National News
NEW YORK (AP) — Measles cases are accelerating, and in the last five months have caused more U.S. illnesses than in any entire year since 1996. Health officials say 307 cases have been reported since New Year’s Day. About half have been in the past month — most from a huge outbreak in unvaccinated Amish […]
ROCK ISLAND, Ill. (AP) — A man serving life sentences for two killings was convicted Thursday in the deaths of four others who were fatally beaten with a hammer in a northwest Illinois apartment. After a little over three hours of deliberations, jurors found Nicholas Sheley, 34, guilty of murder in the deaths of 29-year-old […]
HEBER CITY, Utah (AP) — A little airbrushing to school pictures can spell big relief, concealing pimples and brightening complexions. But some students at a Utah’s Wasatch High School cracked their yearbooks this week to find more than tiny touchups: digital alterations including cap sleeves on their tank tops, raised necklines and in one case, […]
OXON HILL, Md. (AP) — For the first time in 52 years, two spellers were declared co-champions of the Scripps National Spelling Bee on Thursday. Sriram Hathwar of Painted Post, New York, and Ansun Sujoe of Fort Worth, Texas, shared the title after a riveting final-round duel in which they nearly exhausted the 25 designated […]
NORRIDGE, Ill. (AP) — Administrators at a suburban Chicago high school have had a change of heart after withholding diplomas from an entire class because some students defied instructions not to toss their caps in the air at graduation. Ridgewood High School in Norridge initially posted a message on its website saying it would only […]
PHOENIX (AP) — Navy veteran Ken Senft turned to the Department of Veterans Affairs for medical care in 2011 after his private insurance grew too costly. It could have been a fatal mistake, he now says. A few years ago, the 65-year-old had a lesion on his head. He went to a VA clinic near […]
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Investigators searching for the missing Malaysian jet have concluded an area where acoustic signals were detected is not the final resting place of the plane after an unmanned submersible found no trace of it, the search coordinator said Thursday. The U.S. Navy’s Bluefin 21 finished its final underwater mission in the […]
SEATTLE (AP) — A woman who goes by the “Weed Fairy” distributed free nuggets of marijuana to people in Seattle over Memorial Day weekend, taping the free pot on fliers around a city neighborhood. The woman, 23-year-old Yeni Sleidi, says she does it to amuse people and to give them a break from everyday stress. […]
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits fell last week to nearly the lowest level in seven years, a sign hiring may be picking up. The Labor Department says weekly applications for unemployment aid dropped 27,000 to a seasonally adjusted 300,000. That’s just above a seven-year low reached three weeks ago. The […]
SACRAMENTO, California (AP) — Porn performers in California must wear condoms during film shoots and their employers must provide regular testing under a bill that passed the state Assembly on Tuesday. The bill, AB1576 by Assemblyman Isadore Hall advanced to the Senate on a 41-12 vote, the minimum number of votes needed. The bill follows […]
WASHINGTON (AP) — About 1,700 veterans in need of care were “at risk of being lost or forgotten” after being kept off the official waiting list at the troubled Phoenix veterans hospital, the Veterans Affairs watchdog said Wednesday in a scathing report that increases pressure on Secretary Eric Shinseki to resign. The investigation, initially focused […]
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — In a groundbreaking disclosure, Google revealed Wednesday how very white and male its workforce is — just 2 percent of its Googlers are black, 3 percent are Hispanic, and 30 percent are women. The search giant said the transparency about its workforce — the first disclosure of its kind in […]
