|
2012-05-17T23:46:12Z
|
 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - For the first time, there are more black, Hispanic and other minority babies being born in the United States than white babies, according to government data released on Thursday that confirm a long-growing trend. U.S. Census Bureau data show the United States is on its way to becoming "majority minority," with almost half of all young children currently from minority groups, including Hispanic, black and Asian. As of July 1, 2011, 50.4 percent of babies younger than age 1 were minorities or of more than one race, up from 49.5 percent in 2010, the data showed. ...
|
|
|
|
2012-05-18T01:21:52Z
|
 LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The parents of two Chinese graduate students slain near the University of Southern California last month have filed a wrongful death lawsuit accusing the school of misrepresenting the area as safe and failing to provide security patrols. The 15-page lawsuit filed on Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court comes just over a month after Ming Qu and Ying Wu, both 23, were fatally shot as they were sitting in a 2003 BMW car that had been double-parked. ...
|
|
|
|
2012-05-18T02:15:55Z
|
 CHICAGO (Reuters) - A small group of anti-war demonstrators staged a peaceful "die in" on Thursday at President Barack Obama's election campaign headquarters in Chicago to demand an end to the war in Afghanistan and unmanned drone aircraft attacks overseas. Despite calling ahead, some of the roughly 50 protesters said they were unable to deliver a letter to the Obama campaign calling for the United States to leave NATO and its "violent mission of protecting the 1 percent in the global economy who represent 99 percent of corporate wealth in the world. ...
|
|
|
|
2012-05-18T04:13:40Z
|
 ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - An FBI expert found crucial evidence in the Trayvon Martin case was inconclusive, saying it was impossible to tell if the voice screaming for help belonged to the black Florida teenager or his shooter George Zimmerman just before the neighborhood watch captain pulled the trigger. That detail came from a mass of evidence made public on Thursday in the case that sparked civil rights protests across the United States and debates over guns, self-defense laws and race relations in America. ...
|
|
|
|
2012-05-18T02:39:03Z
|
HOUSTON (Reuters) - The day after an all-white jury acquitted a former Houston police officer for his role in the beating of a 15-year-old African American burglary suspect, community activists rallied a crowd of at least 200 people on the courthouse steps to protest. Andrew Blomberg was acquitted by a jury in Houston on Wednesday in the alleged beating and stomping of Chad Holley two years ago. Protesters carrying signs with slogans like, "No justice, no peace. ... |
|
|
|
2012-05-18T00:25:31Z
|
 KANSAS CITY, Kansas (Reuters) - Kansas Governor Sam Brownback apologized on Thursday to blacks for segregation in his state in the last century as he marked the anniversary of a ruling that struck down segregation in schools. The Republican governor said Kansas had never really apologized for the "hateful practice" of segregating black people from white in public places after the abolition of slavery. Brownback signed the proclamation on the 58th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark 1954 ruling in Brown vs. ...
|
|
|
|
2012-05-18T02:37:39Z
|
OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) - The Humane Society of the United States is accusing an Oklahoma exotic animal park of allowing children to handle and pose for photographs with juvenile tigers in what they called "a petting zoo for carnivores." Joe Schreibvogel, owner of the G.W. Exotic Animal Park, 65 miles south of Oklahoma City, denies the allegations, and he said on Thursday that the humane society simply wants to bankrupt him. Wayne Pacelle, head of the animal rights organization, contends that allowing visitors to handle the unpredictable felines placed the visitors at risk. ... |
|
|
|
2012-05-18T01:30:54Z
|
 LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The USS Iowa, which ferried the late President Franklin D. Roosevelt across the perilous Atlantic waters to a historic meeting with Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin in the dark days of World War Two, will have to be towed to its final port call. The battleship saw combat in the Pacific, survived a devastating explosion in a gun turret, and even a snub from the city of San Francisco. At the end of its final voyage, the storied warship will have a permanent mooring in Los Angeles. ...
