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April 20, 2018 at 4:50 pm
HOUSTON (AP) — Former President George H.W. Bush surprisingly greeted some of the hundreds of mourners filing through a large Houston church on Friday as they paid final respects to his wife of 73 years, former first lady Barbara Bush.
A spray of dozens of pink and yellow roses covered her closed, light-colored metallic casket in the sanctuary of St. Martin's Episcopal Church. The 93-year-old former president sat in a wheelchair just a few feet from the casket, smiling as people shook his outstretched hand and offered condolences.
Barbara Bush died Tuesday at age 92 at the couple's Houston home, where her husband also was by her side. Many women attending the daylong viewing wore blue, Barbara Bush's favorite color, and pearls, a nod to her go-to neckwear j...
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April 20, 2018 at 4:49 pm
NEW YORK (AP) — The nation's six big Wall Street banks posted record, or near record, profits in the first quarter, and they can thank one person in particular: President Donald Trump.
While higher interest rates allowed banks to earn more from lending in the first quarter, the main boost to bank came from the billions of dollars they saved in taxes under the tax law Trump signed in December. Combined, the six banks saved at least $3.59 billion last quarter, according to an Associated Press estimate, using the bank's tax rates going back to 2015.
Big publicly traded banks — such JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America — typically kick off the earnings season. The reports for the January-March quarter are giving...
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April 20, 2018 at 4:37 pm
KEY WEST, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump said he received a "great education" during an anti-drug trafficking briefing Thursday that underscored the need for the wall he has promised to build along the U.S.-Mexico border to help stop drug smuggling.
"Drugs are flowing into our country," Trump said in the Florida Keys. "We need border protection. We need the wall. We have to have the wall."
The president traveled from Palm Beach, where he is spending the week, to the tourist haven of Key West for the update from the Joint Interagency Task Force South. The agency is responsible for monitoring drug trafficking by sea, by air and online. Last year, it helped disrupt a record 283 metric tons of cocaine and detained nearly 900 suspected members of drug trafficking organization.
Trum...
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April 20, 2018 at 4:32 pm
GARDEN CITY, N.Y. (AP) — A New York man who spent 17 years in prison for the slayings of his parents before a court overturned his conviction settled a civil case with Suffolk County for $10 million Thursday.
He previously settled a wrongful conviction lawsuit against New York state for nearly $3.4 million.
Martin Tankleff said he's "gratified" that Suffolk County, on Long Island, "has finally acknowledged the terrible wrong" that was perpetrated against him.
Tankleff was 17 when he was arrested in 1988 for the deaths of his parents, Seymour and Arlene Tankleff.
He initially confessed but quickly recanted. Tankleff was convicted in 1990 and sentenced to 50 years in prison.
An appeals court found key evidence in his trial was overlooked, and he was freed in 2007. Prosecutors...
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April 20, 2018 at 4:30 pm
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court says Justice Sonia Sotomayor's left shoulder break is worse than was first thought, though the 63-year-old justice expects to be on the bench when the court hears its last six arguments of the term next week.
The court says Sotomayor will cut back on travel following the reassessment of her injury, which is a fracture of the ball joint in her left shoulder. She hurt herself in a fall at home on Monday.
Sotomayor has maintained a busy speaking schedule since the publication of her best-selling memoir, "The World and Me," in 2013. She had been scheduled to deliver the commencement address at the University of California, Davis School of Law on May 19.
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April 20, 2018 at 4:26 pm
16 youth compete in Independence Day Bible quiz - the annual event that brings together dozens of Jewish youth from around the world.
Ezriel Shilat, a resident of Hatzor Haglilit and a student at the Shomria Yeshiva, won the International Bible Contest for Jewish Youth, which took place Thursday at the Jerusalem Theater in honor of the 70th anniversary of the State of Israel.
Second place went to Oriah Cohen, a resident of Kiryat Shmuel in Haifa and a student of the Bnei Akiva girls' school in Kiryat Motzkin.
The quiz was attended by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein, Education Minister Naftali Bennett, Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky, JNF Chairman Danny Atar and Education Ministry Director-General Shmuel Abuav.
Bennett said during the even...
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April 20, 2018 at 4:22 pm
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A committee of the Los Angeles City Council has approved an environmental review exemption for a tunnel that Elon Musk wants to dig to test a novel underground transportation system.
The Los Angeles Times reports that members of the council's public works committee said Wednesday they wanted to approve any proposal that could help untangle the city's notorious traffic.
In addition to his Tesla electric car and SpaceX rocket launch businesses, Musk has created a company to bore transportation tunnels.
