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CHICAGO (AP) — For three decades, Kelly Flint flourished as a corporate travel agent, sending everyone from business titans to oil riggers around the planet. Then came the worst pandemic in a century, leaving her jobless and marooned in an uncertain economy. Furloughed since March, Flint has dipped into her retirement account to pay her bills, frustrated that her $600 weekly emergency federal aid payments have expired. She yearns, too, for an end to the twin disasters that now dominate her life: recession and pandemic. "I don't deal well w...
CHICAGO (AP) — When Jamie Bolker started teaching composition at MacMurray College in January, she felt she'd won the lottery. After sending out more than 140 resumes, she had a tenure-track position in English. Last month, though, Bolker delivered a dire Twitter announcement: "Welp. MacMurray College is permanently closing ... They were already on the edge and coronavirus was the final nail." While the Jacksonville, Illinois, school's financial troubles were years in the making — fueled by declining enrollment, an inadequate endowment and com...
TRUMANSBURG, N.Y. (AP) — On a late summer Saturday, a procession of fire engines, motorcycles and squad cars escorted a van down Main Street, greeted by clusters of flag-waving folks. By the time the caravan had arrived at the American Legion hall, a crowd had gathered; lines of police, firefighters and the military parted to form a path of honor. Krista Johnston stepped from the van — an impossibly young widow. She wore her husband's favorite blue-and-pink Hawaiian shirt; it seemed too big even over her pregnant belly. Sgt. James Joh...
CHICAGO (AP) — Pardeep Singh Kaleka has surveyed the landscape of an America scarred by mass shootings. Seven years ago, a white supremacist invaded a Sikh temple in Wisconsin and killed six worshippers — among them Kaleka's father, who died clutching a butter knife he'd grabbed in a desperate attempt to stop the shooter. Now, whenever another gunman bloodies another town, Kaleka posts a supportive message on social media. Then later, either by invitation or on his own initiative, he'll journey to the community to shore up others who share his...
CHICAGO (AP) — Pardeep Singh Kaleka has surveyed the landscape of an America scarred by mass shootings. Seven years ago, a white supremacist invaded a Sikh temple in Wisconsin and killed six worshippers — among them Kaleka's father, who died clutching a butter knife he'd grabbed in a desperate attempt to stop the shooter. Now, whenever another gunman bloodies another town, Kaleka posts a supportive message on social media. Then later, either by invitation or on his own initiative, he'll journey to the community to shore up others who share his...
CHICAGO (AP) — It's a scandal of privacy, politics and an essential ingredient of business success — public trust. Facebook is confronting a costly, embarrassing public relations debacle after revelations that Cambridge Analytica may have misused data from some 50 million users to try to influence elections. Among its marquee clients: President Donald Trump's general election campaign. Now a company known as much for reminders of a long-lost friend's birthday and documentation of acquaintances' every whim is grappling with outrage— and the p...
Hurricane Harvey began with raging winds, but its legacy will be water. Seemingly endless, relentlessly insidious water — a staggering 40 inches or more that swamped parts of Houston in just five days. Harvey scooped tons of water from the sea and hurled it down on the nation's fourth-largest city, drowning vast swathes of the landscape and battering it with almost a year's worth of rainfall. Rooftops became islands poking up through swirling floodwaters. Thousands of houses were destroyed, and tens of thousands more, soaked and pounded by t...
DETROIT (AP) — Courtroom 801 is nearly empty when guards bring in Bobby Hines in handcuffs. More than 27 years ago, Hines stood before a judge to answer for his role in killing a man over a friend's drug debt. He was 15 then, just out of eighth grade. Another teen fired the shot that killed 21-year-old James Warren. But Hines had said something like, "Let him have it," sealing his punishment: life in prison with no chance for parole. The judgment came during an era when many states, fearing teen "superpredators," enacted laws to punish j...
DETROIT (AP) — Courtroom 801 is nearly empty when guards bring in Bobby Hines, hands cuffed in front of navy prison scrubs. It's been more than 27 years since Hines stood before a judge in this building. He was 15 then, just out of eighth grade, answering for his role in the murder of a man over a friend's drug debt. He did not fire the deadly shot, but when he and two others confronted 21-year-old James Warren, Hines said something like, "Let him have it," words that sealed his conviction and punishment: mandatory life with no chance for p...
ROCHESTER, Minn. (AP) — He'd been waiting for this day, and when his doctor handed him the mirror, Andy Sandness stared at his image and absorbed the enormity of the moment: He had a new face, one that had belonged to another man. His father and his brother, joined by doctors and nurses at Mayo Clinic, watched him examine his swollen features. He was just starting to heal from one of the rarest surgeries in the world — a face transplant, the first at the medical center. He had the nose, cheeks, mouth, lips, jaw, chin, even the teeth of his don...
