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Women in Secret Service scandal not tied to cartels, terrorism: report

U.S. News Headlines - Yahoo! News — Wed, 02 May 2012 04:36:03 +0000

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Secret Service personnel implicated in a prostitution scandal in Colombia paid 10 of the 12 women they were involved with and none of the women were found to be connected to terrorism or drug cartels, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday. Late on Tuesday, Secret Service officials submitted 24 pages of written answers to congressional committees investigating last month’s scandal which occurred ahead of President Barack Obama’s visit to Cartagena, the newspaper reported. …

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Oakland police may face sanctions over handling of Occupy protests

U.S. News Headlines - Yahoo! News — Wed, 02 May 2012 04:22:53 +0000

(Reuters) – A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the city of Oakland and its police department to submit a plan within a week to address a backlog of complaints stemming from their handling of Occupy protests, threatening sanctions if they fail to do so. The mandate by District Judge Thelton Henderson follows the release of a report by an outside monitor that said Oakland police used “an overwhelming military-type response” to the demonstrations. …

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Justice Department probes handling of Montana rape reports

U.S. News Headlines - Yahoo! News — Wed, 02 May 2012 03:01:04 +0000

MISSOULA, Montana (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department unveiled a broad probe on Tuesday into complaints that authorities were failing to aggressively investigate sexual assault reports in Missoula, Montana, citing more than 80 reported rapes there during the past three years.

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Woman accused of bilking $53 million from Reagan’s boyhood hometown

U.S. News Headlines - Yahoo! News — Wed, 02 May 2012 02:45:55 +0000

CHICAGO (Reuters) – A former finance official stole more than $53 million in city funds from former President Ronald Reagan’s boyhood hometown in Illinois in a fraud that spanned more than two decades, U.S. prosecutors said on Tuesday. Rita Crundwell, 59, who had served as comptroller of Dixon, Illinois since 1983, used the money to buy three homes, more than a dozen cars, trucks and other vehicles, and to invest in a horse farm that has 311 quarter horses, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago said. …

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Georgia bans most late-terms abortions, assisted suicide

U.S. News Headlines - Yahoo! News — Wed, 02 May 2012 02:02:02 +0000

ATLANTA (Reuters) – Georgia Governor Nathan Deal signed into law two pieces of legislation on Tuesday to restrict late-term abortions and outlaw assisted suicide in the state. The first law banned most abortions after 20 weeks’ pregnancy, making Georgia the eighth U.S. state to outlaw most late-term abortions based on controversial research that a fetus can feel pain by that stage of development. Georgia already prohibits most abortions starting in the third trimester. The second law signed by Deal made it a felony to help people take their own lives. …

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Justice Department probes handling of Montana rape reports

U.S. News Headlines - Yahoo! News — Wed, 02 May 2012 00:51:16 +0000

MISSOULA, Montana (Reuters) – The Justice Department unveiled a broad probe on Tuesday into complaints that authorities were failing to aggressively investigate sexual assault reports in Missoula, Montana, citing more than 80 reported rapes there during the past three years. The investigation includes a review of the handling of sexual assault and harassment reports at the University of Montana at Missoula, where at least 11 student-related sex assault cases have surfaced in recent months. …

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Oklahoma executes man sentenced to death twice

U.S. News Headlines - Yahoo! News — Wed, 02 May 2012 00:32:07 +0000

OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) – A convicted Oklahoma killer who was spared execution once but asked for a new trial and was sentenced to death a second time was executed by lethal injection on Tuesday. Michael B. Selsor, 57, was the 18th person executed in the United States this year and the third person executed in Oklahoma in 2012. He was pronounced dead at 6:06 p.m. local time (1106 GMT) at the state prison in McAlester, Oklahoma, a prison spokesman said. He was executed for killing convenience store clerk Clayton Chandler on September 22, 1975, during an armed robbery in Tulsa, Oklahoma. …

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Military advances probe of Colombia scandal

U.S. News Headlines - Yahoo! News — Wed, 02 May 2012 00:08:22 +0000

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – An officer investigating the possible involvement of a dozen U.S. troops in a prostitution scandal in Colombia last month has finished gathering evidence and is working on a report of his findings and recommendations, the U.S. military said on Tuesday. The report of the U.S. military’s investigating officer is expected to take several days to complete and will then be forwarded to the staff judge advocate for the U.S. Southern Command, who will review it and forward it to the SouthCom commanding officer for further action, the military said. …

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Charges to be filed in Florida hazing death: authorities

U.S. News Headlines - Yahoo! News — Wed, 02 May 2012 00:07:21 +0000

ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) – Multiple people will be charged in the case of a Florida marching band drum major who was killed in Orlando in a brutal hazing ritual in November 2011, authorities said on Tuesday. Law authorities in Orange County said that the defendants will be charged with a wide range of misdemeanor and felony charges. County prosecutors will hold a news conference on Wednesday to release details of their investigation, a news release said. “Multiple individuals will be charged with crimes,” Orange County Deputy Sheriff Ginette Rodriguez told Reuters. …

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May Day protests draw police but most are peaceful

U.S. News Headlines - Yahoo! News — Wed, 02 May 2012 00:02:18 +0000

NEW YORK/OAKLAND, California (Reuters) – Occupy Wall Street protesters smashed windows in Seattle, fled police on scooters through the streets of New York and clashed with officers in Oakland on Tuesday in May Day demonstrations intended to revive their movement against economic injustice. Many events were peaceful, marked by meditation in public parks and anti-corporate song-and-dance routines in New York. …

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Connecticut to become 49th state to sell alcohol on Sunday

