groups complained that it was being ignored.
The graphic testimony came in the fifth ...
MIAMI/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A violent weekend clash between guards and prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and the release of harrowing accounts by inmates of force-feeding of hunger strikers brought President Barack Obama's failure to close the camp under close scrutiny on Monday.
The ...
Investment staff at the California Public Employees' Retirement System, best known as Calpers, had urged the $255 billion pension fund's committee to oppose the bill in the state legislature as it would intrude on the fund board's investment authority and complicate staff work as other politically ...
BOSTON (Reuters) - Two bombs ripped through the crowd at the finish line of the Boston Marathon on Monday, killing three people, maiming others and injuring more than 100 in what a White House official said would be treated as an "act of terror."
It was the worst bombing on U.S. soil ...
The man barricaded himself in a residence half a mile from the scene of the shooting, said Sherri Jeffrey, a spokeswoman for the Dallas Police Department. The woman and her unborn child both died, Jeffrey said.
The standoff began after police pursued the suspect in a car chase on a Dallas highway. ...
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A political fight over charity collection bins is brewing in California, where property owners complain that the boxes are sometimes dropped onto their land without permission, becoming magnets for graffiti and shelter for transients.
Goodwill Industries International, the ...
AKRON, Ohio (Reuters) - Former Ohio Democratic Congressman Charlie Wilson has died from complications from a stroke he suffered during a vacation in Florida in February, the Ohio Democratic party said on Monday.
Ohio Democratic Chairman Chris Redfern said Wilson died on Sunday in Florida.
Just 28 percent of Americans rate the government in Washington favorably, the lowest percentage ever in a Pew survey and down 5 percentage points from a year ago, Pew said in a statement.
The favorability rating has fallen steadily from a high of 82 percent in November 2001, after the September ...
Samir Najal al Hasan Moqbel, who said he has been held for 11 years and three months without charges, wrote that he has lost about 30 pounds since he began to refuse food on February 10 and would not eat "until they restore my dignity."
In March he was in the prison hospital and refused ...
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis has reaffirmed the Vatican's criticism of a body that represents U.S. nuns which the Church said was tainted by "radical" feminism, dashing hopes he might take a softer stand with the sisters.
Francis's predecessor, Benedict, decreed that the ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal over whether confidential interviews with former Irish Republican militants should be released to police in Northern Ireland.
The legal fight is about whether British authorities, as part of a murder investigation, can ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Staying out of a raging national debate over guns, the Supreme Court on Monday declined to weigh in on whether gun owners have a constitutional right to carry handguns outside the home.
The court decided not to hear a challenge to a New York state law that requires those who ...
Anne Smedinghoff, 25, was killed along with four other Americans in a car bomb blast on April 6 in the southern province of Zabul. Her parents live near Chicago.
Returning after a 10-day trip to the Middle East, Europe and Asia, Kerry descended from his Air Force plane at Chicago's O'Hare airport ...
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - Alaska lawmakers on Sunday gave final approval to a bill slashing state oil-production taxes in a change supporters said was needed to boost flagging output from aging fields but which critics say will severely damage the state's finances.
The new system approved by ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As the Senate prepares to debate a gun-control bill for the first time in two decades on Monday, Republicans in the House of Representatives are devising ways to delay and weaken gun legislation they see as limiting Americans' right to bear arms, congressional sources ...
The portion of the Pegasus pipeline, which ruptured on March 29 resulting in a 5,000-barrel oil spill, will be transported to an independent third-party laboratory for metallurgy testing, the company said in a statement on Sunday.
Early last week, Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel, who ...
ORLANDO, Fla./CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - A Florida police officer fired over his use of shooting targets with an image resembling slain teenager Trayvon Martin is defending himself on YouTube, saying the target was intended as a "no shoot" training aid for an instructional ...
CHARLESTON, South Carolina (Reuters) - The Supreme Court will hear arguments on Tuesday in an adoption fight between a South Carolina couple who raised a girl for more than two years after her birth and the child's biological father who won custody of her due to his American Indian heritage.
The ...
SEATTLE, Washington (Reuters) - A woman died and a man was missing and presumed dead after two avalanches struck mountains in Washington state at the weekend, authorities said on Sunday.
The avalanches struck within a few miles of each other at noon on Saturday in an area popular for winter sports ...
(Reuters) - A Texas man used a gun to commit suicide in the infield of a National Rifle Association-sponsored NASCAR race at the Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth late on Saturday, local authorities said.
Kirk Franklin, 42, of nearby Saginaw died after shooting himself at 10:30 p.m. on Saturday ...
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - A 9-year-old boy who fell into a glacial crevasse in Alaska while riding a snowmobile is presumed dead and experts are working to recover his body, the Alaska State Troopers said on Sunday.
Sjohn Brown of Fairbanks, Alaska, fell into a 150-foot-deep (46-metre-deep) ...
SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - Former U.S. President George W. Bush and former first lady Laura Bush are celebrating the birth of their first grandchild.
Jenna Bush Hager gave birth to a daughter on Saturday night in New York City, according to a statement the former president's office in Dallas released ...
Katherine Thurston, 47, went into the gym where Jackman was working out early on Saturday morning, and after a brief encounter with the 44-year-old actor, she fled and was arrested a few blocks away, a New York police spokeswoman said.
Thurston shouted that she loved the actor before throwing the ...
ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - South Florida is fighting a growing infestation of one of the world's most destructive invasive species: the giant African land snail, which can grow as big as a rat and gnaw through stucco and plaster.
More than 1,000 of the mollusks are being caught each week in ...
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (Reuters) - A woman who survived a 1963 Alabama church bombing that killed her sister and three other black girls in one of most heinous crimes of the civil rights era said she will not accept a medal that Congress may award posthumously to the victims.
Instead, Sarah Collins ...
SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) - A fire sparked by an electrical short swept through a house in Idaho on Saturday, killing a family of four and a teenage friend who had been spending the night as part of a birthday celebration, a fire official said.
Orofino Fire Chief Mike Lee said flames had fully ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama may have made a slow start on gay rights issues, but by the end of his first term his record was such that a news magazine dubbed him the nation's "first gay president." Now activists want more.
Fresh from historic Supreme Court arguments ...
King County Sheriff's Sergeant Katie Larson said a 60-year-old man who had been snowshoeing with two companions disappeared about noon local time after an avalanche struck near Snoqualmie Pass in the Cascade Mountains, about an hour east of Seattle.
Extremely heavy snowfall and waning daylight ...
The three bodies were found on Friday night at a house in a neighborhood of single family homes, said Lieutenant Shane Lind of the Topeka Police Department.
Police said in a statement it appeared the suspect had killed two people at the home and then committed suicide.
TALLAHASSEE (Reuters) - Cat lovers are pushing the Florida legislature to pass a law protecting strays, over the objection of environmental lobbyists who say the furry creatures are a murderous menace to Mother Nature.
Two "community cat" bills in the state House and Senate would create ...
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A proposal to allow nurses and midwives to perform some abortions is advancing in California's Democratic legislature, a move supporters hope will influence the national debate on abortion even as other states are tightening the rules.
If the measure is enacted, the ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Francine Wheeler blinked past her tears, looked straight into the camera and asked Americans to push for tougher gun laws, drawing on courage she said comes from the memory of her 6-year-old son, Ben, murdered in his first-grade classroom in Newtown, Connecticut.
"His ...
SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) - A transgender woman whose use of a women's restroom in an Idaho grocery store reportedly upset other customers has been cited for trespassing and banned from the store for a year, police said on Friday.
A Rosauers supermarket in Lewiston asked police to charge 25-year-old ...
SAN JOSE, California (Reuters) - Three teenage boys have been arrested on suspicion of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl from northern California who hanged herself within days of the attack after an image of it circulated online, police and her family's lawyer said.
Audrie Pott felt ...
The California State Teachers' Retirement System will now sell holdings in two publicly traded gunmakers Sturm, Ruger & Co and Smith & Wesson Holding Corp. The investments are worth about $3 million.
The divestment plan has been in play since January at the $161.5 billion pension fund ...
SAN ANTONIO, Texas (Reuters) - The driver of the charter bus that crashed near Dallas on Thursday, killing two people injuring dozens, was involved in another fatal bus accident in 1998, according to court documents.
The driver, Loyd Rieve, 65, was one of 44 people injured on Thursday morning when ...
Police locked down North Carolina Central University in Durham for nearly two hours after a man reportedly displayed a weapon at a residence hall before fleeing without taking any property, the school said.
Police were searching for the suspect Friday evening, said a spokeswoman for the ...
PHOENIX (Reuters) - A package containing a crude but potentially lethal explosive device was mailed to Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who calls himself "America's toughest sheriff," but was intercepted by Arizona authorities, officials said on Friday.
Postal workers set aside the ...
WINSTON-SALEM, North Carolina (Reuters) - Army prosecutors signaled on Friday they plan to dismiss an alcohol charge against a general accused of forcing sex during an affair and engaging in inappropriate behavior with several female subordinates, a source with direct knowledge of the decision ...
BOSTON (Reuters) - The bankruptcy estate of the pharmacy linked to a deadly U.S. meningitis outbreak plans to battle nearly 30 states to preserve its right to redeem several million dollars worth of insurance policies for creditors.
The insurance policies are key assets in New England Compounding ...
Kaufman, Texas / New York - The arrest of a former local official has raised hopes of progress in the investigation into the killings of two Texas prosecutors, even though police have yet to name any suspects in the shootings.
Former justice of the peace, Eric Williams, 46, was booked into jail on ...
The legislation by a bipartisan group of senators would give the estimated 11 million immigrants living in the United States illegally a way to obtain legal status and eventually become U.S. citizens, provided certain measures are met.
But of the unauthorized immigrants, those who entered after ...
(Reuters) - Getting rid of an abusive college basketball coach has already cost New Jersey taxpayers more than $1 million, but the awkwardly handled saga could cost them millions more in years to come.
That's because one of Wall Street's top credit rating agencies said that the controversy over ...
Birmingham, Alabama (Reuters) - Alabama's Jefferson County fired its attorney for not working in its best interests, weeks before the county is expected to present a plan to emerge from the nation's largest municipal bankruptcy.
Jeff Sewell, who was placed on administrative leave earlier this ...
AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - Texas Governor Rick Perry on Friday said a gun manufacturer that has decided to leave Connecticut should "come on down" to the Lone Star State.
PTR Industries, a maker of military-style rifles, threatened to leave Connecticut after the passage of one of the ...
CLEVELAND (Reuters) - Five members of a breakaway Ohio Amish sect head to federal prison on Friday to begin serving sentences for hate crimes, leaving behind a tight-knit religious group coping with the absence of parents for nearly 50 children.
The leader of the Bergholz sect, Samuel Mullet Sr., ...
ALBANY, New York (Reuters) - A New York state high school English teacher who asked students to imagine they were Nazis and give reasons why Jews were evil could be reprimanded or dismissed, a school district superintendent said on Friday.
City School District of Albany Superintendent Marguerite ...
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A panel of three federal judges has roundly rejected California Governor Jerry Brown's contention that his state's prisons are no longer overcrowded, and ordered the state to continue to reduce its inmate population.
The judges, in an opinion issued on Thursday, denied the ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal jury in New York on Friday awarded $12 million in punitive damages to U.S. billionaire William Koch in his dispute over the alleged misrepresentation of 24 bottles of wine he bought at auction.
