Famed sports painter LeRoy Neiman dead at 91

Famed sports painter LeRoy Neiman dead at 91
Deadly Colorado wildfire surpasses 100-square-mile mark
Pentagon probing alleged abuse at Afghan military hospital
NYC hearing for Etan Patz suspect put off to October 1
Mississippi executes butcher who used knives in murder
Minnesota city flood kills zoo animals, bear escapes
Fire flares at San Francisco's waterfront
Wife guilty of hiring hit men to kill U.S. hotel heir husband
Ice cream shortage on New York's hot Day 1 of summer
Mississippi executes butcher who used knives in murder
Con Edison trims voltage in Brooklyn, Queens amid heat wave
New York legislature rejects changes to marijuana law
Struggling jury pauses in Philadelphia church sex abuse trial
Speedy vote sought on Michigan law repeal
U.S. military instructor suspended over Islam course
Minnesota city flood kills zoo animals, bear escapes
California serial killer faces murder charges in New York
U.S. conference highlights slaves' southern path to freedom
Power companies ready for U.S. Northeast heat wave
Hands-free controls irk U.S. car buyers: JD Power
Coast Guard probes possible ties between hoax calls
U.S. recommends no criminal charges for Afghan Koran burning
Adult children move back home in tough economy
Over 26,000 annual deaths for uninsured: report
Houston schools eye $1.8 billion bond referendum
Jury, reporting deadlock, resumes deliberations in Philadelphia church sex abuse trial
Military instructor suspended over Islam course
Power companies ready for Northeast heat wave
Famed sports painter LeRoy Neiman dead at 91
Minnesota city flood kills zoo animals, bear escapes
Mississippi executes butcher who used knives in murder
Pentagon probing alleged abuse at Afghan military hospital
Deadly Colorado wildfire surpasses 100-square-mile mark
Fire flares at San Francisco's waterfront
Wife guilty of hiring hit men to kill U.S. hotel heir husband
Con Edison trims voltage in Brooklyn, Queens amid heat wave
Ice cream shortage on New York's hot Day 1 of summer
Speedy vote sought on Michigan law repeal

Posted: 20 Jun 2012 06:56 PM PDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - LeRoy Neiman, whose distinctive, abstract style of painting sports figures in action made him a star on a par with some of the famous athletes he painted, died on Wednesday at age 91, his spokeswoman said. Neiman, a showman known for his handlebar mustache, sometimes painted live on television during major events such as the Olympics or the Super Bowl, helping make him one of the world's most commercially successful contemporary artists. (Reporting By Daniel Trotta; editing by Christopher Wilson)

Deadly Colorado wildfire surpasses 100-square-mile mark

Posted: 20 Jun 2012 04:43 PM PDT

DENVER (Reuters) - A deadly, stubborn wildfire that ranks as the most destructive on record for Colorado has scorched more than 100 square miles (259 square km) of rugged mountain terrain northwest of Denver, but a cool snap on Wednesday gave fire crews a chance to take the offensive. The so-called High Park Fire already is blamed for one death and has consumed 189 homes in the 12 days since it was ignited by lightning at the edge of the Roosevelt National Forest, and authorities say they expect property losses to climb once more damage assessments are made. ...

Pentagon probing alleged abuse at Afghan military hospital

Posted: 20 Jun 2012 04:49 PM PDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon is investigating a U.S.-funded Afghan military hospital where there have been allegations of corruption and abuse of patients, a Defense Department official said on Wednesday. David Sedney told a House of Representatives subcommittee that "investigations and corrective action" were under way at Dawood National Military Hospital in Kabul. "The things that happened at that hospital are the kind of things that should never happen to any human being anywhere," said Sedney, deputy assistant secretary of defense for Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia. ...

NYC hearing for Etan Patz suspect put off to October 1

Posted: 20 Jun 2012 02:48 PM PDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A hearing for a man who confessed to the 1979 strangling of 6-year-old Etan Patz, one of the first missing children to appear on a U.S. milk carton, has been postponed until October 1, the Manhattan District Attorney's office said on Wednesday. The hearing in Manhattan Supreme Court for Pedro Hernandez, 51, had been scheduled for Monday, when the results of a psychiatric examination were expected to be discussed. ...

