Mail.com

AUBURN, Mass. (AP) — Authorities are trying to determine how a 2-year-old girl died and a second young girl was left in critical condition after they were found unresponsive at a home in Massachusetts.

Worcester County District Attorney Joseph D. Early said Sunday night the girls were discovered at an apartment complex in Auburn, about 45 miles west of Boston, after their foster mother called 911 around 12:30 p.m. Saturday.   Continue reading “Police probing death of foster child; 2nd remains critical”

Mail.com

JAYAPURA, Indonesia (AP) — An airplane with 54 people on board that crashed in the mountains of eastern Indonesia was carrying nearly half a million dollars in government cash for poor families to help offset a spike in fuel prices, an official said Monday.

Smoldering wreckage of the Trigana Air Service turboprop plane was spotted from the air Monday morning in a rugged area of the easternmost province of Papua, rescue officials said. There was no immediate word of any survivors from Sunday’s crash, which happened in bad weather.   Continue reading “Crashed Indonesian plane was carrying $500,000 in cash”

Mail.com

CHICAGO (AP) — Members of a U.S. Army skydiving team will return to their base where they will have access to counseling after a parachutist from their unit died from injuries suffered during a stunt at the Chicago Air & Water Show, a spokeswoman for the group said.

The Golden Knights demonstration team has been put on a “safety stand down” after the death of Sgt. 1st Class Corey Hood, spokeswoman Donna Dixon said Sunday. The group will head to Fort Bragg in North Carolina, where they can meet with chaplains as the Army works to ensure everyone is mentally and physically fit to continue with the show season, she said. The team’s performance schedule could be affected.   Continue reading “Army skydivers returning to Fort Bragg after member’s death”

RT

The Oath Keepers and other militia groups are celebrating a victory after a conflict over surface rights for a mine in Montana was taken to court. The militias were brought in to protect mine owners from federal interference.

“We will continue to remain vigilant and on site and make sure what we achieved yesterday is upheld,” spokesman for the militias Chris McIntire told AP on Wednesday, a day after the US Forest Service sought a court ruling over the contested rights.   Continue reading “Armed militias celebrate victory in Montana mine stand-off with federal govt”

Mail.com

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Public urination has gotten so bad in San Francisco that the city has painted nine walls with a repellant paint that makes pee spray back on the offender.

It’s the latest effort to address a chronic problem in a city where the public works director calls himself Mr. Clean: Walls are coated with a clear, liquid repellant material that goes on much like paint. Hit with urine, it splashes back on a person’s shoes and pants.   Continue reading “Hold it! San Francisco uses paint to fight public urination”

Does anyone else picture these things being used to put biological agents in the water supply?

Mail.com

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Los Angeles has been blackballed.

The city has completed a program of covering open-air reservoirs with floating “shade balls” to protect water quality. City officials this week dumped the last 20,000 of 96 million black balls into the Los Angeles Reservoir in Sylmar, 25 miles northwest of downtown.   Continue reading “Los Angeles covers reservoir waters with ‘shade balls’”

Mail.com

BAGHDAD (AP) — A truck bomb ripped through a popular Baghdad food market in a predominantly Shiite neighborhood early on Thursday morning, killing at least 67 people, police officials said, in one of the deadliest single blasts in the Iraqi capital in years.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the explosion, saying it targeted a gathering place of Shiites and vowed more such attacks. The truck hit the Jameela market in the Iraqi capital’s crowded Sadr City neighborhood shortly after dawn, according to two local police officers. They said at least 152 people were wounded at the market, which is the main center for produce and food sales in Baghdad.   Continue reading “Islamic State truck bombing at Baghdad market kills 67”

RT

The nuclear submarine Kursk sank in the Barents Sea during a maritime exercise on this day in 2000. All 118 crew members died after international efforts to save them frustratingly failed.

The Russian Oscar II class submarine K-141 Kursk was the pride of Russia’s fleet, having symbolized the power and strength of the Russian Navy. Having been set afloat in 1994, the 154-meter-long nuclear sub had been in service for less than six years when it sank.    Continue reading “The day the Kursk sank: 15 years on, Russia remembers one of worst-ever submarine tragedies”

Mail.com

NEW YORK (AP) — Kraft Heinz says it is cutting about 2,500 jobs as part of its plan to slash costs after the food companies combined.

Spokesman Michael Mullen says affected workers are in the U.S. and Canada and were to be notified in person. About 700 of the cuts were coming in Northfield, Illinois, where Kraft had been headquartered.   Continue reading “Kraft Heinz slashing 2,500 jobs in US, Canada after merger”

Mail.com

TOKYO (AP) — A U.S. Army helicopter crashed while landing on a Navy ship during training Wednesday off Japan’s southern island of Okinawa, injuring seven people and damaging the aircraft, officials said.

The H-60 helicopter made a hard landing on the USNS Red Cloud cargo vessel around 20 miles (30 kilometers) east of Okinawa, U.S. Forces Japan said in a statement, adding that the cause was under investigation. Okinawa is home to most of the tens of thousands of U.S. troops in Japan.   Continue reading “US Army copter crash-lands on ship off Japan island; 7 hurt”

Mail.com

CAIRO (AP) — Islamic State sympathizers circulated an image Wednesday that appears to show the grisly aftermath of the beheading of a Croatian hostage abducted in Egypt, which if confirmed would mark the first such killing of a foreign captive in the country since the extremist group established a branch here last year.