Koch, 72, said he may use the proceeds to establish a fund to confront ...
One of the injured women was a part-time employee of New River Community College and the other has been identified as a student there, according to the Christiansburg Police Department.
Both remained hospitalized in Roanoke and were not being named to protect their privacy, police said.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The ships won't be coming in this year.
Six cities, from New York to San Diego, are bracing for cuts or outright cancellations of their annual Fleet Weeks, spring and summer events when the Navy opens its ships to tours for the general public and crowds of sailors pour into ...
HOUSTON (Reuters) - Exxon Mobil Corp was working on Friday to remove the ruptured section of its Arkansas crude oil pipeline, but had no estimate on how long repairs would take or when the line would restart.
Exxon expected to remove the damaged section this week. The company did not have a more ...
PHOENIX (Reuters) - A package containing an explosive device was mailed to Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who calls himself "America's toughest sheriff," but was intercepted by Arizona authorities, the sheriff's office said.
A suspect has been identified in the case, officials said.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The gun that the 27-year-old son of popular evangelical pastor Rick Warren used to kill himself was sold to him illegally, with its serial number removed, California authorities said on Friday.
Orange County Sheriff's detectives were investigating Matthew Warren's purchase ...
LANSING, Michigan (Reuters) - The U.S. government on Friday issued a permit for construction of a new $1.5 billion bridge between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, to ease congestion at the busiest commercial crossing with Canada.
The State Department granted the permit, which clears the way for the ...
(Reuters) - A U.S. Army chaplain, who gave his food and clothing to fellow Americans in the hopes they would survive a Korean War prisoner-of-war camp in which he died, was honored on Thursday when President Barack Obama awarded him a posthumous Medal of Honor.
Standing to applaud the memory of ...
Francine Wheeler, whose son Ben was one of the 26 people killed by a gunman at an elementary school on December 14, will deliver the Saturday radio address, White House spokesman Jay Carney said.
Obama brought families of the Newtown victims to Washington on Air Force One on Monday, and they have ...
ALBANY, New York (Reuters) - An Albany, New York high school English teacher who asked students to imagine they were Nazis and give reasons why Jews were evil may be disciplined, a school district spokesman said on Friday.
Superintendent Marguerite Vanden Wyngaard was expected to personally ...
The CNN/ORC International poll asked the question: "How well are things going in the country today - very well, fairly well, pretty badly or very badly?"
The latest survey, of 1,012 adults from April 5-7, showed an exact 50/50 split between those who answered very well and fairly well ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - While Washington politicians battle over new gun-control measures, state legislators have already passed dozens of new firearms laws since the Newtown school massacre ignited a national debate in December.
The new state laws, a small fraction of the 1,500 or so gun-related ...
"While employment and housing show signs of improving for the nation as a whole, conditions in lower-income neighborhoods remain difficult by many measures," Bernanke said in prepared remarks that made no direct reference to monetary policy.
In a speech to a Fed community affairs ...
(Reuters) - The scandal over abusive behavior by the now-fired men's basketball coach at Rutgers University threatens the New Jersey school's credit rating, already under review because of uncertainty over how much debt it will assume in a merger meant to pump up its national profile.
In a comment ...
RICHMOND, Virginia (Reuters) - Virginia on Friday required abortion clinics to meet stricter hospital-style standards that could force some go out of business, making it the latest state to tighten rules on the procedure.
The rules, passed overwhelmingly by the Virginia Board of Health, could ...
It was part of a broad storm blamed for at least three deaths as it moved across the nation earlier in the week.
The system will bring much cooler temperatures to the East Coast during the weekend, forecasters at the National Weather Service said.
Puerto Rico has not executed anyone since 1927, and it abolished the death penalty under the constitution it enacted in 1952. But because it is a U.S. territory, the death penalty can still be applied in capital cases brought under federal law.
On Thursday night, jurors failed to reach the ...
The package was addressed to the Phoenix office of Arpaio, who calls himself "America's toughest sheriff." It was intercepted by law enforcement in Flagstaff, where it was neutralized by a bomb squad.
Investigators said they have some leads as to who may have sent the package but ...
No shots had been fired and no one was injured, North Carolina A&T State University, said. It said on its website that normal activities could resume on the campus.
School officials did not immediately return a call seeking comment about whether a gunman had been found.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Bankrupt San Bernardino will resume paying into the state pension fund on July 1, but the California city will continue to renege on other debts including payments to bondholders, according to a new budget released late Thursday.
Nearly a year after it halted contributions ...
DENVER (Reuters) - A second white supremacist identified as a "person of interest" in the killing of Colorado's prisons chief has been arrested on an unrelated felony warrant, police said on Thursday.
Thomas James Guolee, 31, was taken into custody in Colorado Springs on a felony warrant ...
The blunt-spoken Christie, who is seen as a strong contender if he decides to seek the Republican nomination for president in 2016, holds a lead of 57 percent to Buono's 27 percent.
The Republican governor saw his popularity skyrocket for appearing to put the needs of New Jersey above political ...
Authorities charged Dionisio Lockridge with possession of marijuana and cocaine and found brownies similar to the ones eaten by the students during a search in his house, officials said.
Paramedics were called to the Miami Coral Park Senior High School on Thursday shortly after classes started ...
SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) - Idaho's Republican governor signed a law on Thursday that restricts use of drone aircraft by police and other public agencies as the use of pilotless aircraft inside U.S. borders is increasing. The measure aims to protect privacy rights.
In approving the law, which ...
SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) - Four dogs have been found beaten in the head and shot to death in rural southern Idaho, authorities said on Thursday, adding to the mysterious disappearance and killing of dozens of dogs that has left residents in that area on edge.
Examinations showed that the German ...
KAUFMAN, Texas (Reuters) - The newly appointed district attorney in Kaufman County, Texas, where two prosecutors have been gunned down this year, stood outside the county courthouse Thursday afternoon and said that despite the danger, she is confident about her new position.
"There is ...
ATLANTA (Reuters) - A Georgia man told five firefighters that he took them hostage at gunpoint on Wednesday instead of police because he knew they would be unarmed, police said on Thursday.
Lauren Brown, 55, died in a gunfight with a police officer who was trying to rescue the firefighters at ...
MERIDEN, Connecticut (Reuters) - Two Connecticut gunmakers have threatened to leave the state following the passage last week of one of the toughest gun-control laws in the United States, which came in the wake of the Newtown school shooting.
Executives at PTR Industries and Stag Arms said they ...
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Even as U.S. officials this week awaited the arrival of a sample of the new bird flu virus from China - typically the first step in making a flu vaccine - government-backed researchers had already begun testing a "seed" strain of the virus made from the genetic code ...
DALLAS (Reuters) - Two people died and 44 others were injured on Thursday on a highway near Dallas when a bus taking passengers to a casino in Oklahoma crashed and rolled over, a Texas Highway Patrol spokesman said.
He said the bus traveled off the shoulder of the highway, hit a barrier, went back ...
SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - A San Diego-area high school student was struck in the chest by a softball during a physical education class, collapsed and later died at a hospital - all on his 16th birthday, officials said on Thursday.
Taylor Dorman's death on Wednesday shocked teachers and students, said ...
HOUSTON (Reuters) - A Texas student who went on a stabbing spree at his college earlier this week told investigators that he fantasized about cutting off people's faces and wearing them as masks since he was 8 years old, according to a search warrant filed Thursday with the Harris County District ...
CLEVELAND (Reuters) - An Ohio man was sentenced to more than four years in prison Thursday after he pleaded guilty to making more than 100 calls threatening to bomb courthouses in five different states.
In the Cleveland federal court, U.S. District Judge Dan Aaron Polster sentenced Lonny Bristow, ...
SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - Texas oil millionaire Stanley Marsh 3, an oil company heir and arts promoter known for the "Cadillac Ranch," was indicted on Thursday on more than a dozen counts involving sexual molestation of children.
Marsh, 75, faces up to 20 years in prison on each of the ...
Carol, a 39-year-old Asian elephant, was hit in the shoulder in Tupelo on Tuesday by a shot fired from a passing vehicle. The elephant was in an enclosure outside an arena when it was shot.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said in a statement the shot left a dime-sized entry hole but the animal ...
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - An off-duty fire captain credited with saving a man who cut his own arms down to the bone with saws at a Los Angeles-area Home Depot store said on Thursday he initially thought he had come upon a murder scene.
The man, whose has not been identified by authorities, was ...
(Reuters) - A Army chaplain, who gave his food and clothing to fellow Americans in the hopes they would survive a Korean War prisoner-of-war camp in which he died, was honored on Thursday when President Barack Obama awarded him a posthumous Medal of Honor.
Standing to applaud the memory of Father ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross on Thursday expressed opposition to the force-feeding of prisoners staging a mass hunger strike at the Guantanamo prison camp and said he urged President Barack Obama to do more to resolve the "untenable" ...
DALLAS (Reuters) - Two people died on Thursday when the bus they were on board crashed and rolled over on a highway near Dallas, a Texas Highway Patrol spokesman said.
The bus, which was the only vehicle involved in the crash, had been carrying more than 30 people to a casino in Oklahoma, Trooper ...
The man, identified as 55-year-old Lauren Brown, "seemed to be suffering from a condition that restricted his movement," Gwinnett County Police Chief Charles Walters said in a news conference.
But Brown soon flashed a handgun and held the firefighters at gunpoint, Walters said, demanding ...
Markell, a Democrat, made the announcement at an afternoon press conference, where he was joined by state Senate President Pro Tempore Patricia Blevins, House Speaker Pete Schwartzkopf and Attorney General Beau Biden, Markell's office said.
"What we know is same-sex couples want to get ...
TAMPA, Florida (Reuters) - Two Florida boys whose parents are accused of kidnapping them and taking them by boat to Cuba believe that the journey was one big vacation, their grandmother told reporters on Thursday.
Patricia Hauser, who police say was tied up last week by the boys' armed father ...
INDIANAPOLIS (Reuters) - Police on Thursday arrested a man who said he opposed abortion and charged him with breaking into an Indiana Planned Parenthood clinic and causing extensive damage with an ax.
Benjamin Curell, 27, of Ellettsville was charged with felony burglary and criminal mischief. ...
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A man who used handsaws at a Los Angeles-area Home Depot store to saw his own arms to the bone was recovering in a hospital on Thursday in critical condition after quick work by rescuers, police said.
The individual, whose name has not been released following his ...
"There is a reported death in Kemper County, several injuries and damage to buildings. I don't know if those are homes or businesses at this point," said Mississippi Emergency Management Agency spokesman Greg Flynn.
In Noxubee County, Mississippi, the tornado destroyed mobile homes, ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The worst of the budget crunch that afflicted state governments after the 2008 financial crisis appears over, data from the Census showed on Thursday.
The Census reported that state tax collections last year surpassed their previous peak, and all but three states registered ...
Eric Brown, 49, pleaded guilty in January to theft of government property. The sentence, by U.S. District Court Judge John Gibney Jr., helped resolve the theft of more than a dozen other trucks in the Richmond area, of which Brown was a suspect.
Brown stole the truck, used by the White House ...
KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Reuters) - A severe storm spawning hail, driving rain and a possible tornado roared through parts of Missouri and Arkansas overnight leaving a trail of damage in its wake, as a broader storm system stretched from Texas to Pennsylvania.
Missouri Governor Jay Nixon declared a ...
MAYFLOWER, Arkansas (Reuters) - Warren Andrews had just finished putting up balloons for his stepdaughter's 18th birthday party at their suburban home in Mayflower, Arkansas, when his wife came inside and said something was wrong.
After stepping out of his house, and taking one glance, he ...
The crash involved a charter bus carrying about 40 people that was heading toward a casino resort in Oklahoma, according to the local NBC news affiliate.
Of the injured, 16 were listed in critical condition, local media said.
MIAMI (Reuters) - Pretrial hearings in the Guantanamo war crimes tribunals have been delayed to address the mysterious disappearance of defense legal documents from Pentagon computers, military officials said on Thursday.
The defense lawyers said their confidential work documents began vanishing ...
BARNEGAT, New Jersey (Reuters) - Philip Checchia's home in Barnegat, New Jersey, escaped undamaged from Hurricane Sandy in October, but the 67-year-old is bracing for a different kind of storm damage - higher property taxes.
New Jersey home owners already pay the highest taxes in the country, with ...
PORTLAND, Oregon (Reuters) - An Oregon man with a history of mental distress was arrested on Wednesday on suspicion of harassing family members of some of the 12 people slain by a gunman who opened fire on moviegoers inside a Colorado, theater last summer, police said.
Kevin Michael Purfield, 45, ...
CHICAGO (Reuters) - The daughter of President Barack Obama's controversial former pastor was indicted on Wednesday on charges of money laundering and lying to federal authorities, a U.S. Justice Department spokeswoman said.
Jeri L. Wright, 47, the daughter of Jeremiah Wright, was accused of ...
DENVER (Reuters) - A Fox News reporter returned to a Colorado courtroom on Wednesday for a hearing on whether she should be compelled to reveal anonymous sources cited in a story about the July 2012 massacre of a dozen people in a suburban Denver movie theater.
The outcome of the proceedings were ...
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - In a case straight out of a heist movie, police arrested five men in a burglary crew that sawed into Los Angeles-area banks through the roofs and netted a total of $6 million, authorities said on Wednesday.
The arrests capped a yearlong investigation of the men, who police ...
CHICAGO (Reuters) - First lady Michelle Obama choked up on Wednesday as she recalled the life of a recent teenage murder victim, a girl from Chicago just like her, but who did not get to grow up.
Obama was in her hometown to join Mayor Rahm Emanuel in urging the business community to help raise ...
Larry Eugene Mann, 59, was pronounced dead from a lethal injection at 7:19 p.m. EDT (2319 GMT) at the Florida State Prison in Starke, the Florida Department of Corrections said.
A last-minute appeal had been denied shortly before the execution.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A California couple tied up in their mountain cabin by a former policeman wanted by authorities for a grudge-driven killing spree told an emergency call operator that he had likely been hiding in there for days.
The conversation, contained in tapes made public on Wednesday, ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senator Joe Manchin became so emotional on Wednesday about the Newtown massacre and his push for background checks for gun buyers that parents whose children were killed at the Connecticut school in December were moved to comfort him.
"I'm a parent. ... I'm a ...
TALLAHASSEE, Florida (Reuters) - Florida Governor Rick Scott signed a law on Wednesday aimed at closing hundreds of storefront online gambling operations known as "Internet cafes" across the state.
The online poker and slots operations were at the center of a three-year federal ...
CHICAGO (Reuters) - First lady Michelle Obama choked up on Wednesday as she recalled the life of a recent teenage murder victim, a girl from Chicago just like her, but who did not get to grow up.
Obama was in her hometown to join Mayor Rahm Emanuel in urging the business community to help raise ...
American, which plans to exit bankruptcy protection by merging with US Airways Group Inc and forming the world's biggest carrier, said the new cities to be served from Los Angeles starting this summer include Pittsburgh; Columbus, Ohio; Indianapolis, and Hartford, Connecticut.
Through agreements ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Texas Governor Rick Perry on Wednesday appointed a county judge to replace slain district attorney Mike McLelland, the second prosecutor from rural Kaufman County gunned down in the past 10 weeks.
Judge Erleigh Norville Wiley, a former Dallas County prosecutor currently ...
MCALLEN, Texas (Reuters) - Two agents with the Department of Homeland Security assigned to root out corruption in other law enforcement agencies have been charged in Texas with faking records, federal prosecutors said on Wednesday.
Eugenio Pedraza served as special agent in charge of Homeland ...
The suspect, Krzysztof Wasik, 44, of Hazle Township, Pennsylvania, approached a Secret Service officer shortly after 4 a.m. (800 GMT) at the White House gates and said a bomb in a truck parked nearby was set to go off, District of Columbia police spokesman Araz Alali said.
Surrounding streets and ...
ATLANTA (Reuters) - A gunman who took four Georgia firefighters hostage, demanding his utilities and cell phone service be restored, was killed on Wednesday in an exchange of gunfire with authorities who moved in to free the captives, police said.
A police officer was wounded and the firefighters, ...
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Police arrested five men who sawed into Los Angeles-area banks through the roofs in meticulously planned heists that involved everything from walkie-talkies to matching sneakers and netted a total of $6 million, authorities said on Wednesday.
The arrests capped a year-long ...
McAllen, Texas (Reuters) - Two agents with the Department of Homeland Security charged with rooting out corruption in other law enforcement agencies have been charged with faking records, federal prosecutors said on Wednesday.
Eugenio Pedraza served as special agent in charge of the DHS's Office ...
KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Reuters) - One person was reported killed and several others injured after severe weather on Thursday caused power outages and damaged buildings in Kemper County, Mississippi, emergency management officials said.
"I don't know if those are homes or businesses at this ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A former KPMG senior audit partner who quit after admitting to passing on inside information about corporate clients Herbalife Ltd and Skechers USA Inc was identified by the golf partner he had been tipping, the auditor's lawyer said.
The man, who The Wall Street Journal ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Thousands of supporters of immigration reform rallied around the Capitol on Wednesday, calling on lawmakers to support a path to citizenship for an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants.
Demonstrators waved flags from the United States and Latin American countries, ...
SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - The man who went on a stabbing rampage at a Texas college had planned his attack "for some time," and had fantasized about stabbing people since the age of eight, Sheriff Adrian Garcia said at a news conference on Wednesday.
"It's not clear just how long that ...
A Los Angeles Superior Court jury deliberated for less than a day before returning a guilty verdict against 52-year-old Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter.
Gerhartsreiter, who faces a maximum sentence of life in prison for murdering 27-year-old John Sohus, showed little reaction when the verdict was ...
The White House had originally projected 2.6 percent growth in GDP, assuming the cuts would be averted, Krueger said in a briefing on the budget, noting overall economic growth in 2013 is forecast to remain similar to 2012.
(Reporting by Roberta Rampton; Editing by Sandra Maler)
TAMPA, Florida (Reuters) - Cuba allowed U.S. authorities to land a plane in Havana and retrieve an American couple accused of kidnapping their two young sons and sailing to the communist island with them, Florida officials said.
The FBI plane returned to Tampa, Florida, early on Wednesday with ...
MIAMI (Reuters) - The 2013 Atlantic hurricane season will be "above average" with 18 tropical storms, nine of which will intensify into hurricanes, forecasters at Colorado State University predicted on Wednesday.
Four of the hurricanes will be major with sustained winds of at least 111 ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Postal Service has abandoned its cost-cutting plan to end Saturday delivery of first-class mail, the agency's board of governors said on Wednesday, citing congressional opposition.
The retreat demonstrates how difficult it will be for the financially strapped Postal ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former U.S. Congressman Anthony Weiner, who resigned after tweeting lewd pictures of himself, is considering a run for New York City mayor, in what many see as wide open race for one of the highest-profile offices in the United States.
In a lengthy interview with The New York ...
BOSTON (Reuters) - A Maine man who walked into the woods shortly after the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident and lived as a hermit for almost three decades, supporting himself by stealing from nearby camps, was arrested last week, police said on Tuesday.
Christopher Knight, 47, had lived nearly ...
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - As the wrangling over immigration reform intensifies in the Congress, the tech industry is lobbying hard to raise the limit on H-1B visas, which allow non-U.S. citizens with advanced skills and degrees in "specialty occupations" to work in the country for up to ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Supporters of immigration reform are set to rally at the Capitol on Wednesday to back legislation that would include a path to citizenship for an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants.
The National Rally for Citizenship, which organizers say will draw tens of ...
DICKINSON, North Dakota (Reuters) - On a windswept North Dakota prairie in late March, Governor Jack Dalrymple drove a bulldozer into the fertile black earth and broke ground on the first new U.S. refinery since 1976.
The state's two U.S. senators, as well as dozens of other politicians and ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Wednesday proposed a budget that would sharply trim the U.S. deficit over three years by forcing millionaires to pay more in taxes and enacting spending cuts that replace the "sequester" reductions that went into place last month.
President ...
DENVER (Reuters) - A Fox News reporter was due back in a Colorado courtroom on Wednesday for a hearing on whether she should be compelled to reveal anonymous sources cited in a story about the July 2012 massacre of a dozen people in a suburban Denver movie theater.
New York-based journalist Jana ...
LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (Reuters) - The Republican-led Arkansas Senate, in the latest statehouse swipe at abortion providers around the country, approved a bill on Tuesday that sponsors said was aimed at cutting off the last vestiges of state funding to groups such as Planned Parenthood.
While it ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Supreme Court case that challenges a law requiring anti-prostitution policies for HIV/AIDS programs seeking federal money has generated a split among nonprofit groups that counsel sex workers overseas.
The case involves a 2003 law that bars funding for groups that work on ...
NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Louisiana lawmakers on Tuesday questioned the wisdom of eliminating the state's income tax without raising sales taxes, one day after Governor Bobby Jindal said he would delay his plan to scrap the income tax.
Jindal, a possible 2016 Republican presidential candidate, ...
Kolbjorn Kristiansen had been doing pre-flight checks ahead of a morning flight to New York when airport police took him into custody and administered a breath test, which he failed.
Witnesses said they had smelled alcohol when they passed Kristiansen in an airport terminal. His arrest happened ...
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Jury deliberations began on Tuesday in the murder trial of a German-born con man accused of killing his landlady's son and burying the body behind a Los Angeles-area home years before assuming a fake identity as a member of America's wealthy Rockefeller family.
Christian ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York City has agreed to pay Occupy Wall Street protesters more than $100,000 for property damaged or lost when police cleared out their encampment in a downtown Manhattan park in 2011, according to court documents signed on Tuesday.
The settlement includes $47,000 for ...
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado (Reuters) - The military needs a new approach to developing and buying the satellites that are critical to every military operation, a top Air Force general said on Tuesday, citing growing threats in space and increasing budget pressures closer to earth.
"This time ...
(Reuters) - A 4-year-old New Jersey boy shot and killed a 6-year-old playmate with a rifle he found in his family's home, police said on Tuesday.
The shooting in Toms River, New Jersey, on Monday, came two days after another 4-year-old shot and killed the wife of a sheriff's deputy at her home in ...