Mississippi executes butcher who used knives in murder

Posted: 20 Jun 2012 05:28 PM PDT

TUPELO, Mississippi (Reuters) - Mississippi executed a grocery store butcher on Wednesday who was found guilty of dismembering a man he owed for drugs with knives taken from work and then scattering the body parts in an alligator-infested bayou in 1996. Gary Carl Simmons, 49, received a lethal injection at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman and was pronounced dead at 6:16 p.m., corrections spokesman Adam Lee said. ...

Minnesota city flood kills zoo animals, bear escapes

Posted: 20 Jun 2012 05:29 PM PDT

(Reuters) - Heavy rains pounded northern Minnesota on Wednesday, forcing the evacuation of dozens of homes, causing mudslides and sinkholes, and swamping a zoo where several animals died and a polar bear briefly escaped, officials said. The flooding in the Duluth area, a port on Lake Superior, was the worst the city had seen in four decades, officials said. "The last time there was something similar was in 1972," said Duluth police spokesman Jim Hansen. ...

Fire flares at San Francisco's waterfront

Posted: 20 Jun 2012 04:18 PM PDT

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A four-alarm fire roared from the roof of Pier 29, the future site of the America's Cup yacht race, along San Francisco's famed Embarcadero waterfront on Wednesday, but no injuries were reported. More than 100 firefighters were dispatched to the scene of the blaze, which erupted shortly before 2 p.m. local time and sent flames shooting through the top of the vacant three-story terminal building, fire department spokeswoman Mindy Talmadge said. ...

Wife guilty of hiring hit men to kill U.S. hotel heir husband

Posted: 20 Jun 2012 03:54 PM PDT

(Reuters) - A federal jury convicted a woman on Wednesday for directing hit men to beat to death her husband and his mother, heirs to a famed luxury Miami hotel, in an attempt to seize her husband's assets. Narcy Novack, 55, and her brother Cristobal Veliz, 58, were found guilty of charges related to the grisly and fatal beatings in 2009 of Ben Novack Jr., and Bernice Novack, members of the family that built the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach, Florida, prosecutors said. The verdict came after a nine-week jury trial at U.S. District Court for Southern District of New York in White Plains. ...

Ice cream shortage on New York's hot Day 1 of summer

Posted: 20 Jun 2012 03:00 PM PDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Record-breaking temperatures spiked into the 90s on the first day of summer on Wednesday, sending children facing an untimely ice cream shortage to seek relief in the spray of fire hydrants in New York while in New Jersey ambulances raced to an overheated school graduation ceremony. Warnings abounded, from health officials urging the public to stay hydrated to utilities girding for excess power demand from air conditioners. The temperature at La Guardia Airport was among many record setters: 98 degrees, breaking a previous record high for June 20 of 96 degrees in 1953. ...

Mississippi executes butcher who used knives in murder

Posted: 20 Jun 2012 04:40 PM PDT

TUPELO, Miss (Reuters) - Mississippi executed a grocery store butcher on Wednesday who was found guilty of dismembering a man he owed for drugs with knives taken from work and then scattering the body parts in an alligator-infested bayou in 1996. Gary Carl Simmons Jr., 49, received a lethal injection at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman and was pronounced dead at 6:16 p.m. local time, corrections spokesman Adam Lee said. ...

Con Edison trims voltage in Brooklyn, Queens amid heat wave

Posted: 20 Jun 2012 03:18 PM PDT

(Reuters) - A heat wave blanketing the U.S. Mid-Atlantic and Northeast on the first day of summer forced utilities to ask customers to conserve electricity and led to brownouts in parts of New York City. Electrical grid operators said they expected to have more than enough power resources to meet soaring demand on Wednesday and Thursday in New York, New England and the 13 states served by regional transmission organization PJM. The New York grid operator revised its power consumption forecast for Thursday, saying its new forecast of 33,700 megawatts would exceed last summer's peak of 33,295 ...

