From the Trenches World Report
Enforce our Bill of Rights
A military Airbus A400M cargo plane has crashed in Seville in southern Spain. According to media reports, the jet was carrying seven people when it crashed into an irrigation canal in agricultural land near an international airport. Continue reading “3 dead as military jet crashes near intl airport in S. Spain”
WASHINGTON (AP) — North Korea greeted a U.S. diplomatic overture with a fresh show of force, seemingly testing the Obama administration’s resolve for new nuclear talks.
After three years of diplomatic deadlock, the U.S. appears open to preliminary discussions to assess North Korea’s intentions and the prospects of ridding the country of nuclear weapons. Then came Saturday’s claim that North Korea successfully test-fired a newly developed ballistic missile from a submarine. Not long after that announcement, South Korean officials said the North fired three anti-ship cruise missiles into the sea off its east coast. Continue reading “Show of North Korean force sets back US diplomatic overture”
MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) — Liberia is now free of Ebola after going 42 days — twice the maximum incubation period for the deadly disease — without any new cases, the World Health Organization announced Saturday.
While celebrating the milestone, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf told The Associated Press the damage wrought by the worst Ebola outbreak in history is “a scar on the conscience of the world.” For some survivors, she said, “the pain and grief will take a generation to heal.” Continue reading “Liberia is free of Ebola, says World Health Organization”
PROVO, Utah (AP) — A jury found a Utah teenager guilty Saturday in a 50-mile crime spree that left one sheriff’s deputy dead and another wounded.
Meagan Grunwald, 18, was desperately in love with her much older boyfriend and would do anything to stay with him, including driving a speeding getaway car in the three-county chase, prosecutors say. The teenager tearfully told a jury she was too afraid to stop driving when the man she loved turned the gun on her and threatened to kill her family. Continue reading “Jury finds Utah teen guilty in sheriff’s deputy’s death”
WASHINGTON (AP) — Blue Bell Creameries knew there was listeria in one of the company’s plants as far back as March 2013, according to a government investigation. But the company didn’t issue any recalls or shut down its production until after the products were linked to listeria illnesses this year — including three deaths in Kansas.
The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday released results of its investigations into Blue Bell’s plants in Oklahoma, Texas and Alabama after a Freedom of Information request by The Associated Press. The most extensive violations were found in Oklahoma, where the FDA listed 17 positive tests for listeria on equipment and around its plant there from March 2013 through February 2015. Continue reading “Listeria contamination in Blue Bell plants goes back 2 years”
APOLLO, Pa. (AP) — A man used his 9-year-old daughter as a ploy to collect money for Girl Scout cookies he never ordered or delivered, police said.
Thirty-three-year-old Cody Patrick Wylie was arraigned Tuesday on charges of theft and receiving stolen property. He lives in Westmoreland County, northeast of Pittsburgh. He and his daughter took door-to-door cookie orders from as many as 100 people, police said, and eight people filed a criminal complaint. Continue reading “Cops: Man used daughter, 9, to scam Girl Scout cookie buyers”
LOS ANGELES (AP) — After Elvis Summers built a tiny house on wheels for a woman who had been sleeping on the streets, he launched a crowdfunding campaign to construct similar shelters for other homeless people in his South Los Angeles neighborhood.
He had no grand ambitions beyond lending a helping hand in a city with thousands of residents without roofs over their heads. “Honestly I thought I’d raise enough money to help a dozen people, call it a day, and then go back to stressing about my job,” said the 38-year-old, who runs an online apparel store. Continue reading “Man on mission to build tiny houses for Los Angeles homeless”
Former Olympic gold medalist Bryan Clay came up with a novel way to remove his daughter’s loose tooth. He tied it with a piece of dental floss, before attaching it to his javelin. As the javelin flew away, so did the tooth…
The former Decathlete, who won gold at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, is very adept at throwing the javelin, as it was one of the ten events that form his discipline. Continue reading “Javelin dentistry: Former Olympic champ removes daughter’s tooth with spear”
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Authorities are investigating the damage left behind by spring storms carrying more than a dozen suspected tornadoes that swept across the southern Plains, bringing floods, forcing the evacuation of an international airport and destroying homes near Oklahoma City.
At least 12 people were injured, but no deaths were immediately reported from the twisters that also hit rural parts of Texas, Kansas and Nebraska on Wednesday night. The Oklahoma City area seemed to be the hardest hit. A twister destroyed homes in Grady County, southwest of the city, and it appeared another tornado touched down in the area later Wednesday evening when a second storm came through. Continue reading “Tornadoes, flash floods upend the Oklahoma City area”
HONOLULU (AP) — About a dozen women arrested over the weekend in a Honolulu prostitution sting at massage parlors won’t be charged with prostitution. Instead, they face the more severe charge of sex assault.