(Reuters) - The pilot of a medical helicopter that crashed in Missouri in 2011, killing all four people on board, was distracted by personal text messages that day and during the fatal flight, federal safety investigators said on Tuesday.
The National Transportation Safety Board found that the ...
MINNEAPOLIS (Reuters) - A former Minnesota airport worker charged with stealing 10 firearms and other valuables from checked bags targeted luggage being routed from one flight to the next, making it harder to uncover the thefts, an airport spokesman said on Tuesday.
David Vang, 23, worked for a ...
AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - Texas executed a convicted murderer on Tuesday by lethal injection for killing a man then raping the victim's fiancée, even as he maintained to the end that he was "not a killer," according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
Eleven other convicts are ...
RIVERSIDE, California (Reuters) - San Bernardino said on Tuesday that it hopes to soon resume paying into Calpers, the California state employees' pension fund, after almost a year of non-payment since the city filed for bankruptcy last August.
The attorney representing the California city in its ...
The plane returned to Tampa, Florida, early on Wednesday with Joshua Michael Hakken, his wife, Sharyn Hakken, and their sons, 4-year-old Cole and 2-year-old Chase, the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office said.
The parents, who had lost custody of their children, were jailed on kidnapping and ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Family members of the Newtown school shooting victims flew into Washington on Air Force One to press for gun-control legislation, but kept a low profile as they held private meetings with senators on Tuesday.
After coming to the capital aboard the presidential plane on ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A pair of recent accidents that spilled Canadian crude oil in the United States is part of doing business in the energy industry and should not prevent the Keystone XL pipeline from moving forward, Alberta's premier said on Tuesday.
"We have to be honest about the fact ...
Kass mentioned the furlough while talking to reporters about Let's Move, a childhood obesity initiative of first lady Michelle Obama. The program will not be affected by automatic budget cuts that took effect on March 1 but he said, "We're being furloughed."
A White House spokesman who ...
(Reuters) - A Roman Catholic nun with an admitted gambling addiction faces up to six months in prison for stealing about $128,000 from two churches where she worked in western New York, prosecutors and her attorney said on Tuesday.
Sister Mary Anne Rapp, 68, pleaded guilty on Monday to grand ...
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Pranksters who make fake emergency calls drawing police to the homes of celebrities and other targets would face increased penalties under a bill that moved forward in the California legislature on Tuesday.
Swatting - so named because the point is to get heavily armed SWAT ...
NASHVILLE, Tenn (Reuters) - At least 30 people were arrested and a police officer sustained a head injury when a celebration of the University of Louisville's national collegiate basketball victory Monday night got out of hand, police said Tuesday.
Those arrested faced a variety of charges, ...
JACKSON, Mississippi (Reuters) - An elephant in the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus was injured in a drive-by shooting in Mississippi on Tuesday and police were searching for suspects in the attack, law enforcement and circus officials said.
The 39-year-old Asian elephant named Carol ...
MOBILE, Alabama (Reuters) - The renowned Blue Angels precision flying team will be grounded for the remainder of its 2013 show season due to federal spending cuts, the U.S. Navy said on Tuesday.
The move was expected after military leaders said active-duty troops would be given priority amid $85 ...
OAK PARK, Illinois (Reuters) - U.S. diplomat Anne Smedinghoff led a life of service from an early age, mourners said at a memorial service on Tuesday for the young Foreign Service worker who was killed last week in a car bombing in Afghanistan.
"She was a great model as a student," said ...
BOSTON (Reuters) - Rhode Island's independent governor and Democratic leaders on Tuesday proposed a package of laws to clamp down on guns, including a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition clips, becoming the latest state to address gun violence after the December school shooting in ...
NEWARK, New Jersey (Reuters) - Hundreds of students walked out of Newark high schools on Tuesday to protest budget cuts that have led to teacher layoffs, school closures and the shrinking of sports and after-school programs.
Chanting "stand up, fight back," students from a dozen area ...
JACKSON, Mississippi (Reuters) - An elephant in the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus was injured in a drive-by shooting in Mississippi on Tuesday and police were searching for suspects in the attack, law enforcement and circus officials said.
The Asian elephant was resting in an ...
HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba on Tuesday said an American accused of kidnapping his two young sons in Florida and fleeing with them by boat to the communist-led island would be turned over to U.S. authorities.
The foreign ministry announced the decision in a terse statement saying Joshua Michael Hakken, ...
MINNEAPOLIS (Reuters) - A former Minnesota airport worker charged with stealing 10 firearms and other valuables from checked bags targeted luggage being routed from one flight to the next, making it harder to uncover the thefts, an airport spokesman said on Tuesday.
David Vang, 23, worked for a ...
Reid, however, said he does not know if he will be able to attract the 60 votes necessary to overcome procedural hurdles from senators opposed to gun control.
In the meantime, some senators are trying to reach a bipartisan compromise on background checks for gun buyers, which could help build ...
About 200 full-time positions will be eliminated through July and about 700 hourly positions from mid June onwards. The defense unit will have 2,800 employees after the cuts.
The company maintained high levels of hiring at its defense business during the height of the recession, but ...
HOUSTON (Reuters) - A community college student who said he had fantasized since childhood about stabbing people to death went on a slashing spree at his Houston campus on Tuesday, wounding at least 14 people, two of them critically, before bystanders subdued him, police said.
The suspect, ...
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado (Reuters) - The U.S. Air Force will likely opt for a mixed approach for a next-generation weather satellite that includes smaller spacecraft, according to top Air Force officials.
The Air Force plans to finish a review of possible approaches for the satellite early this ...
(Reuters) - A 4-year-old New Jersey boy shot and seriously injured a 6-year-old boy with a rifle he found in his family's home, police said on Tuesday.
The shooting, in Toms River, New Jersey on Monday, came two days after another 4-year-old shot and killed the wife of a sheriff's deputy at her ...
(Reuters) - At least 14 people were injured during a mass stabbing at a local community college in the northwest Houston area Tuesday morning, according to the local rescue officials.
Four people were critically injured during the incident at the Cy-Fair campus of Lone Star College in Harris ...
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (Reuters) - Doctors who provide abortions will face stricter standards in Alabama starting in July under a law signed on Tuesday that requires them to have admitting privileges at hospitals in the state.
Proponents say the legislation, the latest salvo in the national debate ...
(Reuters) - A veteran Morgan Stanley wealth adviser who played college basketball and lacrosse for Rutgers in the 1970s has been tapped to co-lead the university's search for a new athletic director after the former director stepped down over revelations that the school's basketball coach had ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York state Governor Andrew Cuomo proposed three new laws on Tuesday aimed at stopping government corruption, after federal prosecutors brought two criminal cases against elected officials in the state last week.
Decrying a culture of political corruption in New York and ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Young contestants at the Scripps National Spelling Bee will face a new challenge this year - not only having to spell obscure words, but also to know what they mean.
For the first time since it started in 1927, the contest will require contestants in preliminary and ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The nominee to lead a key healthcare agency said on Tuesday that the agency was investigating events surrounding a decision on Medicare Advantage payment rates that sent shares of insurance companies soaring.
Marilyn Tavenner was asked about the April 1 rate decision at a ...
TAMPA, Florida (Reuters) - A man accused of kidnapping his two young sons in Florida and fleeing with them by boat is reported to have taken them to Cuba with his wife, investigators said on Tuesday.
Hillsborough County Sheriff's spokesman Larry McKinnon said his office and the FBI had received ...
AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - Texas inmate Rickey Lewis is scheduled to be put to death on Tuesday for murdering a man in 1990 and then raping the dead man's fiancée.
A dozen Texas convicts are scheduled to be executed before the end of July. Texas has executed more people than any other U.S. state ...
KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Reuters) - A spring snowstorm hit Colorado on Tuesday, canceling flights and closing schools as forecasters warned residents in the middle of the United States to brace for sleet, gusty winds, flash floods and tornadoes.
"A dynamic storm system evolving over the central ...
(Reuters) - Insurers and doctors are testing a way to pay for healthcare that has been more common in the corporate suite than the emergency room - paying for better performance, betting it is the key to controlling runaway costs.
Both private insurance plans and Medicare plans in hundreds of ...
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The second-ranking official at the Department of Homeland Security said she will resign shortly, ending four years as a champion of a civilian-controlled Internet.
In an exclusive interview with Reuters, Jane Holl Lute, the sole deputy secretary at Homeland Security, said ...
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A federal judge has ruled the Obama administration broke the law when it issued oil leases in central California without fully weighing the environmental impact of "fracking," a setback for companies seeking to exploit the region's enormous energy resources.
The ...
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (Reuters) - The U.S. Air Force has designated six cyber tools as weapons, which should help the programs compete for increasingly scarce dollars in the Pentagon budget, an Air Force official said on Monday.
Lieutenant General John Hyten, vice commander of Air Force Space ...
WINSTON-SALEM, North Carolina (Reuters) - Officials at a North Carolina hospital have shelved a new "Cheat Death" slogan meant to encourage healthy habits after complaints from the medical profession and community.
"Our intent was never to offend or incite," Caromont President ...
SEATTLE (Reuters) - Seattle's police chief, who had been tasked with shepherding court-monitored reforms as the force works to rebuild its public image, said on Monday he had planned to retire after a three-year tenure.
John Diaz, a 33-year veteran of the Seattle police department and its police ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Senate cleared the way on Thursday for an emotional, weeks-long debate on proposals to curb gun violence, rejecting an effort by conservative Republicans to block consideration of gun-control legislation prompted by December's Newtown school massacre.
The Senate voted ...
(Reuters) - A fungus tied to a disease devastating hibernating bats in the United States has been found in an Alabama cave system critical to the survival of endangered gray bats, government scientists said on Monday.
Detection of the fungus that causes the bat disease, white-nose syndrome, in the ...
"The future is here," said Peter Morrison at the Office of Naval Research's Solid-State Laser Technology Maturation Program.
The weapon is being billed as a step toward transforming warfare. Since it runs on electricity, it can fire as long as there is power at a cost of less than $1 ...
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A federal judge has rebuffed California Governor Jerry Brown's effort to ease U.S. oversight of mental health services in the state's overcrowded prisons, saying he did not trust officials to improve conditions for inmates.
Brown, a Democrat, is under political pressure to ...
Anne Smedinghoff, 25, was killed along with four other Americans in a car bomb blast Saturday as their convoy traveled in Zabul province to deliver textbooks to school children.
A 2005 graduate of Fenwick High School, a private Catholic school in Oak Park, Illinois, Smedinghoff had spoken with ...
Dozens of workers dug all night before reaching 6-year-old Chloe Jade Arwood and 7-year-old James Levi Caldwell, sheriff's spokesman Larry Seagle said. The site is about 20 miles northwest of Charlotte in Lincoln County,
The girl's father, Jordan Arwood, told emergency services on Sunday evening ...
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Creditors of bankrupt San Bernardino, including America's biggest pension fund and Wall Street bondholders, are due to meet in court on Tuesday in a case bogged down in arguments over the Southern California city's disclosure of financial records.
The slow progress in San ...
SEATTLE (Reuters) - A second man who pleaded guilty to planning to attack a military recruitment facility in Seattle and murder U.S. servicemen in 2011 was sentenced to 17 years in prison on Monday.
