Sorted by date Results 26 - 50 of 83
*URBANA, Ohio (AP) — Logan Cole remembers in graphic detail being shot at his Ohio high school, in the bathroom where he had popped in to check his hair before a mock trial competition. He remembers the impact to his chest, the splatter of his own blood on the wall, his front teeth cracking on the floor as he fell. He remembers thinking he might die and pleading with the masked classmate with the shotgun to stop, to get help. Cole recounted the scene in court Wednesday as he urged a Champaign County judge to give teen gunman Ely Serna the m...
DALLAS (AP) — A year ago, the nation's most powerful gun lobby was riding high: The millions the National Rifle Association had spent to help elect Donald Trump, one of the nation's most gun-friendly presidents, had paid off, and members were hopeful that more firearms restrictions would soon be eased. Oh, how things have changed. In the last 12 months, Americans have witnessed the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, a gut-wrenching attack at a Florida high school and bitterly divided politics in Washington. Those factors gave f...
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas has threatened legal action against the University of New Mexico if it doesn't improve its cooperation with his office's investigation. The Albuquerque Journal reports that in a letter sent Monday, Balderas said his investigation launched last May has been met with resistance from the institution. Allegations began last year at a golf junket in Scotland, where the university is accused of having spent about $25,000 in public funds to pay private donor expenses. In February, t...
(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.) (THE CONVERSATION) While most surveys suggest that the public generally supports wind and solar power, opposition from local communities and residents sometimes blocks or delays specific new projects. Consider the ill-fated Cape Wind offshore project, which was slated to be powering Cape Cod by now. Although Massachusetts has some of the nation’s strongest renewable energy policies, a group of coastal homeowners in that state o...
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Dominion Energy Virginia said Tuesday that it plans to build at least eight new natural gas-fired plants during the next 15 years, cementing its shift away from coal, while depending on renewables for less than 10 percent of its energy capacity. Virginia's largest utility described how it will generate power to comply with regulations and meet customer needs between 2019 and 2033 in a regulatory filing called an integrated resource plan. Dominion plans to increase solar generation by nearly 50 percent over last year's f...
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — An attorney for an Arkansas hog farm says environmental officials didn't sufficiently inform his clients and the public about the state's permit process or decision-making about the farm. But attorneys for the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality say the state didn't have to provide more information to C&H Hog Farms. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports that the department has filed a motion to dismiss C&H's appeal over being denied a new operating permit. C&H has filed a request for partial summary j...
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Oklahoma agriculture officials estimate that the state's farmers will harvest about 36 percent less wheat this year than they did a year ago. The Oklahoman reports that the Oklahoma Wheat Commission estimated Tuesday that farmers will harvest about 2.3 million acres (0.93 million hectares) of wheat this year, bringing in about 63 million bushels. Farmers harvested nearly 3 million acres (1 million hectares) of wheat last year, bringing in 98 million bushels of the crop. Officials say the biggest reason for the drop is O...
(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.) (THE CONVERSATION) Desert life depends on reliable access to water. In Namibia’s stark Namib Desert, where I spent 18 months doing research for my Ph.D., wildlife concentrates around natural springs. Increasingly, animals there also rely on man-made ponds intended for livestock. But water can vary both in quantity and quality, and animals have different needs. Some species, like the kangaroo rat, can survive without drinking w...
A doctor's claim that three men took President Donald Trump's medical records without a form authorizing their release in what he said felt like a "raid" has raised questions about whether this kind of action is legal. Here are some questions and answers about what happened and the laws surrounding medical records and patients' rights to obtain them. ___ WHAT HAPPENED? Twelve days after Trump's inauguration, The New York Times published an interview with Dr. Harold Bornstein in which the president's former personal doctor revealed he had...
MONTVILLE, Conn. (AP) — A Massachusetts woman is facing charges for carrying out a six-month long slot machine scheme at a Connecticut casino to pay off her sick cat's bills. The New London Day reports 48-year-old Lisa Onderdonk was charged Monday on a warrant with first-degree larceny. The warrant says Onderdonk used nine Mohegan Sun Player's Club cards to redeem $70,430 in slot play bonuses over the course of six months. She allegedly started the scheme to pay off her $7,000 veterinarian bill. The cards must be used on specific days. O...
NEW YORK (AP) — The first death has been reported in a national food poisoning outbreak linked to romaine lettuce. Federal health officials say California reported the death, but they did not provide other details. The government now has reports of 121 people who got sick in 25 states. At least 52 people have been hospitalized, including 14 with kidney failure, which is an unusually high number of hospitalizations. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated the numbers Wednesday. Kentucky, Massachusetts and Utah were added to the s...
JOHANNESBURG (AP) — International conservationists in Madagascar have been treating more than 10,000 critically endangered radiated tortoises that were seized from traffickers who crammed the creatures into a home with no access to food or water. The Turtle Survival Alliance and other groups are caring for the tortoises at a wildlife facility in the Ifaty region of the Indian Ocean nation, although hundreds have died from illness and dehydration. The alliance says police found the radiated tortoises at a home in Toliara on April 10. The g...
WASHINGTON (AP) — FPI Management, a property company in California, wants to hire dozens of people. Factories from New Hampshire to Michigan need workers. Hotels in Las Vegas are desperate to fill jobs. Those employers and many others are quietly taking what once would have been a radical step: They're dropping marijuana from the drug tests they require of prospective employees. Marijuana testing — a fixture at large American employers for at least 30 years — excludes too many potential workers, experts say, at a time when filling jobs is more...