If convicted, the women would have to register as sex offenders and could spend up to a year in jail, while a prostitution charge carries just 30 days. The new tactic from the Honolulu Police Department is extremely unusual for a law enforcement agency, said legal experts and advocates for prostitutes. Continue reading “Honolulu police use sex assault charge in prostitution sting”
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Authorities are looking for a teen who wanted a date with Destiny and hoped to get it by spray-painting a prom proposal on an Idaho cliffside.
The Idaho Statesman reports (http://bit.ly/1GYk3Us ) that the message “Destiny, Prom?” was painted in large pink and blue letters on the side of the Black Cliffs, in a popular rock climbing spot, east of Boise. The Ada County sheriff’s office is searching for the culprit. Continue reading “Teen who spray-painted prom invite on Idaho cliff sought”
President Barack Obama isn’t exactly riding high on public support, but for the first time in two years more Americans approve of the job he is doing than disapprove.
The news comes courtesy of a new Wall Street Journal/NBC poll that was released Monday. It found that 48 percent of Americans approve of the job Obama is doing as president, while 47 percent disapprove. Continue reading “Obama’s approval rating climbs back into positive territory”
TRENTON — The deadline for Gov. Chris Christie to sign or veto legislation that would require every new single or two-family home built in New Jersey to have a sprinkler system is Thursday.
Today, a coalition of fire safety officials and union heads joined the bill’s sponsor, Assemblyman John Wisniewski, to urge Christie to sign it.
“Of all the reasons to support this bill, the most compelling is also the simplest: Fire sprinklers prevent injuries and save lives,” Wisniewski (D-Middlesex) said. Continue reading “All new houses would be required to have sprinklers, under bill on Christie’s desk”
A powerful explosion in an active Hawaiian lava crater was captured on webcam by the US Geological Survey. The footage shows how a rock fall prompted the lava lake to burst.
The video shows Hawaii’s active Halemaʻumaʻu Crater in the Kilauea Volcano, often view at close range by tourists, as the crater’s rocky wall suddenly collapses into the lava lake, causing an avalanche of dust to form. Continue reading “Hawaii volcano explodes after rocks fall into active crater”
A US Air Force general has been forced to step down over his “inappropriate comment” at a disciplinary hearing. He studied a photo showing two officers, describing them as “drunker than 10,000 Indians.”
“I inadvertently made an unfortunate comment, I own it, and I hold myself accountable to the same high standards my subordinate commanders are held to,” Major General Michael Keltz said in a statement. Continue reading “‘Drunker than 10,000 Indians’: US Air Force general resigns over comment in court”
HOPE, Ark. (AP) — Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is preparing another bid for the Republican presidential nomination, eight years after his first efforts to expand on the support of evangelical Christians helped him win eight states in the 2008 primaries.
The ordained Baptist minister turned politician returns Tuesday to his hometown of Hope, Arkansas — the same small town where former President Bill Clinton was born — to make official what the local newspaper called “the worst kept secret” in the state. Continue reading “In Arkansas, Huckabee poised to launch 2nd White House bid”
Hmmm….our police here in the United States are being trained by
Israelis, anyone else see a connection?!?
Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin has said the country’s government “made a mistake” ignoring the issues of the Ethiopian population. The protesters “exposed an open, bleeding wound in the heart of Israeli society,” the president added. Continue reading “‘We made a mistake’: Israeli president to Ethiopians after thousands-strong protest”
BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraqi government forces drove the Islamic State group out of Abu Mustafa’s hometown of Tikrit over a month ago, but he has yet to return, fearing the Shiite militias that now patrol its bombed and battered streets.
The well-off businessman, who fled to Iraq’s relatively secure Kurdish region before the operation began, has heard of widespread looting and vandalism, including of his own property. And he’s heard that the militiamen are exacting revenge on Sunnis like himself, viewing them as sympathizers of the extremist group. Continue reading “Iraqi city still a ghost town a month after defeat of IS”
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of sex-related crimes occurring in U.S. military communities is far greater than the Defense Department has publicly reported, a U.S. senator said Monday in a scathing critique that asserts the Pentagon has refused to provide her information about sexual assaults at several major bases.
The spouses of service members and civilian women who live or work near military facilities are especially vulnerable to being sexually assaulted, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., said in a report. Yet they “remain in the shadows” because neither is counted in surveys conducted by the Defense Department to determine the prevalence of sexual assaults within the ranks, the report said. Continue reading “Pentagon accused of withholding sex crimes info”
A 3.9-magnitude earthquake has been recorded in the Los Angeles area, the US Geological Survey reports. Though the quake was shallow, residents across the basin say they were woken up by the tremor.
The shallow earthquake occurred just one mile from View Park-Windsor Hills, California, at 4:07 am on Sunday morning.
The quake, which struck at a depth of 5.6 miles, was classified by the USGS as “light”. However, it was still felt over a wide area of the LA basin. Continue reading “3.9 earthquake strikes Los Angeles area – USGS”