Walli Mujahidh, 34, was one of two men who had planned to storm the Military Entrance Processing ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. visa program ran a lottery on Sunday to award 85,000 slots for high-skilled workers just one week after the application period opened, the Citizenship and Immigration Service said, signaling companies feel confident enough about the economy to hire more foreign ...
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - An autopsy has determined that the son of popular U.S. evangelical pastor Rick Warren, found dead in California on Friday, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, an Orange County Sheriff's spokesman said on Monday.
Rick Warren said in a letter to staff of his Orange ...
KANSAS CITY, Kansas (Reuters) - Forecasters called for strong hail and possible tornadoes in western Kansas and a blizzard in four other states on Monday in the first of what are expected to be several days of nasty weather in the middle of the country.
The blizzard was expected to hit Colorado, ...
ALBANY, New York (Reuters) - New York state's top financial watchdog will name "dozens" of local governments that are in financial difficulty in the coming weeks as part of a new monitoring system designed to head off drastic measures such as bankruptcy or external oversight.
The new ...
HARTFORD, Connecticut (Reuters) - President Barack Obama, his voice rising with emotion, urged Americans to pile pressure on a reluctant Congress on Monday to approve new gun control legislation that is at risk of falling victim to Washington gridlock.
"We need a vote," he shouted.
Leeland Eisenberg, 52, faces a charge of escape punishable by up to seven years in prison after he was re-arrested in the lobby of a community center in Manchester, New Hampshire, the state's Department of Corrections said in a statement.
He had walked away from the minimum security Calumet ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Environmental groups on Monday asked the Obama administration to extend the approval process of the Keystone XL pipeline, using last month's spill of heavy Canadian crude oil in Arkansas as their latest reason to delay the project.
The Obama administration is deciding ...
The Democratic-controlled state Senate passed the bill by a 42-4 vote. The House of Delegates had approved it last month.
The measure allows seriously ill residents to obtain medical marijuana via state-regulated programs administered by academic medical centers.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Manhattan nanny accused of fatally stabbing two young children in her care has been found fit by two psychiatrists to stand trial, prosecutors said on Friday.
A psychiatric examination report was filed in court that found Yoselyn Ortega is able to participate in her own ...
"The situations that pose the greatest concern remain those in which the plan's funded ratio is exceptionally low and contribution levels are already high relative to the budget and rising," the agency said in a special report.
A pension's funded ratio measures the amount of money a ...
NEWARK, New Jersey (Reuters) - New Jersey Governor Chris Christie on Monday said the president of Rutgers University made a mistake but not a fireable one when he left it to aides to view videos of the men's basketball coach physically and verbally abusing players.
A firestorm of criticism ...
The performance of the 14 leading carriers in 2012 was about the same as the best year ever in 2011, according to the 23rd annual national Airline Quality Rating (AQR), which ranks airlines based on U.S. Department of Transportation figures.
The industry improved in two of four areas: on-time ...
Workers dug all night before reaching the bodies of the 6-year-old girl and 7-year-old boy on Monday morning, an official with the Lincoln County Emergency Management Services office said.
A man believed to be the father of one of the children called emergency services on Sunday afternoon and said ...
Canadian Olympic gold medalist Adam Kreek was among the four-man crew rescued about 400 miles north of Puerto Rico.
The rowers were hoping to travel more than 4,000 miles in a 29-foot rowboat on an journey from Dakar, Senegal, to Miami, Florida.
Leeland Eisenberg, 52, has been serving a 3 1/2- to 7-year sentence for the incident in Rochester, New Hampshire, in which he claimed to be wearing a bomb that turned out to be road flares.
Eisenberg was not in his room at the Calumet Transitional Housing Unit, a halfway house in Manchester, when ...
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Illinois lawmakers begin a two-month push on Monday to enact major pension reform, under pressure from taxpayers, workers, business groups and bond investors to fix the worst-funded state pension system in the United States.
The key objective: To put together a package of ...
(Reuters) - Fashion designer Lilly Pulitzer died on Sunday in Palm Beach, Florida, at age 81, her company said.
Pulitzer was known for her bright, cheerful print shift dresses that were popular with socialites and evoked a lifestyle of affluence in Florida and New York's Hamptons resorts.
NAVAL AIR STATION PATUXENT RIVER, Maryland (Reuters) - The Navy plans to carry out the first catapult takeoff of its new X-47B unmanned plane from an aircraft carrier next month and other shipboard tests despite mandatory budget cuts this year, according to the admiral who runs the programs.
Rear ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham on Sunday became the first prominent Republican to publicly praise, however lukewarmly, the budget proposal the White House outlined last week.
Graham said that while he believes President Barack Obama's plan is overall bad for the ...
Democratic Senator Charles Schumer of New York said that senators in the bipartisan "Group of Eight" have resolved all major issues in a pending deal and that their staffs are putting the bill into legislative language.
"All of us have said that they'll be no deal until the eight of ...
NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, one of the nation's most prominent Republicans and a possible 2016 presidential candidate, has fallen out of favor with local voters, and his bold plan to scrap the state income tax is running into trouble.
Jindal was re-elected to a second ...
MIAMI (Reuters) - When the Treasury Department approved a cultural trip to Cuba last week, it had no idea that those traveling included American pop superstar Beyonce and her rapper husband Jay-Z, according to people familiar with the four-day visit.
The trip was handled according to a standard ...
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - California Governor Jerry Brown said on Saturday he was aiming for a big win as he sets off for China to pitch the Golden state's wine, produce and technology and open a trade office in Shanghai.
Chinese consumers have "hundreds of billions in savings," Brown told ...
SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) - Three people were shot to death in a rural Idaho house where a man and his son were breeding pit bulls, police said on Saturday, adding that they found two small children and up to 70 dogs on the property.
Deputies arriving at the residence in Holbrook, Idaho, near the ...
Matthew Warren, 27, took his own life in "a momentary wave of despair at his home" after a "fun evening" with his parents, Warren said in a statement on Saturday.
"Kay and I are overwhelmed by your love, prayers, and kind words," Warren wrote on his Facebook page on ...
Petraeus resigned in November after it emerged that he had had an extra-marital affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell, an Army reserve intelligence officer who is also married. It was a stunning downfall for a respected Army general who led troops in Afghanistan and Iraq and was considered a ...
(Reuters) - An Illinois woman was sentenced to 50 years in prison in the 2004 death of her newborn daughter, whose frozen remains were found in a plastic bag at the roadside, according to local reports.
Katie Stockton, 32, who pleaded guilty in February, was sentenced in a Winnebago County Circuit ...
ST AUGUSTINE, Florida (Reuters) - Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon was only 4-foot, 11-inches tall, a trolley tour operator told his passengers as they rolled down a picturesque street in St. Augustine lined with moss-draped live oak trees.
But the Timucuan Indians he encountered when he set foot in ...
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A political fight over charity collection boxes is brewing in California, where property owners complain that the boxes are sometimes dropped onto their land without permission, becoming magnets for graffiti and shelter for transients.
Goodwill Industries International, the ...
HELENA, Mont (Reuters) - Over loud objections from Democrats, Montana's Republican-controlled Senate on Friday voted to put proposals on the 2014 ballot that would tighten voter registration and restrict the rights of third parties to compete in general elections.
The measures, which are expected ...
Workers at the key ports of Angamos, Antofagasta and Iquique in the mineral-rich north will return to work on Saturday, Richard Orellana, head of the Angamos port union told Reuters.
They will, however, walk off their jobs on Saturday if the two outstanding ports don't reach a deal, Orellana added.
(Reuters) - A former Montana congressman has lost his job as a state university regent after saying that the University of Montana had recruited "thugs" for a football program whose team captain and other players were accused of rape.
The ouster of former Democratic U.S. Representative ...
(Reuters) - A federal judge in Montana who initiated a misconduct complaint against himself last year after circulating a racially charged joke about President Barack Obama will retire next month, court officials said.
U.S. District Judge Richard Cebull, 69, will retire effective May 3, according ...
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer on Friday signed legislation creating an annual "National Day of the Cowboy" to honor the Western state's "unique cowboy culture" and recognize its proper place in history.
"Many of the blessings enjoyed by Arizonans today are because of the ...
Other ports in export-dependent Chile had joined the strike in the northern port of Angamos in Mejillones out of solidarity.
"Angamos has signed," Valparaiso port union leader Jorge Bustos said. Calls to union leaders and government representatives in Angamos went unanswered.
KANSAS CITY, Kansas (Reuters) - Kansas is set to enact one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the nation which defines life as beginning "at fertilization" and imposes a host of new regulations.
The Kansas House of Representatives passed the bill 90-30 on Friday night, a few hours ...
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A federal judge has rebuffed California Governor Jerry Brown's effort to undo a court order requiring the state to reduce its prison population, saying he did not trust officials to improve conditions for inmates.
Brown, a Democrat, is under political pressure to scale back ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration has gone to court to try to block a subpoena from the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York seeking White House documents about the government's requirement of insurance coverage for birth control.
The subpoena requesting documents from President ...
RICHMOND, California (Reuters) - The federal agency investigating the fire that broke out in August at Chevron Corp's oil refinery in Richmond, California, faulted the state's regulatory system for not being proactive enough in preventing accidents.
"The California process safety regulatory ...
JACKSON, Mississippi (Reuters) - A murder suspect who killed a veteran Mississippi police detective at police headquarters in Jackson on Thursday wrangled with the officer during questioning and shot him with his own gun before killing himself, police said on Friday.
The 23-year-old suspect was ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Manhattan nanny accused of fatally stabbing two young children in her care has been found fit by two psychiatrists to stand trial, prosecutors said on Friday.
A psychiatric examination report was filed in court that found Jocelyn Ortega is able to participate in her own ...
ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - The family of black teenager Trayvon Martin, who was shot to death last year by a neighborhood watch captain, has settled a wrongful death claim against the homeowners association of the Florida gated community where he was killed, a Florida newspaper reported on ...
Sergeant Marquinta Jacobs, 36, was taken into custody in Tennessee on Thursday, a day after the shooting in a parking lot forced a temporary lock down at the base near Louisville.
A federal magistrate judge ordered Jacobs transferred to military custody on Friday and dismissed an initial federal ...
The agency on December 20 revoked the license of Riverview Gun Sales in East Windsor, Connecticut, ATF spokeswoman Debora Seifert said. The revocation was reported in The Journal News, of Westchester County, New York, on Friday.
"We did revoke their federal firearms license," she said. ...
A public memorial was held on Thursday for Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife Cynthia at the church where they worshipped in Sunnyvale, Texas. They were found shot dead at their home on Saturday, two months after one of McLelland's assistant prosecutors was gunned down ...
Atlantic City, once a prominent destination for gamblers, lost its ranking as the second-biggest U.S. gaming market, behind Las Vegas, to the neighboring state of Pennsylvania.
The credit rating agency also took a jab at Caesars Entertainment Corp on Friday, cutting its corporate family rating to ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Putting off one of the most high-profile consequences of the broad U.S. "sequester" budget cuts, the Federal Aviation Administration on Friday delayed plans to close air-traffic control towers at 149 smaller airports.
The FAA, which oversees the nation's ...
The layoffs will affect about 11 percent of the workforce at the Decatur, Illinois, factory and reflect softening demand from the global mining industry, which is cutting back on capital investment because of a retreat in commodity prices.
