American journalist and family detained and harassed at U.S.-Canada border
September 27th, 20130 Ignore the sign at the United States’ border crossing near Buffalo, New York claiming those coming in from Canada will be treated with courtesy, dignity and respect. An American journalist says that’s far from what happened recently when returning home.A producer with National Public Radio’s “On the Media” program says the U.S....Wild pigs take over Atlanta neighborhood
ATLANTA — Wild pigs have descended on a suburban Atlanta neighborhood, where they are routinely seen rummaging through garbage, trotting around in backyards, and sleeping on front lawns. Descendents of wild boar, the feral pigs seem to have become pests in rural Georgia in recent years, earning a reputation for damaging farmer's...Obama willing to work with House on immigration reform, one step at a time
WASHINGTON — U.S. President Barack Obama said on Tuesday, Sept. 17, he could support the House of Representatives taking a piece-by-piece approach to changing immigration policy, as long as key elements such as a "pathway to citizenship" for undocumented immigrants included.The White House had hoped a broad bill to reform immigration...Eight teens and 10-year-old arrested in Houston robberies
HOUSTON — Nine juveniles, including a 10-year-old, were arrested in a string of sometimes brutal robberies along a downtown Houston bicycle trail, police said.The suspects, all boys, told police they were an offshoot of a local gang, although police Capt. Glenn Yorek said Wednesday, Sept. 18, no official ties to the gang were...Terry Jones arrested ahead of planned Quran burning
FLORIDA — Sheriff's deputies in Polk County, Fla., arrested Pastor Terry Jones, 61, and his associate pastor, Marvin Sapp Jr., 44, each on a felony charge of unlawful conveyance of fuel, after pulling the two men over in a pickup truck that had been carrying close to 3,000 Qurans. Jones had said he was heading to a nearby park in...Indian American wins Miss America, backlash ensues
On Sunday, September 15, the "Miss America" pageant crowned its first Indian-American, Nina Davuluri. The 24-year-old Fayetteville, New York, native was on the dean's list and earned the Michigan Merit Award and National Honor Society nods, while studying at the University of Michigan, where she graduated with a degree in brain...Louisiana mayor says twerking ban a hoax
DEQUINCY, La. — The mayor of a Louisiana town falsely reported to have banned the "twerking" dance move said a misleading news release is the latest in a long line of pranks.DeQuincy Mayor Lawrence Henagan said the town's government was not behind a release that indicated it was implementing legal penalties against those caught...Seven confirmed dead, 1,500 homes destroyed in Colorado floods
DENVER — Seven people were confirmed dead, and at least 1,500 homes destroyed in Colorado after a week of rare, torrential rains along the eastern slopes of the Rockies. Helicopter search-and-rescue flights resumed this week in flood-stricken areas.Much of the evacuation effort was focused on remote foothill and canyon communities of...U.S. poverty rises despite economic recovery
WASHINGTON — The number of U.S. residents living in poverty edged up to 46.5 million last year, the latest sign that an economic recovery, marked by a stock market boom, has not trickled down to ordinary Americans.The figures from the Census Bureau this week highlighted the lingering scars from the 2007-2009 recession and added fresh...U.S. court defends its support for NSA collecting phone data
WASHINGTON — The surveillance court that oversees the U.S. government's massive collection of telephone data gave its fullest defense, to date, this week of why it considers the program lawful, despite the uproar it received after its existence was exposed earlier this year. Britain's Guardian newspaper disclosed the telephone...Fla. man accused of trying to exorcise 80-year-old girlfriend
HOLIDAY, Fla. — A Florida man was arrested after allegedly trying to perform an exorcism on his 80-year-old girlfriend, police said.The alleged exorcism started Monday, when David Edward Benes, 54, of Holiday, and his girlfriend of three years, whose name was not reported, got into an argument, the Orlando Times reported.A Pasco...
Navy Yard shooting: Who is Aaron Alexis?
September 19th, 20130 WASHINGTON — The deadly attack at the Washington Navy Yard, this week, was carried out by one of the military's own: A defense contract employee and former Navy reservist, who used a valid pass to get onto the installation and started firing inside a building, killing 12 people, before he was slain in a gun battle with police.The...Most 2006-2009 queries of a phone database broke court rules
SAN FRANCISCO — The National Security Agency routinely violated court-ordered privacy protections between 2006 and 2009 by examining phone numbers without sufficient intelligence tying them to associates of suspected terrorists, according to U.S. officials and documents that were declassified on Tuesday, Sept. 10.The Foreign...