He envisions motorists' vehicles being lowered by elevators into tunnels and onto electric sleds that whisk them along to destinations.
The proposed exemption to the California Environmental Quality Act review still requires appro...
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April 20, 2018 at 4:21 pm
BEIRUT (AP) — Islamic State militants agreed to give up their last pocket in Damascus on Friday, state media reported, as the government seeks to retake the entire Syrian capital and its surrounding areas for the first time since 2011.
The capitulation followed a week of escalations by pro-government forces against the IS-held Hajar al-Aswad neighborhood and Yarmouk Palestinian camp in Damascus.
Pro-government forces bombed the two areas and blanketed them with artillery fire in a crescendo of violence captured by the state-affiliated Central Military Media outlet on Friday.
The U.N.'s refugee agency warned that the spiraling violence was a threat to 12,000 Palestinian refugees still there — Palestinians who came to Syria since 1948, and their descendants.
Militants we...
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April 20, 2018 at 4:19 pm
WASHINGTON (AP) — The top Senate Democrat is using marijuana's informal holiday to announce a change of heart about the drug, another sign of the growing political acceptance of pot.
New York Sen. Chuck Schumer said Friday he'll introduce a bill taking marijuana off the federal list of controlled substances — in effect decriminalizing its use.
Instead, his bill would let states decide how to treat marijuana possession. Under the measure, the federal government would still enforce laws against moving pot into states where it's illegal and would still regulate advertising so it isn't aimed at children.
"My thinking, as well as the general population's views, on the issue has evolved," Schumer said.
Schumer said he also wants to ensure that minorities ...
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April 20, 2018 at 4:14 pm
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is lashing out at China, Iran, Russia and North Korea for being "forces of instability" because of human rights abuses of their own citizens and others.
In its annual global human rights reports released on Friday, the State Department singled out the four countries for egregious rights violations, including restricting the freedoms of speech and assembly and allowing or committing violence against religious, ethnic and other minority groups. It said that countries that undermine the fundamental dignity of people are "morally reprehensible" and harm U.S. interests.
"The governments of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, for example, violate the human rights of those within their borders on a daily basis and are forces of instability as a ...
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April 20, 2018 at 4:06 pm
IRVINE, Calif. (AP) — A Southern California man pleaded not guilty Thursday to hate crimes after prosecutors say he threatened prominent members of the Jewish community and had with a "kill list" that included the names of people in the entertainment industry.
Nicholas Rose of Irvine pleaded not guilty to making criminal threats and violating civil rights, with sentencing enhancements for hate crimes.
It's unclear whether the 26-year-old has an attorney. He has a court appearance set for April 27.
A family member called the Orange Police Department on Monday and reported that Rose said he wanted to kill people and specifically threatened the Jewish community, according to the Orange County District Attorney's Office.
Police arrested Rose at his home Tuesday after saying...
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April 20, 2018 at 3:57 pm
Vatican City - It’s an incident that has stained the Vatican for 160 years: a 6-year-old Jewish boy taken from his family by papal police and brought to Rome to be raised Catholic after church authorities learned his housekeeper had secretly had him baptized.
Now the case has reared its head again, with new evidence that memoirs the boy wrote as an adult were altered to take the edge off his anti-Semitic views and enhance details favorable to the Catholic Church.
The Associated Press has confirmed findings by Brown University historian David Kertzer that Edgardo Mortara’s memoirs were changed in ways big and small when they were translated from the original Spanish into Italian and published to great fanfare by Italy’s Mondadori house in 2005. AP found the Spanish text ...
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April 20, 2018 at 3:41 pm
LONDON (AP) — A British teenager has been sentenced to two years in a youth detention center for compromising the email and phone accounts of senior U.S. government officials in what a judge called acts of "cyber-terrorism."
Prosecutors say Kane Gamble conned call centers during 2015-16 into revealing information that got him into the accounts of then-FBI director Mark Giuliano, then-Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson, then-CIA chief John Brennan and other officials.
They say Gamble, who was part of a group of hackers called "Crackas With Attitude," put some of the information he gathered online.
Gamble pleaded guilty last year. The 18-year-old was sentenced to youth custody on Friday in a London criminal court.
Judge Charles Haddon-Cave said his "nasty campaign of politi...
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April 20, 2018 at 3:38 pm
Authorities in Florida say the man who shot two sheriff's deputies to death at a restaurant earlier this week had entered the establishment before firing the weapon.
Earlier reports had said the Gilchrest County deputies were shot through a window from the outside the restaurant in Trenton, west of Gainesville.