|
|
|
|
2012-05-18T00:25:58Z
|
TUPELO, Miss (Reuters) - Mississippi's high court on Thursday rejected a motion by its state attorney general to reconsider its approval of 10 pardons issued in January by then Governor Haley Barbour. The decision not to rehear the case was handed down by the state Supreme Court without comment. Attorney General Jim Hood had asked the court to void those pardons, among some 200 issued by the former Republican governor, on the grounds that technical procedures set out in the state constitution had not been met. ... |
|
|
|
2012-05-18T00:45:07Z
|
(Reuters) - New York state's unemployment rate was unchanged in April from March at 8.5 percent but the state has won back all the private sector jobs lost during the recession, the state's Department of Labor said on Thursday. New York's jobless rate is up from 8 percent in April 2011 and is above the national rate for April of 8.1 percent. Only four other states have regained all the jobs lost during the Great Recession: Alaska, Louisiana, North Dakota and Texas, said Kevin Jack, a state labor market analyst. ... |
|
|
|
2012-05-18T00:35:02Z
|
LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - A former Nevada state Senator who ran on a Christian family values platform has posed in a bikini as a write-in candidate for the men's magazine Maxim's "Hot 100" contest. The magazine will announce results of the annual contest next week, but a photo of Elizabeth Halseth posed in a black bikini against a desert mountain backdrop has featured on the magazine's website as one of the most popular 'Hot 100' write-ins of the year. ... |
|
|
|
2012-05-18T01:33:11Z
|
PHOENIX (Reuters) - Firefighters struggled against strong winds on Thursday to halt the advance of Arizona wildfires that have charred more than 30 square miles (78 square km) of dry ponderosa forest, brush and grass, and a blaze in nearby Colorado swelled overnight. More than 1,000 firefighters in the two states battled at least five major blazes from the ground while air tankers and helicopters dropped water and fire retardant. Another fire erupted in Minnesota, encroaching on the northern town of Ely. ... |
|
|
|
2012-05-17T23:48:53Z
|
TUPELO, Mississippi (Reuters) - Authorities in Mississippi are checking an April incident they say may be related to two highway murders this month that have raised alarms about a killer possibly posing as a police officer. The April 2 incident - which involved a woman being pulled over by an unmarked car and did not end violently - is one of hundreds of leads that officials are following in rural northern Mississippi as they investigate the killings. ... |
|
|
|
2012-05-17T23:22:35Z
|
PHOENIX (Reuters) - Firefighters struggled against strong winds on Thursday to halt the advance of Arizona wildfires that have charred over 30 square miles of dry ponderosa forest, brush and grass, and a blaze in nearby Colorado swelled overnight. Over 1,000 firefighters in the two states battled at least five major blazes from the ground while air tankers and helicopters made water and fire retardant drops. ... |
|
|
|
2012-05-17T23:21:42Z
|
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - War-weary lawmakers nudged President Barack Obama to speed the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan on Thursday but Republicans blocked a big debate on the issue ahead of a NATO summit to chart the way forward in the decade-long conflict. The clash over Afghanistan came as lawmakers in the House of Representatives debated an annual policy bill that would authorize $642.5 billion in defense spending for the 2013 fiscal year beginning in October, including $88.5 billion for the Afghan war and other overseas operations. ... |
|
|
|
2012-05-17T22:16:56Z
|
 PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - The prosecution rested its case on Thursday against Philadelphia Archdiocese Monsignor William Lynn, the most senior U.S. clergyman to go to trial in the Roman Catholic Church's pedophilia scandal. During nearly eight weeks of startling testimony about the lurid lives of predatory priests, Lynn, a former secretary of the clergy, has sat stoically in his clerical garb as the case unfolded in an often-packed courtroom. ...
|
|
|
|
2012-05-17T23:27:27Z
|
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A former program manager for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and his son pleaded guilty on Thursday to participating in a plot involving possibly more than $30 million in bribes and kickbacks to steer a government contract to a favored bidder. Kerry Khan, 54, whom U.S. prosecutors call the ringleader of the scheme, said he was guilty of federal charges of bribery and conspiracy to commit money laundering. ... |
|
|
|
2012-05-17T20:52:25Z
|
 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Postal Service will proceed with a plan this summer to shut mail-processing facilities as part of its cost-cutting effort but will spread out the closings to maintain overnight delivery of local mail. The agency said on Thursday it would consolidate processing at 140 of its 461 sites by February 2013, moving processing from small facilities to larger ones, and shrink the area where customers can expect mail to be delivered the next day. ...
|
|
|
|
2012-05-17T22:53:04Z
|
CHARLESTON, South Carolina (Reuters) - A new mother of twins in Greenville, South Carolina, is the latest victim of a rare and potentially fatal flesh-eating bacterial infection, health officials said on Thursday. Lana Kuykendall, 36, was in critical but stable condition at Greenville Memorial Hospital, hospital spokeswoman Sandy Dees said. Kuykendall, who gave birth to twins this month at a Georgia hospital, came home to South Carolina and had severe pain in her leg, her husband, Darren Kuykendall, told a local television station. ... |
|
|
|
2012-05-17T21:53:00Z
|
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A House of Representatives committee voted on Thursday to cut off economic aid to any country that hosts Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of genocide and other crimes. The provision is not yet law, and could change as foreign aid legislation moves through Congress this year. It was approved by the House Appropriations Committee as part of that legislation, which would slash spending on the U.S. State Department and foreign assistance by some 9 percent. ... |
|
|
|