New York legislature rejects changes to marijuana law

Posted: 20 Jun 2012 12:53 PM PDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The New York State Senate's Republican majority has shot down a proposal by Governor Andrew Cuomo that would have decriminalized the public possession of nearly an ounce of marijuana. Currently, possession of less than 25 grams of marijuana is a non-criminal violation, but displaying it in public is a misdemeanor. Cuomo, a Democrat, wanted to remove the distinction between public and private possession, steps more than a dozen states and several of the largest U.S. cities have already taken. ...

Struggling jury pauses in Philadelphia church sex abuse trial

Posted: 20 Jun 2012 01:57 PM PDT

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - The jury in the child sex abuse case of Philadelphia Monsignor William Lynn ended its 12th day of deliberations on Wednesday with no verdict after saying it was deadlocked on most of the charges in the trial of the Roman Catholic clergyman. Lynn, 61, the highest-ranking U.S. church official to stand trial in the church's pedophilia scandal, is accused of conspiracy and child endangerment. Deliberations were punctuated by a note from the jury at midday in which it said it was "at a hung jury status on all charges except for one." Common Pleas Court Judge M. ...

Speedy vote sought on Michigan law repeal

Posted: 20 Jun 2012 02:50 PM PDT

(Reuters) - A group behind a petition drive to repeal a law that gives Michigan more control over local governments filed a motion on Wednesday asking for quick action to force the measure onto the November ballot. The labor-backed Stand Up for Democracy coalition filed the motion with the Michigan Appeals Court, asking it within seven days to compel state election officials to certify the measure for the November 6 statewide ballot. The law, known as Public Act 4, boosted the ability of Michigan to intervene in financially troubled local governments and school districts. ...

U.S. military instructor suspended over Islam course

Posted: 20 Jun 2012 01:05 PM PDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An instructor who provoked debate in his classroom of military officers by suggesting the United States was at war with Islam has been relieved of teaching duties at a military college and the course ordered redesigned, the Pentagon said on Wednesday. The course at the Joint Forces Staff College in Norfolk, Virginia, part of the U.S. National Defense University, had been offered since 2004, according to Colonel David Lapan, spokesman for the chairman of the U.S. military's Joint Chiefs of Staff. ...

Minnesota city flood kills zoo animals, bear escapes

Posted: 20 Jun 2012 02:23 PM PDT

(Reuters) - Heavy rains pounded northern Minnesota on Wednesday, forcing the evacuation of dozens of homes, causing mudslides and sinkholes, and swamping a zoo where several animals died and a polar bear briefly escaped its enclosure, officials said. Officials said the flooding in the Duluth area, on the edge of Lake Superior, was the worst the city had seen in four decades. "The last time there was something similar was in 1972," Duluth police spokesman Jim Hansen said in a telephone interview. ...

California serial killer faces murder charges in New York

Posted: 20 Jun 2012 12:07 PM PDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A convicted serial killer, who appeared on the television game show "The Dating Game" in 1978 as an eligible bachelor, was on his way to New York on Wednesday to face murder charges in the deaths of two women in the 1970s, the Manhattan District Attorney's office said. Rodney Alcala, 68, who is already on death row in California for killing a 12-year-old girl and four women, was being transported by U.S. Marshals and was expected to be arraigned on the new murder counts as early as Wednesday afternoon. ...

U.S. conference highlights slaves' southern path to freedom

Posted: 20 Jun 2012 01:26 PM PDT

ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla (Reuters) - With the North Star as the guiding light for runaway slaves and Canada as the Promised Land, the underground railroad that U.S. schoolchildren read about in textbooks points to freedom in just one direction - the north. But scholars gathering this week for the National Underground Railroad Conference will head south to St. Augustine, Florida, home to the former capital of Spanish Florida and a flight-to-freedom story rooted in the 17th century that is unknown to most Americans. ...