Caterpillar, which had already implemented temporary ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - People in top U.S. national security jobs or seeking them will no longer have to disclose mental health counseling for sexual assault, the government said on Friday.
Workers and job applicants are asked on security clearance forms whether they have sought professional ...
The blast occurred near Langston, about 45 miles north of Oklahoma City.
A company spokeswoman said the facility is a small gathering station, about 3 million cubic feet per day. It is a low-pressure gathering system.
The bus was headed to Newport Elementary School in Wadsworth when witnesses say it ran a red light and hit a Jeep Wrangler, Lake County Sheriff Mark Curran said.
"The bus windows all crashed out. It's a bad scene," Curran told a news conference.
NEWARK, New Jersey (Reuters) - Nearly 40 Rutgers University faculty members have signed a letter voicing support for the school's president, who has been under fire since video footage emerged of former basketball coach Mike Rice abusing and berating his players.
Robert Barchi has drawn heavy ...
GENEVA (Reuters) - The U.N. human rights chief called on the United States on Friday to close down the Guantanamo prison camp, saying the indefinite imprisonment of many detainees without charge or trial violated international law.
Navi Pillay said the hunger strike being staged by some inmates at ...
DENVER (Reuters) - One of two white supremacist prison gang members named as persons of interest in the Colorado shooting death of the state prisons chief at the front door of his home last month was arrested on unrelated warrants on Friday, police said.
James Lohr, 47, was taken into custody by ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal judge on Friday ordered the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to make "morning-after" emergency contraception pills available without a prescription to all girls of reproductive age and criticized the Obama administration for interfering with the process ...
SHIP BOTTOM, New Jersey (Reuters) - A temporary flashing sign on the causeway to New Jersey's Long Beach Island thanks owners of oceanfront properties who have accepted a plan to build new barriers to protect them from storms like Sandy, which ravaged the U.S. northeast coast last year.
And to ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will offer cuts to Social Security and other benefit programs in a budget proposal next week aimed at winning over enough congressional Republicans to pass a broad deal to reduce the deficit.
While Obama's previous budgets have largely been ignored in ...
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A college student lost since Sunday in a California mountain canyon was rescued and flown to a hospital on Thursday, a day after her hiking companion was found dazed, dehydrated but otherwise safe in a nearby ravine, authorities said.
A member of the Orange County sheriff's ...
ATLANTA (Reuters) - Honoring the memory of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. on the 45th anniversary of his assassination, dozens of young people pledged at a ceremony on Thursday to embrace his message of nonviolence as a way of life.
The King Center in Atlanta commemorated its namesake ...
(Reuters) - The government on Thursday recommended the removal of four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River in Oregon and California to aid native salmon runs and help resolve a decades-long struggle over allocation of scarce water resources.
The Interior Department proposal, which comes as the ...
(Reuters) - A New Hampshire police chief has resigned after a female college student accused him of promising to drop minor charges against her if she allowed him to take nude pictures of her, officials said on Thursday.
David Seastrand, 50, police chief of New London, near the state capital ...
The officer was identified as Detective Eric Smith.
"This is indeed a sad day for our city, a sad day for the Jackson Police Department," said Jackson Mayor Harvey Johnson in a filmed interview posted on the Jackson Clarion-Ledger website.
The suspect, Tennis Maynard, 37, of Ragland, West Virginia, has been charged with first-degree murder and attempted murder in the Wednesday shooting of Mingo County Sheriff Eugene Crum, 59, who was killed in his police SUV in Williamson.
The shooting occurred amid a heightened awareness of attacks ...
The shooting Wednesday evening at Fort Knox, near Louisville, "appears to be a domestic issue and not a random act of violence," said Chris Grey, spokesperson for the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command.
The Army in its statement Thursday did not identify the soldier who was taken ...
DENVER (Reuters) - A University of Colorado psychiatrist who once treated accused theater gunman James Holmes described him to a campus police officer as having had "homicidal thoughts" five weeks before he allegedly killed 12 moviegoers, newly unsealed court records showed on ...
Readings of air quality "are below levels likely to cause health effects for the general population with the exception of the cleanup areas where the emergency responders are directly working," the Environmental Protection Agency said.
"As cleanup continues, contaminant levels ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - First Lady Michelle Obama shared what has become a rite of spring in Washington with a small group of fifth-grade students on Thursday, planting vegetables in the White House garden.
On a day that began with record-cold temperatures that have pushed back the blooming season ...
KAUFMAN, Texas (Reuters) - In sweeping indictments last November, federal prosecutors accused the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas of involvement in three murders, multiple attempted murders, kidnappings, assaults, and conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine and cocaine.
The indictments against 34 ...
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A college student lost since Sunday in a California mountain canyon was rescued and flown to a hospital on Thursday, a day after her hiking companion was found dazed and dehydrated in a nearby ravine, authorities said.
A member of the Orange County sheriff's search team ...
CHICAGO (Reuters) - The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Thursday it was monitoring a new strain of bird flu and has started work on a vaccine just in case it is needed.
So far, the strain known as avian influenza A (H7N9) has only been found in China and does not ...
CHICAGO (Reuters) - BBQ fans, brace yourselves: "Pork butt" will soon be a thing of the past.
In an effort to boost sales just ahead of the U.S. grilling season, and make shopping at the meat counter a bit easier, the pork and beef industries are retooling more than 350 names of meat ...
MOBILE, Alabama (Reuters) - Rescue workers suspended their search on Thursday for an Alabama shipyard worker who was thrown into the Mobile River by strong winds that also caused a Carnival Corp cruise ship to break loose from its moorings.
The U.S. Coast Guard called off the search for ...
Innovations such as blind-spot detection and automatic braking in the event of an imminent crash could help prevent accidents, the department said, as it sought public input on how to best update its ratings system.
The agency asked for feedback on how to evaluate the safety of various new ...
The survey showed 52 percent of Americans support legalizing marijuana, which the federal government deems an illegal drug even as many states have loosened restrictions on "pot" use.
Support for legalizing pot has risen by 11 points since 2010 and was up from just 12 percent backing in ...
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Rescue teams scoured a California mountain canyon on Thursday for a college student missing since Sunday as police questioned her hiking companion, who was found dazed and dehydrated three days after the pair reported themselves lost, authorities said.
Nicholas Cendoya, 19, ...
The information on the website included a Social Security number, phone numbers, and a credit report that includes accounts with The Home Depot, Sears, and Macy's.
It was unclear how much of the data that appeared on www.exposed.re was accurate or who posted it. The website appeared to have ...
TAMPA, Florida (Reuters) - A deadly algae bloom that killed a record number of manatees has dissipated, though the death toll for the endangered sea mammals continues to rise, Florida wildlife officials said on Thursday.
Red Tide has killed 241 manatees this year as of Wednesday, said Kevin ...
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (Reuters) - Alabama lawmakers on Thursday paved the way for the posthumous exoneration of nine black teenagers known as the Scottsboro Boys, whose fight against false charges that they raped two white women 82 years ago helped spur the modern civil rights movement.
The youths, ...
Eugene Crum, the sheriff of Mingo County in southwestern West Virginia, was killed on Wednesday as he sat in his department SUV in the coal-mining town of Williamson.
Police said the suspect, Tennis Maynard, 37, of Ragland, West Virginia, fled the scene in his own vehicle. He crashed into a bridge ...
(Reuters) - A "rank" odor that has spread across parts of greater New Orleans may be linked to a leak from the 192,500-barrel-per-day Chalmette refinery, the U.S. Coast Guard investigating the smell said on Thursday.
Chalmette, a joint venture between Exxon Mobil Corp and Venezuela's ...
The University of Rhode Island lifted an order issued earlier locking down its Kingston campus after the lecture hall was evacuated because of the reports.
The incident began when a professor heard a man outside a classroom describing himself as "a good guy" with a gun, said Captain ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Hillary Clinton, already the front-runner in the minds of many Democrats for the 2016 U.S. presidential election, is writing a memoir about world affairs and her time as secretary of state that will likely fuel more speculation about her political future.
The presidential ...
In a pre-recorded video message, Bernanke stressed the importance of financial education so that people can better plan for their retirements and make informed decisions when taking out loans to buy cars and homes.
The United States is still reeling from the deep 2007-09 recession which struck ...
AKRON, Ohio (Reuters) - An Ohio judge sentenced Richard Beasley to death on Thursday for the murder of three down-on-their-luck men who responded to an ad he placed on the Craigslist website for a nonexistent job.
Prosecutors had called Beasley a "false prophet," and a con man who ...
In its monthly report, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Prediction Center (CPC) said its models for the El Niño remain neutral into the summer, citing oceanic heat content and wind levels during March.
However, the forecaster maintained a more uncertain longer-term ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - When Attorney Preet Bharara brought two corruption cases against New York state politicians this week, accusing some of selling their votes and another of trying to bribe his way onto the ballot, he challenged the political class to clean up the system.
Some political veterans ...
MERIDEN, Connecticut (Reuters) - Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy on Thursday signed a tough new gun law that restricts sales of the sort of high-capacity ammunition clips that a gunman used to massacre 26 people in minutes in December in an attack at a school in the state.
The law also requires ...
WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Jeffrey Skilling, the former Enron Corp chief executive serving a 24-year prison term over the energy company's spectacular collapse, may get a chance to leave prison early.
The U.S. Department of Justice has notified victims of Enron's fraud and 2001 bankruptcy ...
Lawmakers in the state's Democratic-controlled House approved the measure, which supporters described as one of the toughest such laws in the United States, early on Thursday morning. The Senate approved the measure hours earlier.
The House debate stretched past midnight, with opponents of the law ...
SUNNYVALE, Texas (Reuters) - Texas District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife, Cynthia, were mourned on Thursday by friends, neighbors and law enforcement officers who remembered "two great souls" as the search for their killers intensified and the state's governor offered a $100,000 ...
(Reuters) - Hundreds of fast-food restaurant workers in New York City turned out for protests on Thursday in what organizers said would be their largest rally yet for better pay.
Employees from familiar chains such as McDonald's Corp, Burger King and Yum Inc's KFC are seeking to roughly double ...
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - President Barack Obama used fundraisers on Wednesday to assuage supporters' concerns about a transnational oil pipeline and his commitment to tackling climate change, while urging them to drive Republicans out of power in Congress in 2014.
The Obama administration is ...
KANSAS CITY, Kan (Reuters) - A Kansas abortion clinic closed since the 2009 murder of its doctor, one of the few physicians in the country who performed late-term abortions, reopened on Wednesday in Wichita, the owner of the clinic said.
The clinic has been closed since Dr. George Tiller was slain ...
The men being sought were known associates of a gang called the 211 Crew and were considered armed and dangerous, said Lieutenant Jeff Kramer, a spokesman for Colorado's El Paso County Sheriff's Office. Kramer named them as James Franklin Lohr, 47, and Thomas James Guolee, 31.
Authorities have ...
Model year 2013 Outlander Sport vehicles made from June 11 to September 11 last year may have brake lamps that either work intermittently or illuminate continuously without the pressing of the brake pedal, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said on its website.
The same vehicles ...
TUCSON, Ariz (Reuters) - Plans by a top Paris auction house to sell scores of antique tribal masks revered as sacred ritual artifacts by a traditional Arizona Native American tribe has triggered a furor and calls for their return.