Obama offers no evidence Assad was behind chemical attack in Damascus, yet defends unprovoked war anyway
September 13th, 20130 In what NPR called “perhaps President Obama’s last best chance” to make his case for launching a war against Syria, the president tellingly didn’t make a single effort to present hard, compelling evidence to prove that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had been behind the alleged Sarin Aug. 21 attack on residents of a suburb of...Government may help marijuana shops get banking services
WASHINGTON — U.S. law enforcement agencies are in talks about steps they may take, under federal law, to allow legal marijuana businesses to have access to bank accounts.Although the Justice Department in August gave states new leeway to experiment with legalized marijuana, the drug remains illegal under federal law. As a result, under......
Abercrombie’s discriminatory ‘look policy’ gets slammed by judge
SAN FRANSICO — This week, a federal judge ruled against the Abercrombie & Fitch, Co. for allegedly firing a Muslim woman for wearing a headscarf at work. Hani Khan, a former stockroom worker at an Abercrombie & Fitch location, had filed a lawsuit in 2011 for being fired after refusing to remove her headscarf when a...32 million Americans tune in to Obama’s Syria speech
More than 32 million U.S. television viewers watched President Barack Obama outline his policy toward Syria in a speech aired live on 13 broadcast and cable networks, according to Nielsen ratings data on Wednesday.The Tuesday night address attracted a smaller audience than the 56 million who tuned in to see the president announce the......
Over 1,100 people have 9/11 related cancer
NEW YORK CITY — Health officials confirmed that about 1,140 people, who lived or worked near ground zero, including first-hand responders on September 11, 2001, have been diagnosed with cancer, as a result of the attacks. That number could possibly grow. According to the WTC Responder Medical Program, there could be hundreds more who...Arkansas cop placed on leave after killing 107-year-old man in shootout
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — An Arkansas police officer has been placed on paid leave, after killing a 107-year-old man in a weekend shootout, authorities said on Tuesday, Sept. 10.Police responded to reports on Saturday night that an armed man had allegedly threatened two people at a home in Pine Bluff, a city of 48,000 people, about 45 miles...Nevada sued by San Francisco for dumping mental patients into their area
SAN FRANCISCO —The City of San Francisco is suing the State of Nevada for busing patients, many of them indigent and mentally ill, from a public hospital in Las Vegas, and dumping them in the Bay Area without plans for continued care.The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday in San Francisco Superior Court, seeks $500,000 in reimbursement of...George Zimmerman dropped by lawyer
SANFORD, Fla. — Mark O'Mara, the attorney who successfully defended George Zimmerman in his second-degree murder trial, will no longer be representing him."I am not representing George Zimmerman in his recent domestic altercation case, or his impending divorce case," O'Mara told CNN, on Tuesday Sept. 10.O'Mara's announcement comes a......
Montana newlywed faces murder charge for shoving husband off cliff
MONTANA — A Montana woman was charged this week for killing her husband of eight days, by pushing him off a cliff at Glacier National Park, after he expressed doubts about their marriage during a hike.Jordan Graham, 22, was charged with second-degree murder in U.S. District Court in Missoula, stemming from the July 7 death of her...
Leaked document: NSA ‘routinely’ shares Americans’ data with Israel
September 13th, 20130 The National Security Agency (NSA) regularly shares raw U.S. intelligence data with Israel without even removing information about American citizens, according to the latest revelation published by the Guardian. The report is based on a document leaked by Edward Snowden.On Tuesday, Sept. 11, the Guardian published a previously......
Wyoming NAACP leader meets with KKK activist
CASPER, Wyo. — The head of a Wyoming office of the NAACP is defending talks with a Ku Klux Klan activist, the first known meeting between the oldest civil rights group in the United States and a branch of the white supremacist network.Jimmy Simmons, president of the NAACP in Casper, Wyoming, said on Wednesday, Sept. 4, he opened...64-year-old woman sets record with Cuba-to-Florida swim
KEY WEST, Fla. — American 64-year-old long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad on Monday, Sept. 2, became the first person to swim across the Florida Straits from Cuba without a shark cage, succeeding on her fifth attempt at the feat.Her face sunburned and lips swollen, with barely enough energy to speak, Nyad waded ashore at Key West......