NEW ORLEANS (AP) – A Louisiana sheriff says a man in a New Orleans jail on murder charges fell through a ceiling tile during a failed escape attempt earlier this week. News outlets reported the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office said 28-year-old Kenneth Augustine jumped from a railing into the ceiling Sunday and crawled a few Read More…
BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) – The owners of a Vermont bar have been ordered to appear for a hearing related to a shooting at the front of the bar earlier this year. The owners of Nectar’s in Burlington are being ordered to appear in front of Vermont’s Liquor and Lottery Board to determine whether the business Read More…
BENSON, N.C. (AP) – A North Carolina couple is accused of stealing the patrol car of a sheriff’s deputy who was answering a call next door. Johnston County Sheriff’s Capt. Jeff Caldwell told news outlets 36-year-old Charles Thomas Bullock was charged with stealing a car and stealing a firearm Monday, while 41-year-old Nicole Allsbrook Thomas Read More…
NEW YORK (AP) – A mother taking her child to school says she stopped a man from stealing her car and held him down until New York City police arrived. Tihisha Jones says she started her car with an automatic car starter before leaving her Bronx apartment Tuesday when her son saw a man in Read More…
BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) – A violent felon in Buffalo has been sentenced to prison time for assaults that put two people in the hospital with serious injuries and plotting to have one of the victims killed. The Erie County District Attorney’s Office says 39-year-old Robbie Said was sentenced Tuesday to 10 to 16 years in Read More…
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) – A former physician assistant has been convicted of receiving more than $49,000 from a drug manufacturer in exchange for writing more than 700 fentanyl spray prescriptions. Christopher Clough, of Dover, New Hampshire, was convicted Tuesday on charges of conspiracy and the receipt of kickbacks. The 44-year-old Clough was accused of writing Read More…
TAYLORSVILLE, N.C. (AP) – The woman charged with hitting a school bus that overturned in North Carolina is now charged with misdemeanor child abuse. News outlets report that the North Carolina Highway Patrol initially charged 56-year-old Kimberly Ann Austin with driving while impaired and driving left of center in the Monday crash that sent 13 Read More…
TORONTO (AP) – The Canadian government says a third Canadian has been detained in China, but an official says there is no reason to believe that the case is linked to the detention of two other Canadians last week. Those cases appeared to be in retaliation for the arrest of a top Chinese tech executive Read More…
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) – Authorities in Denmark and Norway have warned their citizens from hiking alone without local guides in Morocco after the bodies of two female Scandinavian tourists were found in the Atlas Mountains, a popular hiking destination. Danish police said Wednesday it had sent an officer to Morocco to assist in the investigation. Read More…
VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) – Police in Lithuania say one Russian and several Lithuanians have been detained, suspected of being part of a ring spying for Russia. Prosecutor general Evaldas Pasilis says those arrested include Valery Ivanov, a former anti-independence leader in the early 1990s, and Algirdas Paleckis, a former lawmaker and leader of the Lithuania’s Read More…
WAVERLY, Ohio (AP) – An escaped inmate is back in custody after being found soaking in a hot tub at an Ohio senior living community, still wearing her yellow jail outfit. The Pike County Sheriff’s Office says the 34-year-old woman fled while being booked on drug-possession charges Tuesday. She was captured by the sheriff and Read More…
GALVESTON, Texas (AP) – Texas regulators have closed a facility operated by a nonprofit group serving homeless and abused children after two boys drowned during a beach outing. The Galveston County Daily News reported Wednesday that the Texas Health and Human Services Commission shut down the Galveston Multicultural Institute amid health and safety concerns. Officials Read More…
ATHENS, Greece (AP) – Greece’s supreme court has accepted a French extradition request for a Russian bitcoin fraud suspect, whom the same court has, confusingly, already agreed to extradite to the U.S. and Russia. For the time being, 38-year-old Alexander Vinnik will remain in Greece after Wednesday’s ruling until officials sort out the issue of Read More…
FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) – Texas police investigating a report of an armed man using social media to threaten to kill himself say he was found dead after an exchange of gunfire, a chase and a wreck. Fort Worth police Sgt. Chris Britt says investigators aren’t sure if the man died due to the traffic Read More…
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) – Authorities say a man charged in the killing of a California librarian was repeatedly thrown out of libraries throughout the St. Louis area earlier this year after causing disturbances. The Sacramento Bee reports that 56-year-old Ronald Seay had been barred from at least two St. Louis area libraries, had threatened librarians Read More…
President Trump on Wednesday morning signaled that U.S. forces will soon fully withdraw from Syria, having completed their mission to defeat the Islamic State. “We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency,” Mr. Trump tweeted. The administration reportedly is in the planning stages to remove all of Read More…
HELENA, Mont. (AP) – Police in Helena say a man and a woman are dead after a shooting on the city’s west side. Dispatchers received reports of shots fired at about 6:30 p.m. Tuesday. Responding officers found the man and the woman, both 37 years old, dead in the front yard. Their names haven’t been Read More…
ANALYSIS/OPINION: Abody doesn’t need an advanced academic degree to practice common sense. That’s why working folks who carry the nation on their backs have grasped the limits of the renewable energy revolution more quickly than those enthralled with the promise of a fossil-fuel-free future. The United Nations’ 24th annual climate-change conference concluded the other day Read More…