The killing of the 30-year-old oil and gas sector surveyor likely will rattle companies with expatriate workers in Egypt and cast a cloud over President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi’s attempts to boost international investment and tourism following years of unrest.   Continue reading “IS affiliate in Egypt releases image of slain Croat captive”

A “willful decision”?!?  How about calling it what it is, a CIA/Mossad
creation.

RT

The US didn’t interfere with the rise of anti-government jihadist groups in Syria that finally degenerated into Islamic State, claims the former head of America’s Defense Intelligence Agency, backing a secret 2012 memo predicting their rise.   Continue reading “US ex-intelligence chief on ISIS rise: It was ‘a willful Washington decision’”

Mail.com

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Google is creating a new company to oversee its highly lucrative Internet business and a growing flock of other ventures, including some — like building self-driving cars and researching ways to prolong human life — that are known more for their ambition than for turning an immediate profit.

The new company will be called “Alphabet,” Google CEO and co-founder Larry Page announced Monday. Page said he’ll be CEO of the new holding company, while longtime Google executive Sundar Pichai will become CEO of Google’s core business, including its search engine, online advertising operation and YouTube video service.   Continue reading “Google forms a new holding company, ‘Alphabet’”

Mail.com

TOKYO (AP) — A power plant operator in southern Japan restarted a nuclear reactor on Tuesday, the first to begin operating under new safety requirements following the Fukushima disaster.

Kyushu Electric Power Co. said Tuesday it had restarted the No. 1 reactor at its Sendai nuclear plant as planned. The restart marks Japan’s return to nuclear energy four-and-half-years after the 2011 meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in northeastern Japan following an earthquake and tsunami.   Continue reading “Japan restarts reactor after break due to Fukushima”

RT

The person shot in Ferguson by a police officer after a day of commemorating the first anniversary of Michael Brown’s death has been identified by his father as 18-year-old Tyrone Harris Jr., of St. Louis, who was “real close” to Brown, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.

“We think there’s a lot more to this than what’s being said,” Harris Sr. said, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, adding that his son had graduated from Normandy High School.   Continue reading “Man shot in Ferguson identified as black 18yo Tyrone Harris, ‘friend of Michael Brown’”

Mail.com

NEW YORK (AP) — As a campaign to raise the minimum wage as high as $15 has achieved victories in such places as Seattle, Los Angeles and New York, it has bumped up against a harsh reality: Plenty of scofflaw businesses don’t pay the legal minimum now and probably won’t pay the new, higher wages either.

Some economists, labor activists and regulators predict that without stronger enforcement, the number of workers getting cheated out of a legal wage is bound to increase in places where wages rise. Estimates on the size of the problem vary, but the Bureau of Labor Statistics said that in 2014, roughly 1.7 million U.S. workers — two thirds of whom were women — were illegally paid less than the federal minimum of $7.25 per hour.   Continue reading “Push for higher minimum wage ignites worry about enforcement”

Mail.com

WASHINGTON (AP) — Wherever their summer travels have taken them, Supreme Court justices probably will weigh in on Texas’ plans to execute two death row inmates in the week ahead.

If past practice is any guide, the court is much more likely to allow the lethal-injection executions to proceed than to halt them. Opponents of the death penalty took heart when Justices Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg made the case against capital punishment in late June as arbitrary, prone to mistakes and time-consuming. Even if death penalty opponents eventually succeed, the timeline for abolition probably will be measured in years, not months.   Continue reading “Executions likely go on despite strong Supreme Court dissent”

RT

The grandson of the man who ordered the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 70 years ago, recalled how he gradually became an advocate of nuclear-free world.

Clifton Truman Daniel is the son of President Harry Truman’s only child – fiction writer Mary Margaret, and Clifton Daniel, who worked as managing director for the New York Times. Clifton did not find out that his grandfather, who visited Daniel’s family on regular basis, had been the president of US until going to school, he told RT’s documentary channel RTD.   Continue reading “US will never apologize for Hiroshima, Nagasaki – President Truman’s grandson”

RT

Russian President Vladimir Putin and French President Francois Hollande have reached an agreement to cancel the contract for two Mistral helicopter carriers. Paris will pay Moscow all the costs for the canceled contact – the sum will be less than €1.2bn.

“Talks between President Putin and President Francois Hollande concluded yesterday. There is no further dispute on the matter,” French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told France’s RTL radio.   Continue reading “Putin, Hollande officially cancel Mistral contract, Paris to pay less than €1.2bn”

Mail.com

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Shortly after Iran reached a nuclear deal with world powers, a local newspaper in Tehran published an image that many outside the country would take for granted: An American actor hawking an expensive watch.

But John Travolta’s blue eyes staring out of the advertisement, which showed him sitting next to NASA’s X-15 experimental rocket jet on a California runway, offered a dose of Americana rarely seen since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. And soon, there could be even more.   Continue reading “American culture, from fast food to actors, seeps into Iran”