Gilchrest County deputies Sgt. Noel Ramirez and Deputy Taylor Lindsey were killed at the Ace China restaurant. Officials say 58-year-old John Hubert Highnote of Bell shot them before killing himself.
Levy County Lt. Scott Tummond said at a news conference Friday that the shooter entered the restaurant and immediately opened fire, leaving the deputies with no time to react.
Authorities in neighboring counties have been acting as public information officers on behalf of Gilch...
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April 20, 2018 at 3:36 pm
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Southwest is sending a letter of apology, a $5,000 check and a $1,000 travel voucher to passengers who were on a flight that made an emergency landing in Philadelphia following an engine explosion.
Chairman Gary Kelly says in the letter that the money is to help cover any "immediate financial needs."
An engine on a Southwest jet exploded Tuesday, and debris hit the plane. Forty-three-year-old banker Jennifer Riordan of Albuquerque, New Mexico, was fatally injured when she was sucked partway out of the jet through a shattered window.
Passenger Marty Martinez of Dallas says he has no immediate plan to cash the check. He wants to talk to a lawyer. Eric Zilbert of Davis, California, says that after consulting with an attorney, he will cash his.
A public memorial s...
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April 20, 2018 at 3:35 pm
WASHINGTON (AP) — James Comey and President Donald Trump seem to disagree on most everything, but the ex-FBI director's memos show consensus on at least one thing: the need to hunt down leakers.
The two men bonded over the idea of a proposed leak crackdown, even sharing a chuckle over a crude joke involving jailed journalists, according to memos written by Comey and obtained by The Associated Press.
The jocularity over leakers and journalists is striking given the otherwise tense nature of their conversations, which touched on loyalty pledges, Russian prostitutes and open FBI investigations.
The memos kept by Comey show his unease with Trump's requests and his concern that the president was blurring the bright line between politics and law enforcement, includin...
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April 20, 2018 at 1:40 pm
BALTIMORE (AP) — Carryout food and drink containers made from plastic foam are no longer welcome in the city of Baltimore.
Mayor Catherine Pugh signed a bill Thursday giving businesses 18 months to stop using containers made from polystyrene foam. It also prohibits restaurants and other food vendors from using cups, plates, dishes, bowls and trays or any similar items made from this material. After that, businesses will face $1,000 fines for violations.
The City Council unanimously passed the bill last month after it was introduced by Councilman John Bullock. Versions that previously failed had offered businesses just three months to phase out the containers.
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April 20, 2018 at 1:29 pm
Former Baltimore County Public Schools Superintendent Dallas Dance has been sentenced Friday morning.
Dance was sentenced to six months of jail time concurrent on each charge, two years of supervised probation and 700 community service hours to begin next Friday at the Baltimore County Detention Center. The remainder of a five-year sentence will be suspended.
"I'm sorry, I'm deeply sorry. I'm remorseful," Dance said in court.
Dance declined to comment as he left the courthouse.
The state recommended Dance be sentenced to five years with all but 18 months suspended. State Prosecutor Emmet C. Davitt said outside Baltimore County Circuit Court that his team was "gratified" that Dance will at least serve time behind bars. He said it sent a message to all public off...
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April 20, 2018 at 1:16 pm
Gazans attach firebombs to kites, fly them over border fence to attack Israelis, damage property.
Gazans protesting along the Gaza border have begun attaching firebombs to kites to fly over the fence into Israel in a new tactic as the riots enter their fourth week.
For protests set for Friday, Gazans were hoping to send dozens of kites over the fence, including some carrying notes telling Israelis "there is no place for you in Palestine."
On the eve of Friday's protests, a group of terrorists worked to create the flying firebombs under a tree in an olive orchard hundreds of meters from the Israeli border east of Gaza City.
As AFP watched, three young men carried one kite dozens of meters towards the border before stopping to set the bottle alight.
With the flame lit, ...
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April 20, 2018 at 1:15 pm
MOSCOW (AP) — Russia's foreign minister said Friday that the U.S. sought out and respected Moscow's positions in Syria when it launched its air strikes last week.
Lavrov noted that despite the escalating tensions between Moscow and Washington, the U.S. made sure it didn't harm any Russian personnel and positions during the strikes against the regime of President Bashar Assad following a suspected chemical attack on the town of Douma.
"We told them where our red lines were, including the geographical red lines," Lavrov told Russian state television. "The results have shown that they haven't crossed those lines."
Moscow had warned the U.S. before the strike that it could hit back if the U.S. actions jeopardize Russian servicemen in Syria, and the allies had given...