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Republican legislators sent Iowa's governor a bill early Wednesday that would ban most abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected, usually around six weeks of pregnancy, propelling the state overnight to the front of a push among conservative statehouses jockeying to enact the nation's most-restrictive regulations on the procedure. Critics say the so-called "heartbeat" bill, which now awaits the signature of anti-abortion GOP Gov. Kim Reynolds, would ban the medical procedure before some women even know they're p...
ROME (AP) — The three whistleblowers in Chile's sex abuse scandal urged Pope Francis on Wednesday to transform his apology for having discredited them into concrete action to end what they called the "epidemic" of sex abuse and cover-up in the Catholic Church. Juan Carlos Cruz, James Hamilton and Jose Andres Murillo spoke to reporters Wednesday after spending five days with the pope at his Vatican hotel. Their press conference was broadcast live in Chile, a sign of the unprecedented nature of their hours of meetings with the pope. Cruz said tha...
NEW YORK (AP) — Two major organizations that promote birth control filed lawsuits in federal court Wednesday seeking to block the Trump administration from shifting national family planning policy to stress abstinence and potentially limit counseling for adolescents. One of the suits was filed by Planned Parenthood , which serves 41 percent of the 4 million low-income Americans who receive subsidized services through the Title X family-planning program. The other suit was filed by the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association ,...
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — The record number of deaths due to the flu in Arkansas during the current season has increased by three to now stand at 222. The Arkansas Department of Health reported Tuesday that the number includes 217 deaths of adults and five deaths of those 18 or younger. The department also says about 850 people have been hospitalized due to the illness. The previous record of 110 flu-related deaths was set during the 2014-2015 flu season. The department began tracking the deaths in 2000. The health department notes that it r...
NEW YORK (AP) — Cambridge Analytica, the Trump-affiliated data firm at the center of Facebook's worst privacy scandal in history, is declaring bankruptcy and shutting down. The London firm blamed "unfairly negative media coverage" and said it has been "vilified" for actions it says are both legal and widely accepted as part of online advertising. Cambridge Analytica said it has filed papers to begin insolvency proceedings in the U.K. and will seek bankruptcy protection in a federal court in New York. "The siege of media coverage has driven a...
NEW YORK (AP) — Facebook has enlisted two outside advisers to examine how it treats underrepresented communities and whether it has a liberal bias. Civil rights leader Laura Murphy will examine civil rights issues, along with law firm Relman, Dane & Colfax. Former Sen. Jon Kyl, an Arizona Republican, will examine concerns about a liberal bias on Facebook. The moves come as Facebook deals with a privacy scandal related to access of tens of millions of users' data by a consulting firm affiliated with President Donald Trump. CEO Mark Zuckerberg t...
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Thousands of ancient clay tablets, seals and other Iraqi archaeological objects that were smuggled into the U.S. and shipped to the head of arts and crafts chain Hobby Lobby were returned to the Iraqi government on Wednesday. The Oklahoma City-based private company, whose devout Christian owners won a 2014 U.S. Supreme Court ruling exempting them from providing certain contraceptive coverage for employees, agreed to pay a $3 million fine last year to settle a lawsuit over the company's role in the smuggling of the artifacts...
PARKS, Ariz. (AP) — Students in Patrick Brown's sixth-grade science class grab laptops from cubby holes for a lesson on water data. Type in "High Adventure Science," he tells them, writing the words on the whiteboard. He then quizzes the 10 students sitting in metal chairs with worn cushions on porosity, permeability and salinity. One student interjects and says "I saw your son today." At the small grade school tucked into the ponderosa pine forest about 20 miles (32.1 kilometers) west of Flagstaff, most everyone knows each other. The Maine C...
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Six years after last landing on Mars, NASA is sending a robotic geologist to dig deeper than ever before to take the planet's temperature. The Mars InSight spacecraft, set to launch this weekend, will also take the planet's pulse by making the first measurements of "marsquakes." And to check its reflexes, scientists will track the wobbly rotation of Mars on its axis to better understand the size and makeup of its core. The lander's instruments will allow scientists "to stare down deep into the planet," said the missi...
HONOLULU (AP) — Dozens of earthquakes are rattling Hawaii's Kilauea Volcano as magma flows into a new area east of the Puu Oo vent. Officials with the U.S. Geological Survey's Hawaiian Volcano Observatory say the increased activity Wednesday is associated with the collapse of the crater floor at Puu Oo. The floor began to collapse Monday, triggering lava to move into a new area of the volcano and causing a series of earthquakes. There have been about 50 small quakes detected in the area on Wednesday morning alone. Lava moved down the slope o...
NEW YORK (AP) — Weeks after his death, physicist Stephen Hawking has delivered his last thoughts about the nature of the cosmos, and he says it may be simpler than often believed. Well, simpler if you understand theoretical physics, anyway. It remains incomprehensible for the rest of us. A paper that outlines his view, written with Thomas Hertog of the University of Leuven in Belgium before Hawking's death in March, has been published by the Journal of High Energy Physics. Hertog had announced the new theory last year at a conference c...
(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.) (THE CONVERSATION) Nearly 70 years ago, astronomer Paul Merrill was watching the sky through a telescope at Mount Wilson Observatory in Pasadena, California. As he observed the light coming from a distant star, he saw signatures of the element technetium. This was completely unexpected. Technetium has no stable forms – it’s what physicists call an “artificial” element. As Merrill himself put it with a bit of understatement, “It is...