The Hopi Tribe, living in a dozen scattered villages in on the Hopi ...
FARGO, North Dakota (Reuters) - Fargo residents began filling 1 million sandbags on Wednesday as the North Dakota city braced for major flooding along the Red River for the fourth time in the past five years.
Preparing the sandbags is a volunteer effort in Fargo, which wants to reach its goal by ...
DETROIT (Reuters) - Detroit's new state-appointed emergency manager on Wednesday disavowed letters sent by the mayor's office saying that the city would stop honoring contracts with its police, fire and paramedics' labor unions.
The apparent miscommunication between Mayor Dave Bing and Kevyn Orr, ...
SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - Civil rights activists in Texas are seeking a pardon from President Barack Obama for the late boxer Jack Johnson, an African-American convicted a century ago for the crime of taking a woman across state lines.
"Here in 2013, this man shouldn't still be carrying the ...
WILLIAMSON, W., Virginia (Reuters) - A drug-fighting West Virginia sheriff was shot to death as he ate lunch in his car on Wednesday and the suspected gunman was wounded and captured after a chase, police said.
Mingo County Sheriff Eugene Crum was at a parking lot in the city of Williamson when a ...
The Pennsylvania couple say the abuse took place in 2012 at Our Lady of Czestochowa, a shrine and retreat house run by the Pauline Fathers monastic order in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, where the wife had gone for counseling, according to the lawsuit.
The suit was filed on Wednesday in the Court of ...
KAUFMAN, Texas (Reuters) - Authorities named a new lead prosecutor on Wednesday in the 2012 indictment of 34 suspected members of the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas prison gang after the previous head of the case abruptly quit.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jay Hileman stepped aside on Tuesday in the wake ...
OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) - A lawyer for an Oklahoma oral surgeon accused of using improper sterilization procedures and rusty surgical tools that may have exposed patients to HIV and hepatitis said on Wednesday his client had an impeccable record and provided dedicated care.
The attorney for Dr. ...
CINCINNATI (Reuters) - A man who worked as a civilian Army employee was shot to death on Wednesday in a parking lot at the Fort Knox Army base in Kentucky in an incident that prompted a security lockdown there, officials said.
Authorities said the shooting was "not a random act" and the ...
The legislation, which had been proposed by Governor Martin O'Malley, was passed by the state Senate last month.
Colorado and New York have already passed new laws on gun control, and the Connecticut legislature was set to vote on Wednesday on what supporters describe as one of the toughest gun ...
SEATTLE (Reuters) - Washington state will clamp down on bars that have been sidestepping a ban on consuming marijuana in public by converting part of their space into private clubs.
The move comes as the state considers ways to regulate marijuana after voters legalized the drug for recreational ...
(Reuters) - A fugitive survivalist known as the "Mountain Man", wanted by authorities for allegedly breaking into several Utah cabins over six years, has been arrested following a gunfire exchange at a remote cabin in central Utah, police said.
Troy James Knapp was taken into custody on ...
Mobile, Alabama (Reuters) - Strong winds caused the Carnival cruise ship Triumph to break loose on Wednesday from its moorings at a Mobile, Alabama, shipyard where it was being repaired, a company spokesman said, and it drifted into a cargo vessel.
Tug boats and the U.S. Coast Guard were on site, ...
Nick Morale, 56, of Terrell, Texas, was arrested on Tuesday and charged with making a terror threat, said Lieutenant Justin Lewis, spokesman for the Kaufman County Sheriff's Department.
He was being held on $1 million bond.
WILLIAMSON, W., Virginia (Reuters) - A drug-fighting West Virginia sheriff was shot dead as he ate lunch in his car on Wednesday, and local media said the suspected shooter was wounded and captured after a high-speed chase.
Mingo County Sheriff Eugene Crum was shot at point blank range at least ...
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Roger Ebert, who was the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize and became an unlikely TV star while hosting a movie review show with fellow critic Gene Siskel, died in Chicago on Thursday, two days after he disclosed his cancer had returned.
"It is with a heavy ...
Alaska had the most gun deaths, with 20.28 deaths per 100,000 people in 2010, twice the national average, the analysis by the Center for American Progress showed.
Louisiana and Montana, which followed with 19.06 and 16.58 deaths per 100,000 people, respectively, were among the 10 states with the ...
NIANTIC, Connecticut (Reuters) - Hundreds of law enforcement agents swept into southeast Connecticut on Wednesday in an operation that saw about 100 people arrested in what authorities described as a massive takedown of heroin and cocaine traffickers.
The arrests swept up suspects in four ...
TUCSON, Arizona (Reuters) - An Arizona man was set free on Tuesday after serving four decades for murder in connection with a 1970 hotel fire that killed 29 people, after new evidence emerged throwing his conviction into question.
"It's good to feel Mother Earth under my feet again," ...
HARTFORD, Connecticut (Reuters) - Connecticut lawmakers voted on Thursday to approve a new gun-control bill in response to last December's shooting at a school in Newtown in which 20 children and six adults were killed.
After nearly 8 hours of debate that lasted until early Thursday morning, the ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told the U.S. military on Wednesday to brace for a new round of belt-tightening as he carries out a sweeping review that could slash the number of generals, pare back civilian workers and stem spiraling costs of new weapons.
But Hagel, in his ...
Model year 2013 Outlander Sport vehicles made from June 11 to September 11 last year may have brake lamps that either work intermittently or illuminate continuously without the pressing of the brake pedal, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said on its website.
The same vehicles ...
ATLANTA (Reuters) - A grand jury has indicted former professional basketball player Javaris Crittenton on murder and gang charges in the drive-by shooting death of a young mother in Georgia in 2011, prosecutors said on Wednesday.
Julian Jones, 22, was gunned down in Atlanta in August 2011 by ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - An appeals court has revived a lawsuit by the former wife of Steven A. Cohen, founder of hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors, who accused the billionaire of hiding $5.5 million from her during proceedings that led to their 1990 divorce.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New ...
Hyundai is recalling 1,059,824 cars and SUVs and Kia 623,658 vehicles from model years 2007 through 2011 to replace a switch that could malfunction and increase the risk of a crash, according to documents filed with U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
A Kia spokesman in the United ...
(Reuters) - Officials launched what they described as a "massive" wave of arrests on Wednesday, relating to heroin and cocaine trafficking in southeastern Connecticut.
"Homeland Security Investigations, along with our federal, state and local law enforcement partners, are executing ...
BISBEE, Arizona (Reuters) - A former Arizona copper mining town reborn as an artists' community defied the threat of legal action on Tuesday and became the first city in the conservative southwestern state to allow civil unions between same-sex couples.
The city council in Bisbee, a city of 5,600 ...
SACRAMENTO (Reuters) - A 30-year-old graffiti artist died after becoming entangled in a rope he used to scale down from the top of an 18-storey building in Sacramento, police said on Tuesday.
The body of Craig Michael Fugate of Vancouver, Washington, was found on Monday dangling from a rope just ...
A 25-mile stretch of Interstate 70 was closed in both directions for several hours late Tuesday afternoon about 75 miles west of Denver, the Colorado Department of Transportation reported on its website.
Colorado State Patrol Trooper Nate Reid said a series of wrecks and cars sliding off the ...
PHOENIX (Reuters) - A transgender man who made worldwide headlines after he married and gave birth to three children will appeal an Arizona judge's ruling denying him a divorce from his wife of 10 years, his attorneys said on Tuesday.
Thomas Beatie, 39, was born a woman but began living as a man ...
BIRMINGHAM, Ala (Reuters) - The Alabama Senate passed an abortion bill on Tuesday critics say would limit access to the procedure with stricter requirements for clinics that provide it.
The Senate passed the bill on a vote of 22-10, after the House passed a similar bill in February. A committee ...
TUCSON, Arizona (Reuters) - An Arizona man was set free on Tuesday after serving four decades for murder in connection with a 1970 hotel fire that killed 29 people, after new evidence emerged throwing his conviction into question.
"It's good to feel Mother Earth under my feet again," ...
DENVER (Reuters) - An intruder who forced his way into the mountain home of a Colorado deputy district attorney was shot dead by either the prosecutor or her police officer husband, authorities said on Tuesday.
The shooting, shortly before midnight Monday, comes two weeks after Colorado's prisons ...
NEWARK, New Jersey (Reuters) - Thirty-one Rutgers University faculty members have demanded the resignation of the college's president, and the New Jersey state assembly speaker has proposed public hearings into the abuse of players by former men's basketball coach Mike Rice.
The faculty members ...
OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) - About 1,200 patients have been screened for exposure to HIV and hepatitis in Oklahoma after authorities found a Tulsa dentist using improper sterilization procedures and rusty surgical tools, a public health official said on Tuesday.
More than 6,000 patients have yet to ...
INDIANAPOLIS (Reuters) - The Indiana House on Tuesday approved a bill requiring clinics that administer the so-called abortion pill to also have full surgical facilities, a move that would force Planned Parenthood to halt all abortion services at a central Indiana clinic.
Supporters say the bill ...
The altercation between Hispanic and African-American inmates erupted shortly after noon local time in a third-floor recreation area inside Tower One of the Twin Towers Correctional Facility, said Steve Whitmore, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, which runs the ...
ATLANTA (Reuters) - Former educators indicted in a cheating scandal that has rocked Atlanta's public school system began turning themselves in to authorities on Tuesday, ahead of a deadline to surrender voluntarily.
At least 10 of the 35 former Atlanta public school educators indicted by a grand ...
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Stockton and San Bernardino, the two California cities that have filed for bankruptcy protection, are both considered test cases in the epic battle over whether municipal bondholders or pensioners will absorb most of the pain when a government goes broke.
A federal court ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Businesses and wealthy owners of estates and trusts asked the IRS on Tuesday for changes to a part of President Barack Obama's 2010 healthcare law that has received comparatively little attention: a 3.8 percent tax on investment income intended to provide the bulk of the ...
Tonya Bundick, 40, and Charles Smith, 38, were arrested early on Tuesday after a traffic stop and charged with setting afire a vacant house in the town of Melfa that night, spokeswoman Corinne Geller told a news conference.
"We are confident that Bundick and Smith are guilty of the majority ...
PHOENIX (Reuters) - A judge denied the latest defense request for a mistrial on Tuesday in the capital murder case against Jodi Arias, the California woman charged with slaying her lover at his Arizona home in what she has insisted was an act of self-defense.
Defense lawyers requested the mistrial ...
DENVER (Reuters) - A white supremacist parolee suspected of killing Colorado's prisons chief and a pizza delivery man last month skipped out on his parole days before the slayings, state Department of Corrections documents released on Tuesday show.
Ex-convict Evan Spencer Ebel last contacted ...
BOSTON (Reuters) - Two Democrats jumped into the race to succeed Boston's longest-serving mayor on Tuesday, the first to declare their interest in succeeding Thomas Menino since he told the city last week that he would not run for an unprecedented sixth term.
State Representative Martin Walsh and ...
Florence Banta, who lived on the 17th floor of the building, was found on Monday morning by a building maintenance engineer, officer John Mirabelli said. She had been reported missing on Saturday by her daughter, he said.
Investigators were waiting for the results of an autopsy on Banta, which was ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senator Mark Kirk announced on Tuesday that he supports gay marriage, suggesting a brush with death had helped shift his attitude as he became the second Republican to join dozens of Democratic senators who back homosexuals' right to wed.