ANALYSIS/OPINION: The unwritten law is often a myth, romantic as the idea may be. If it’s not written there’s no one to enforce such a “law.” Such romantic legislation is usually thought to apply to the defense of marriage and the home, but it’s sometimes applied to other things, such as the freedom of the Read More…
ANALYSIS/OPINION: If President Trump sends a wish list to the North Pole, it might say something like this (and he had better hurry): “All I want for Christmas is a big, beautiful wall.” If congressional Democrats send a letter, it would be addressed to the Grinch, Santa’s sometime helper, and demand, “Stall the wall.” The Read More…
ANALYSIS/OPINION: Their meeting with President Trump was not what Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi expected. The leader of the Democrats in the Senate and the leader of the Democrats in the House went to the White House for what they thought would be the usual meeting behind closed doors. The federal budget would soon expire, Read More…
ANALYSIS/OPINION: Europe seems to be in turmoil because it seems to be reverting to form. The continent that produced two catastrophic world wars in a single century looks to be rebelling against the political, cultural and economic status quo. Ruling elites just aren’t popular anywhere. Parties of the extremes, right and left, are thriving in Read More…
ANALYSIS/OPINION: Burning cars and breaking shop windows is some people’s idea of a good time, and sometimes the rioters can make a case for a legitimate cause. The French can riot about as well as anyone this side of the Middle East, and they’re angry about how they’re expected to pay what they regard as Read More…
ANALYSIS/OPINION: That “it is more blessed to give than receive” sums up the spirit of Christmas. Fortunately, there is no shortage of objects of delight to stoke the dynamics of both giving and receiving during the holidays. The humbuggery of the Scrooge contingent notwithstanding, there has never been such a season of abundance, and that’s Read More…
ANALYSIS/OPINION: Every promoter knows the formula for a sell-out. Book a hall or an arena too small for the crowd you expect. Customers fighting for a seat is a great advertisement for whatever you’re selling, and when you call it a sell-out no one can argue. That bit of showbiz wisdom is lost on Bill Read More…
ANALYSIS/OPINION: The Democrats did moderately well in the midterm elections, but not as well as they expected, and they lost the three big races they really wanted to win, the governorships in Florida and Georgia and the U.S. Senate seat in Texas. Winning any one of them would have been impressive, particularly given the generally Read More…
ANALYSIS/OPINION: Friends don’t let friends go to the clink. The conclusion that the nation is currently running on a dual justice system — a gentler, privileged system for Hillary Clinton and her cronies, and a harsh and unforgiving system for everyone else — is coming evident to everyone. Robert Mueller’s search for a collusion between Read More…
ANALYSIS/OPINION: Omniscience has always been regarded as the sole province of God, but now Google thinks it’s big enough to depose Him. Aping the Almighty is the hubris that inevitably carries a price. The technology giant that bestrides the world of information is under assault on numerous fronts for getting a little too abusive of Read More…
ANALYSIS/OPINION: They clearly don’t make ‘em like George H.W. Bush any more. There’s no longer much of a market for presidents dedicated to decency, dignity, and unabashed service to God and country. The 41st president himself might be surprised to listen to some of the accolades for him, all deserved, pouring in from the corners Read More…
ANALYSIS/OPINION: Can California be saved? The Golden State, as it calls itself, grows ever more tarnished by the silly, the fatuous and the childish. And you thought gold doesn’t tarnish. Certain baseball fans in San Francisco are stamping their feet just now that Mississippi elected a U.S. senator that no decent Frisco fan could approve Read More…
ANALYSIS/OPINION: Donald Trump’s economic optimism bemused the economists (and irritated Democrats) when he remarked during the 2016 presidential campaign that America would soon produce too much abundance. “We’ll have so much prosperity you’ll say it’s too much.” Well, times are certainly good, though there’s rarely too much of a good thing. “We’re enjoying one of Read More…
ANALYSIS/OPINION: Who knew a freshperson congressperson could so shake the foundations of the republic, and rattle the world beyond. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who won a seat in the Bronx last month, sees her victory as “a watershed moment in world history akin to landing on the moon.” She said Friday that the United States is “at Read More…
ANALYSIS/OPINION: It’s not a good sign when a president’s approval rating slips under water before he assumes the office. But that’s the lot of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who will be sworn in Saturday as the new president of Mexico. AMLO — he’s known by the abbreviation formed by his initials — was elected in Read More…
ANALYSIS/OPINION: The United States and China could someday be the ham and eggs, the peanut butter and jelly, of international commerce. Instead of complementing each other’s innovative and industrial acumen, however, the two superpowers have fallen into a trade relationship that, like oil and water, is a recipe for economic indigestion. Only if China swallows Read More…
ANALYSIS/OPINION: The Earth travels its appointed course through the heavens without effort, but not much moves across its surface without oil. That fact is now painfully apparent in France, where the result of confiscatory environmental taxes has sparked a riotous citizen fury. Tear gas greeted tourists making their way through the streets of Paris over Read More…
ANALYSIS/OPINION: A funny thing about caravans. They move. In the weeks before the midterm congressional elections, the Democrats and the media chastised President Trump for the attention he paid to the caravan of thousands of migrants moving steadily from Central America, through Mexico, toward the American border. “They’re two thousand miles away,” Joe Biden, the Read More…
ANALYSIS/OPINION: Japan is about to take its most culture-altering step since Gen. Douglas MacArthur restructured Japanese society in the wake of World War II. With no apparent alternative to sustain the highly-skilled workforce that is the key to a successful economy, the Japanese are moving ahead with a scheme to import foreign workers, some of Read More…