Sorted by date Results 26 - 50 of 65
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration vowed Tuesday that North Korea would be held accountable for a May cyberattack that affected 150 countries, but it didn't say how, highlighting the difficulty of punishing a pariah nation already sanctioned to the hilt for its nuclear weapons program. The WannaCry ransomware attack infected hundreds of thousands of computers worldwide and crippled parts of Britain's National Health Service. It was the highest-profile cyberattack North Korea has been blamed for since the 2014 hack of Sony Pictures a...
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A bouncing baby bongo has been born in New Orleans. The 46-pound female is from a highly endangered antelope subspecies. It's the first calf conceived at the Species Survival Center created by the Audubon Nature Institute and San Diego Zoo Global. And more baby antelope are on their way, including two or three more Eastern bongo, curator Michelle Hatwood said Monday. That's an excellent sign for a project to create large natural spaces where herds of antelope and giraffe can be comfortable and multiply. In addition to the bon...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Like a friendly Pied Piper, the violinist keeps up a toe-tapping beat as dancers weave through busy hospital hallways and into the chemotherapy unit, patients looking up in surprised delight. Upstairs, a cellist plays an Irish folk tune for a patient in intensive care. Music increasingly is becoming a part of patient care — although it's still pretty unusual to see roving performers captivating entire wards, like at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital one fall morning. "It takes them away for just a few minutes to some oth...
MENLO PARK, Calif. (AP) — When Matt King first got on Facebook eight years ago, the blind engineer had to weigh whether it was worth spending an entire Saturday morning checking whether a friend of his was actually in his friend list. Such were the tools at the time for the visually impaired — almost nonexistent. Today, thanks to text-to-audio software, it just takes a few seconds for him to accomplish the same task. And because of a new face recognition service the social network is rolling out Tuesday, he can now learn which friends are in ph...
BEIJING (AP) — The Chinese government on Tuesday criticized U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to label Beijing a strategic rival and called on Washington to "abandon a Cold War mentality" and accept China's rise. Trump's decision reflects a "victory of hardliners" in his administration, the official Xinhua News Agency said. It warned U.S.-Chinese economic relations were likely to face "even more pressure and challenges." "We urge the United States to stop deliberately distorting China's strategic intentions and abandon a Cold War m...
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — An estimated 258 million people have left their birth countries and are now living in other nations — an increase of 49 percent since 2000, says a U.N. report on international migration released Monday. The biennial report released on International Migrants Day said the percentage of the world's people who are international migrants has increased modestly from 2.8 percent in 2000 to 3.4 percent this year. But the report from the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs said the percentage living in high-income countr...
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Promotion of religion is "engrained" in a Louisiana school district, a parent said in a federal lawsuit, and her family has been shunned and criticized for objecting to religious activities. Christy Cole's lawsuit seeks a court declaration that the Webster Parish School District's practices are unconstitutional, and an order blocking them and retaliation against her family. "The Coles have been hissed at, shunned, and had their religious beliefs questioned by school officials," said the lawsuit, filed Monday in Shreveport. "...
CHICKASHA, Okla. (AP) — Four faculty members of a central Oklahoma school district have been suspended amid an investigation into alleged abuse and embezzlement within the district. Chickasha Public Schools suspended Athletic Director Yohance Brown, Assistant Superintendent of Transportation and Maintenance Pete Bush, Special Services Director Pam Huggins and administrative assistant Stacy Crutchfield last week. The district's attorney, Richard O'Carroll, says the district is conducting "an independent investigation" of the allegations. The s...
HEBER SPRINGS, Ark. (AP) — Authorities say a juvenile in north-central Arkansas has been arrested on suspicion of threatening a shooting at his school. Cleburne County Sheriff Chris Brown says deputies learned last Thursday that a Heber Springs student had made comments about carrying out a shooting attack at the school the next day. Brown says deputies brought the male student into custody Friday morning for questioning, and the youth was later taken to the White River Juvenile Detention Center. The sheriff says the student was charged as a j...
WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States is reliant on China and other nations for the overwhelming majority of critical minerals used for manufacturing everything from smartphones to wind turbines and cars, a new federal report says. The report released Tuesday by the U.S. Geological Survey says the U.S. relies on foreign sources for a majority of all but two of the 23 minerals identified as critical. The minerals are produced in China, Russia, South Africa, Brazil and other countries. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke called the report troubling a...
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — A University of Oklahoma regent who likened gay people to pedophiles publicly apologized Tuesday during an appearance with the head of an LGBTQ advocacy group and reiterated that he doesn't plan to resign. Kirk Humphreys, a real estate developer and former Oklahoma City mayor, said his comments during an Oklahoma City public affairs TV show that aired Dec. 10 went "off the rails" and that he regrets hurting people. "Some of the things I said do not reflect what I believe or the way I have tried to live," Humphreys said, rea...
WASHINGTON (AP) — So what's in the massive $1.5 trillion Republican tax package, what's not and what does it mean for most Americans? The complex legislation, weeks in the making, scales back the popular deduction for state and local taxes, bad news for Americans in some of the wealthiest suburbs of New York, New Jersey and California. The bill preserves the deduction for medical expenses, rebuffing an effort by House Republicans to eliminate it. The bill provides steep tax cuts for businesses and wealthy families, and more modest reductions f...
PARIS (AP) — France's parliament has approved a law banning all exploration and production of oil and natural gas by 2040 within the country and its overseas territories. Under that law that passed a final vote on Tuesday, existing drilling permits will not be renewed and no new exploration licenses will be granted. The French government claims the ban is a world first. However, it is largely symbolic since oil and gas produced in France accounts for just 1 percent of domestic consumption. The rest is imported. Environment Minister Nicolas H...