"When I climbed the Capitol ...
"They squeezed their way through the fence somehow," said Sergeant Brad Cummings, a spokesman for the Hopkins County Sheriff's office in Sulphur Springs, Texas, about 80 miles northeast of Dallas.
The men escaped from the county jail recreation yard and their black-and-white prison ...
BOSTON (Reuters) - A man who fled Massachusetts after being convicted of rape 34 years ago and was arrested in Maine last week, has been returned to the state for sentencing, prosecutors said on Tuesday.
Gary Irving, 52, was convicted in 1979 in Norfolk Superior Court in Massachusetts for crimes ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A task force funded by the National Rifle Association, the top U.S. gun rights group, unveiled a plan on Tuesday to train armed security personnel in every school in response to the December school massacre in Connecticut - a proposal swiftly condemned by gun control ...
KAUFMAN, Texas (Reuters) - Brandi Fernandez slipped into the Kaufman County Courthouse in her first full day as interim district attorney on Tuesday, taking over a job that authorities believe got her predecessor and one of her colleagues killed.
Praised as a smart, tough litigator and a fierce ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Consultants who advise companies on how to manage their employees' retirement plans expect emerging market stocks to outperform in a lower-return environment over the next several years, a survey by bond giant PIMCO showed on Monday.
The survey, which tracked 51 consulting ...
An estimated 393,000 cars are involved, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. NHTSA said it received six complaints of the failure of rear suspension control arms due to corrosion.
Three of the reports "allege failures at highway speeds," NHTSA said. The agency ...
ATLANTA (Reuters) - Former educators indicted in a cheating scandal that has rocked Atlanta's public school system began turning themselves in to authorities on Tuesday, ahead of a deadline to surrender voluntarily.
At least three of the 35 former Atlanta public school educators indicted by a ...
Tonya S. Bundick, 40, was accused of setting fire to a vacant residence in the Accomack County community of Melfa late on Monday, Virginia State Police said in a statement.
The blaze caused slight damage and was quickly extinguished. Bundick has been charged with one count of arson and one count ...
Subaru, a division of Japan's Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd, said the vehicles were sold in 20 "salt belt" states, mainly in the Northeast and Midwest, and most were built at its U.S. assembly plant in Lafayette, Indiana.
An official recall notice released Tuesday by the National Highway ...
The recall affects 144 Encores equipped with heated steering wheels and built between December 9 and December 28, GM said in a filing with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
The Encore, a new compact crossover vehicle introduced in January by Buick, is built by GM Korea. A ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A high-ranking Democratic New York State senator was arrested on Tuesday and charged with trying to buy a place on the Republican ticket in the city's mayoral race, in what prosecutors said was part of a bribery scandal that reflected pervasive corruption in New York ...
BISBEE, Arizona (Reuters) - A former Arizona copper mining town reborn as an artists' community is poised to become on Tuesday the first city in the conservative southwestern state to allow civil unions between same-sex couples.
The City Council in Bisbee, a city of 5,600 residents in southeast ...
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - An Alaska State Troopers helicopter crashed during a rescue mission, killing all three people onboard, including the stranded snowmobiler who had summoned the troopers' help, officials said on Monday.
Emergency workers reached the wreckage early on Sunday and ...
HARTFORD, Connecticut (Reuters) - Legislative leaders in Connecticut, where a gunman killed 20 children and six adults at an elementary school in December, said on Monday they had agreed some of the toughest gun regulations in the nation and expected to adopt them this week.
The proposal, which is ...
The ordinance, approved unanimously by the City Council in Nelson, is symbolic, however, because there is no penalty for violating it, according to Councilman Duane Cronic, who introduced the measure last month.
It serves as an expression of support for gun rights and sends a message to would-be ...
NEWARK, New Jersey (Reuters) - New Jersey Governor Chris Christie signed a bill into law on Monday banning children under 17 from using commercial tanning beds, a move stemming from the case of a local woman accused of taking her 5-year-old daughter into a tanning booth.
Christie said that while ...
SEATTLE (Reuters) - Seattle Public Schools will not punish educators who staged a boycott of a widely used standardized test in January and has loosened testing requirements, in a victory for a local revolt that stoked the national protest movement over assessments in U.S. public ...
Nagin, who had chided federal officials for their slow response after Hurricane Katrina inundated New Orleans, was accused in a grand jury indictment in January of taking kickbacks in exchange for city contracts.
The joint request for more time had said, "The nature of the present prosecution ...
Elsie Thompson died at her home on March 21 in Clearwater, Florida, the Tampa Bay Times reported late on Sunday.
The Gerontology Research Group, which compiles information on the world's oldest known living people, listed Thompson as the fourth-oldest person in the world before her death.
DENVER (Reuters) - A white supremacist parolee suspected of killing Colorado's prisons chief and a pizza delivery man last month had been mistakenly released from prison in January - four years early - due to a clerical error, court officials said on Monday.
Evan Spencer Ebel, 28, was killed in a ...
The Federal Communications Commission issued a public notice inviting comment on whether it should focus its efforts on pursuing only the "most egregious" cases in which rules are broken, or focus on isolated cases of nudity and expletives uttered on radio and TV shows.
The public notice ...
CONWAY, Massachusetts (Reuters) - A chemist who worked at a Massachusetts state drug lab was indicted on Monday on state charges of tampering with evidence and stealing cocaine held in evidence, in the second case against a state chemist in recent months.
Sonja Farak, who has been suspended with ...
NEWARK, New Jersey (Reuters) - The winner of the $338 million Powerball lottery on Monday paid $29,000 in overdue child-support payments, a debt that dated back four years, New Jersey authorities said.
Pedro Quezada, 44, informed state Superior Court Judge Ernest Caposela that he had paid off the ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Justice Department's civil rights division will monitor local elections in two counties in Kansas and Nebraska on Tuesday, the department said.
The oversight of polling places will ensure the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and other federal voting rights laws are complied ...
Since the start of 2010, when Republican Governor Chris Christie took office, the state has awarded $2.1 billion in subsidies, compared to $1.25 billion for the previous 10 years, New Jersey Policy Perspective, the liberal think-tank, said in its report.
Even so, New Jersey's economy remains ...
LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (Reuters) - Republican lawmakers in Arkansas voted on Monday to override a veto by the state's Democratic governor and approve a bill that requires voters to show photo identification at the polls, prompting an outcry from civil libertarians who vowed to fight the ...
SACRAMENTO, California (Reuters) - A federal judge on Monday approved the city of Stockton's petition for bankruptcy in a case that sets the stage for a lengthy battle between bondholders and the California pension system.
In a case being studied by other cash-strapped American cities including ...
FARGO, North Dakota (Reuters) - North Dakota's only clinic that offers abortion services is vowing to challenge the state's adoption of new restrictions that its backers say imperil its ability to operate.
The Red River Women's Clinic, which is tucked inside a downtown Fargo building that once ...
Nearly half of the adults questioned in the survey said they wished had made more of an effort in college, while another 40 percent said they should have done more networking, which is more typically associated with the professional world.
But only four percent wished they had had more sex and a ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Federal authorities have dramatically lowered the amount that New York state can claim from the federal government for certain medical services, costing the state an estimated $1.2 billion.
The Center for Medicaid Services (CMS), the federal agency that administers the ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Sometimes being president of the United States isn't just about being in command. There is also the rare opportunity to shed the heavy concerns - and the necktie - and spend time with citizens focused more on food and fun than power and politics.
Barack Obama escaped briefly ...
BOSTON (Reuters) - A law decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana went into effect in Rhode Island on Monday after the state last year became the 15th in the United States to enact such legislation.
Governor Lincoln Chafee signed the legislation into law in June but it did not take ...
"The monitoring will ensure compliance with the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and other federal voting rights statutes," the Justice Department said in a statement on Monday.
Finney County, in western Kansas, will hold municipal and school elections. Voters in Douglas County, home to Omaha, ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal by a former university professor who was fired in the aftermath of controversial statements he made about the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001.
The University of Colorado at Boulder fired Ward ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a challenge to a federal government rule that requires airlines to advertise the full cost of tickets.
Allegiant Travel Co, Southwest Airlines Co and Spirit Airlines Inc had all challenged the U.S. Department of Transportation's ...
CENTENNIAL, Colo. (Reuters) - Colorado prosecutors will seek the death penalty for the man charged with killing 12 moviegoers during a showing of the Batman film "The Dark Knight Rises" last year.
District Attorney George Brauchler's formal call for the death penalty at a hearing on ...
Emergency workers reached the wreckage early on Sunday and found the bodies of the pilot, a state trooper and a snowmobiler who had been rescued after becoming stranded near the small town of Talkeetna.
The helicopter had failed to arrive at a rendezvous site to meet medics late on Saturday, ...
(Reuters) - A driver crashed his car into a Wal-Mart in California, then attacked shoppers with a blunt object, injuring four people, a local newspaper reported on Sunday.
One person was injured when a red Oldsmobile Cutlass Salon crashed into the Wal-Mart in San Jose, California, about 50 miles ...
(Reuters) - Three people were killed and 25 injured on Sunday in a 75-vehicle pile-up along a fog-shrouded stretch of Virginia highway, local media reports and the state's department of transportation said.
The accident occurred at about 1:15 p.m. in the Fancy Gap Mountain area of Virginia, ...
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A federal judge on Monday is expected to rule on whether the city of Stockton, California is eligible for bankruptcy protection, a key milestone in a case likely to set critical precedents for cash-strapped U.S. cities, their employees and their bondholders.
The decision ...
In 2011, Wiens received the first full face transplant ever performed in the United States.
Wiens, 27, was married to Jamie Nash of Garland, Texas, at Ridglea Baptist Church in Fort Worth before 150 people, the newspaper said on its website.
Wishing "Happy Easter" to onlookers, Obama, his wife Michelle, and their daughters Malia and Sasha, strolled through a park to St. John's Church, where they have attended services before.
Their presence at the nearby Episcopal church had not been announced in advance, and the minister, ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With business and labor now in agreement, a bipartisan group of senators has resolved all major issues in a pending deal to overhaul the immigration system and aims to unveil it after Congress reconvenes in the second week of April, key lawmakers said on Sunday.
The ...
A generator fell as it was being moved out of the turbine building at Entergy Corp's Arkansas Nuclear One plant in Russellville, Entergy said in a statement.
"There was no nuclear release of any kind," said Ed Barham, a spokesman for the Arkansas Health Department.
Those killed were among seven family members in the van when it was hit early on Saturday, authorities said. The other two — a 15-year-old boy and the 40-year-old female driver — were hospitalized in Las Vegas, said Nevada Highway Patrol spokesman Sergeant Kevin Honea said.
The 18-year-old ...
KAUFMAN, Texas (Reuters) - Twin killings of Texas prosecutors in a quaint town where oak trees and two-story brick buildings line the central square have shocked residents, raised questions whether the shootings could be linked, and fueled speculation about the possible role of a white supremacist ...
HOUSTON (Reuters) - Exxon Mobil Corp on Wednesday was digging out oiled lawns to replace them with fresh sod in an Arkansas neighborhood where a crude oil pipeline ruptured last week, but the line remained shut with no estimate of when it would restart, the company said.
While response crews had ...