U.S. News Headlines - Yahoo! News — Tue, 01 May 2012 23:20:23 +0000

HARTFORD, Conn (Reuters) – Connecticut took a major step toward becoming the 49th state to allow Sunday alcohol sales when the Senate voted on Tuesday to allow liquor stores to sell beer, wine and spirits any day of the week. Governor Dannel Malloy pledged to sign the bill that passed the Senate on a 28-6 vote following similar approval by the House. He said such sales would help Connecticut hang onto dollars that had been flowing on Sundays to neighboring Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New York. …

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Stricken Texas "bucket list" baby dies, father says

U.S. News Headlines - Yahoo! News — Tue, 01 May 2012 23:08:25 +0000

(Reuters) – A Texas baby born with an incurable disease whose parents created an online “bucket list” for their daughter that became an Internet sensation has died, her father said on Tuesday. Michael Canahuati said in a blog posting that five-and-a-half-month-old Avery died on Monday afternoon after going into cardiac arrest. The little girl was born in November with spinal muscular atrophy, a rare genetic disorder that doctors predicted would kill her before she turned 2. …

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Numbers of Muslims, Mormons up sharply in U.S.: report

U.S. News Headlines - Yahoo! News — Tue, 01 May 2012 22:44:01 +0000

CHICAGO (Reuters) – American Muslims grew in number over the past decade, outnumbering Jews for the first time in most of the Midwest and part of the South, while most mainline churches lost adherents, according to a census of American religions released on Tuesday. The number of Muslim adherents rose to 2.6 million in 2010 from 1 million in 2000, fueled by immigration and conversions, said Dale Jones, a researcher who worked on the study by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies. …

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Employee dies after fall at Phillips refinery

U.S. News Headlines - Yahoo! News — Tue, 01 May 2012 21:38:29 +0000

HOUSTON (Reuters) – An employee died after a Monday afternoon fall at the ConocoPhillips refinery in Borger, Texas, a company spokesman said on Tuesday. KVII-TV in Amarillo, Texas, reported the man fell from a height of 100 feet. He was taken to a local hospital, where he died. “ConocoPhillips deeply regrets the loss of our employee and wishes to extend sympathy to the employee’s family, friends and co-workers,” said spokesman Rich Johnson. “ConocoPhillips is investigating the cause of the accident.” ConocoPhillips split into two companies on Tuesday. …

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Justice Department reviews handling of over 80 rape reports in Montana

U.S. News Headlines - Yahoo! News — Tue, 01 May 2012 21:36:56 +0000

MISSOULA, Montana (Reuters) – The Justice Department unveiled a broad probe on Tuesday into complaints that authorities were failing to aggressively investigate sexual assault reports in Missoula, Montana, citing more than 80 alleged rapes during the past three years. The investigation includes a review of the handling of sexual assault and sexual harassment reports at the Missoula-based University of Montana campus, where at least 11 student-related sex assault cases have surfaced in recent months. …

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Health centers for poor, uninsured see ranks swell

U.S. News Headlines - Yahoo! News — Tue, 01 May 2012 21:03:59 +0000

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Community health centers that cater to the poor and uninsured saw their patients’ ranks swell by nearly 18 percent from 2008 to 2011 as job loss left more Americans without health insurance, the Obama administration said on Tuesday. A report released by the White House said 20 million Americans now receive healthcare services through 8,500 community health centers, up from 17 million four years ago. “Those numbers really took a big jump,” Mary Wakefield, who heads the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration, told reporters. …

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Judge trims Madoff trustee’s profit clawback suits

U.S. News Headlines - Yahoo! News — Tue, 01 May 2012 21:03:24 +0000

(Reuters) – A judge ruled that a trustee may try to claw back fictitious profits only from the last two years before the epic Madoff fraud was disclosed in December 2008, a ruling likely to affect claims against hundreds of former customers of Bernard Madoff. U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff made a similar ruling last year when he reduced trustee Irving Picard’s claims in a lawsuit against the principal owners of the New York Mets Major League Baseball team. Owners Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz agreed to settle the litigation, but it has yet to be approved by Rakoff. …

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Brown University agrees to double payments to hometown Providence

U.S. News Headlines - Yahoo! News — Tue, 01 May 2012 20:56:52 +0000

(Reuters) – Brown University agreed to nearly double its payments to Rhode Island’s cash-strapped capital city, answering the Providence mayor’s plea for help and staving off a municipal bankruptcy. With more than $1 billion of property in the city and a $2.5 billion endowment, Rhode Island’s sixth-largest employer had come under pressure to increase its almost $4 million annual payments to its hometown city, most of which are ‘voluntary contributions’ because Brown is exempt from most property taxes as a non-profit. …

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Connecticut man accused in 28-year-old death of wife

U.S. News Headlines - Yahoo! News — Tue, 01 May 2012 20:35:18 +0000

DANBURY, Connecticut (Reuters) – A Connecticut man was accused of murder on Tuesday in the 1984 disappearance of his wife, whom he had reported missing just days after he filed for divorce. The skeletal remains of Elizabeth Heath were discovered beneath the subflooring of a Newtown, Connecticut, barn as it was renovated two years ago, showing the 32-year-old woman had died from blunt force trauma to the head, according to Newtown police. Her death was ruled a homicide. …

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U.S. Medicare to cover Edwards Sapien heart valve

U.S. News Headlines - Yahoo! News — Tue, 01 May 2012 20:28:48 +0000

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Medicare and Medicaid federal health insurance programs will cover the Sapien heart valve from Edwards Lifesciences Corp, U.S. regulators said on Tuesday. The heart valve, which is threaded to the heart through an incision in the groin or ribs, is meant for patients deemed too sick to have open-heart surgery. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the valve, which is estimated to cost about $30,000, in November. (Reporting by Anna Yukhananov; Editing by Gary Hill)

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