DENVER (AP) — A federal prosecutor says a Texas-based oil and gas company will pay $2.25 million to settle allegations that it underpaid royalties for natural gas produced on federal land in Wyoming. Colorado U.S. Attorney Bob Troyer said Tuesday that Citation Oil & Gas Corp. was accused of breaking federal law requiring companies to make royalty payments for natural gas produced on leased federal lands. Citation was accused of deducting the cost of making natural gas into a marketable product from its royalties, which isn't permitted. C...
WASHINGTON (AP) — In laying out his national security strategy, President Donald Trump sold short the records of his predecessors, speaking as if the energy boom started with him and the gates of America were wide open before he came along. On Twitter, meanwhile, Trump tweeted a wrong score in the game of politics and got ahead of the facts in the deadly Washington state Amtrak crash. A look at some of his statements Monday: TRUMP on his predecessors: "They put American energy under lock and key." THE FACTS: On the contrary, energy p...
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The Latest on a budget shortfall at the Oklahoma State Department of Health (all times local): 4 p.m. A former top financial officer at the Oklahoma State Department of Health says the agency was "a financial time bomb" before authorities discovered a $30 million budget shortfall. Former Chief Operating Officer Deborah Nichols testified Tuesday before an Oklahoma House investigative committee about the financial turmoil that has resulted in the resignations of Health Commissioner Terry Cline and others. Nichols says the age...
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — The Missouri Supreme Court has sided with chemical manufacturer Bayer in its fight against a lawsuit over one of its birth control products. Supreme Court judges in a unanimous Tuesday ruling said a lower court was wrong to deny Bayer's motion to dismiss out-of-state claims in the lawsuit. Bayer says the case doesn't belong in Missouri because only seven of the 92 plaintiffs are from the state. The women sued for alleged medical complications from Essure, an implant that permanently prevents pregnancy. Judges a...
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri's maternal mortality rate is ranked as one of the worst in the country. Last year's Health of Women and Children Report by the United Health Foundation put the national average at nearly 20 deaths per 100,000 live births. The report put Missouri's maternal mortality rate at more than 28 deaths per 100,000 live births, ranking the state in the bottom 10. "It's not acceptable," said Randall Williams, director of the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. He said most maternal deaths are preventable, bu...
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. health officials on Tuesday approved the nation's first gene therapy for an inherited disease, a treatment that improves the sight of patients with a rare form of blindness. It marks another major advance for the emerging field of genetic medicine. The approval for Spark Therapeutics offers a life-changing intervention for a small group of patients with a vision-destroying genetic mutation and hope for many more people with other inherited diseases. The drugmaker said it will not disclose the price until next month, d...
BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — Soft toys on the beds and posters on the walls. No more than three children to a room. One of the girls living in the four-bedroom home gushes about getting makeup for her birthday. In this group home on a leafy street in Bucharest, Romania's orphanage nightmares seem far away. The horror stories, along with images of hollow-eyed children lying in row upon row of dilapidated cribs, emerged quickly after the 1989 toppling of Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu: shocking accounts of thousands of children beaten, s...
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Officials at the Arkansas Department of Human Services say more than 80,000 people were removed from the state's Medicaid rolls in 2017 after new technology and data were used to show they were ineligible for the benefits. Nearly one-third of those cases involved people who did not report changes of address as required by the state. More than 25,000 people were removed from the program because they were receiving public benefits from more than one state. DHS says more than 16,000 people were removed because of u...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Art director Momo Pixel moved to Portland, Oregon in 2016, and confronted a challenge she had never experienced before: Strangers reaching out to grab or stroke her long braided hair, often without her permission. "I would be walking down the street visibly mad," Pixel recalled. One day, she told her boss about it. In trying to mimic that scene, he playfully ducked imaginary hands coming toward him. Pixel remarked that it would make a funny game. With the support of her employer, advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy, an online g...
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — A giant chunk of central Idaho with a dazzling night sky has become the nation's first International Dark Sky Reserve. The International Dark-Sky Association late Monday designated the 1,400-square-mile (3,600-square-kilometer) Central Idaho Dark Sky Reserve. The sparsely populated area's night skies are so pristine that interstellar dust clouds are visible in the Milky Way. "That such truly dark nighttime environments still exist in the United States is remarkable," said J. Scott Feierabend, executive director of the T...
WATERTOWN, Mass. (AP) — A Massachusetts grocery store employee has surprised shoppers with his operatic renditions of popular Christmas music. Tony Russo, owner of Russo's Market in Watertown, tells The Boston Globe he had no idea Guilherme Assuncao could sing when the 23-year-old volunteered to sound check equipment Friday night for an upcoming weekend performance. His voice shocked his co-workers, and Assuncao was invited back to the stage to perform for shoppers. One woman who visited the store Saturday says everyone stopped what they w...
SCOTLAND, Conn. (AP) — Residents of the rural town of Scotland, Connecticut, are becoming lords and ladies in the United Kingdom country of the same name. The Scottish land preservation company Highland Titles said Tuesday it's gifting all 1,694 residents 1 square foot (0.09 square meters) of land on its nature reserve in Glencoe Wood, Scotland. The residents will get courtesy titles of Lord or Lady of Glencoe and instructions on how to visit their plots. The company sells forest land ranging from 1 square foot (0.09 square meters) to 1,000 s...
