METHUEN, Mass. – A Massachusetts woman who recently separated from her husband and had her hours cut at work says an image of Jesus Christ she sees on her iron has reassured her that "life is going to be good."Mary Jo Coady first noticed the image Sunday when she walked into her daughter's room.The brownish residue on the bottom of the iron looks like the face of a man with long hair.The 44- Read Full Story
WASHINGTON – The couple who crashed the Obama administration's first state dinner communicated with a senior Pentagon official about going to the event, but the official denies that she helped the couple get in.Michele Jones, a special assistant to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, said in a written statement issued through the White House on Monday evening that she never said or implied she would Read Full Story
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – As governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee had a hand pardoning or commuting many more prisoners than his three immediate predecessors combined. Maurice Clemmons, the suspect in Sunday's slaying of four Seattle-area police officers, was among them.For a politician considering another run for the White House, Clemmons could become Huckabee's Willie Horton."In a primary between a Read Full Story
SEATTLE – A sheriff's spokesman says authorities in Washington state believe the man sought in the slaying of four police officers is still alive and has been aided by a network of friends and family.Pierce County sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer said Monday night that police have questioned several people who have provided assistance to Maurice Clemmons since the Sunday morning shootings. Troyer Read Full Story
The murder of four police officers in Washington on Sunday cast a pall on the nation's Thanksgiving holiday weekend, and now there's a political controversy brewing over the the main suspect in the killings. Investigators have named former Arkansas prison inmate Maurice Clemmons their primary suspect. Clemmons was released nine years ago after being granted clemency by then-governor and former Read Full Story
WASHINGTON – After months of debate, President Barack Obama will spell out a costly Afghanistan war expansion to a skeptical public Tuesday night, coupling an infusion of as many as 35,000 more troops with a vow that there will be no endless U.S. commitment. His first orders have already been made: at least one group of Marines who will be in place by Christmas.Obama has said that he prefers "not Read Full Story
The world's largest atom smasher broke the world record for proton acceleration Monday, firing particle beams with 20 percent more power than the American lab that previously held the record.The power of the Large Hadron Collider's proton beams is essential to the project's ultimate goal: smashing particles into each other with enough force to shatter them into the smallest building blocks of Read Full Story
Presidential politics is about storytelling. Presented with a vivid storyline, voters naturally tend to fit every new event or piece of information into a picture that is already neatly framed in their minds.No one understands this better than Barack Obama and his team, who won the 2008 election in part because they were better storytellers than the opposition. The pro-Obama narrative featured an Read Full Story
Three boys were booked on suspicion of bullying or kicking red-haired students at a middle school when a "Kick a Ginger Day" prank inspired by a "South Park" episode got out of hand, authorities said Monday.A 13-year-old boy was detained last week for investigation of threatening to inflict injury by means of electronic communication — essentially, cyberbullying. Two 12-year-olds were booked for Read Full Story
Ashley Nicole Valdes was a smart, pretty 11-year-old girl who often cared for her younger, mentally disabled sister while their single mother studied to be a paramedic. In January, while crossing the street to get to her home west of Miami, Ashley was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver in a pickup truck - and became a heart-wrenching symbol of South Florida's notoriously reckless car Read Full Story