Power companies ready for U.S. Northeast heat wave

Posted: 20 Jun 2012 12:11 PM PDT

(Reuters) - With air conditioners cranking as a heat wave bears down on the U.S. Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, demand for power should surge, but not to record levels. Electrical grid operators said they expected to have more than enough power resources to meet forecast demand on Wednesday and Thursday in New York, New England and the 13 states served by regional transmission organization PJM. "We expect to have sufficient power supplies, and the reserves are covered for the day," PJM spokesman Ray Dotter told Reuters. ...

Hands-free controls irk U.S. car buyers: JD Power

Posted: 20 Jun 2012 12:08 PM PDT

DETROIT (Reuters) - Consumers continue to be baffled by new technology such as voice-activated controls in their new cars and trucks, but overall, vehicle quality in the United States has never been higher, J.D. Power and Associates said on Wednesday. Owner complaints about technology continued to hurt Ford Motor Co's standing in the influential annual survey of new-vehicle buyers. Ford fell to 27th from 23rd a year ago. ...

Coast Guard probes possible ties between hoax calls

Posted: 20 Jun 2012 11:20 AM PDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New Jersey distress call about an exploded yacht, now considered a hoax, is being investigated for possible ties to a similar incident in Houston three weeks earlier, the Coast Guard said on Wednesday. There are many links between last week's distress call in New Jersey and the one in Texas, and the probe is continuing to determine if the same individual is responsible, said Greg Hitchen, deputy commander of the Coast Guard's New York sector. "By no means is it guaranteed," Hitchen said. ...

U.S. recommends no criminal charges for Afghan Koran burning

Posted: 20 Jun 2012 11:25 AM PDT

KABUL (Reuters) - U.S. soldiers involved in burning copies of the Koran in Afghanistan may face only administrative discipline, a U.S. official said, a move that could deepen frustration among Afghans seeking more serious punishment for a series of public American missteps there this year. A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said on Wednesday that an investigation into the February incident on a NATO military base near Kabul concluded with recommendations for administrative action for the military personnel involved. ...

Adult children move back home in tough economy

Posted: 20 Jun 2012 10:54 AM PDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - More adult children moved in with their parents amid the recent tough economic times in the United States, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report released on Wednesday. The number of adult children living with parents increased 1.2 million to 15.8 million between 2007 and 2010, the Census Bureau said. Those ages 25 to 34 accounted for two thirds of the 823,000 increase in adult children living with parents during that period, according to the report. ...

Over 26,000 annual deaths for uninsured: report

Posted: 20 Jun 2012 10:02 AM PDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - More than 26,000 working-age adults die prematurely in the United States each year because they lack health insurance, according to a study published ahead of a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling on President Barack Obama's healthcare reform law. The study, released on Wednesday by the consumer advocacy group Families USA, estimates that a record high of 26,100 people aged 25 to 64 died for lack of health coverage in 2010, up from 20,350 in 2005 and 18,000 in 2000. That makes for a rate of about 72 deaths per day, or three per hour. ...

Houston schools eye $1.8 billion bond referendum

Posted: 20 Jun 2012 10:58 AM PDT

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - The Houston Independent School District plans to ask voters to approve the issuance of up to $1.8 billion of bonds in November for school construction and renovation, a Houston state lawmaker told Reuters on Wednesday. School officials said they are not releasing a bond plan until a meeting on Thursday and do not expect to vote on it until July or August. But Democratic State Representative Garnet Coleman said he has confirmed with city sources that the $1. ...

Jury, reporting deadlock, resumes deliberations in Philadelphia church sex abuse trial

Posted: 20 Jun 2012 09:56 AM PDT

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - The jury in the child sex abuse case of Philadelphia Monsignor William Lynn was ordered to resume deliberations on Wednesday after saying it was deadlocked on most of the charges facing the highest-ranking U.S. clergyman to stand trial in the Roman Catholic church's pedophilia scandal. The jury, in its 12th day of deliberations, cited its dilemma in a note to Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina that read: "We the jury are at a hung jury status on all charges except for one." "Please advise us as to our next step," it said. ...

Military instructor suspended over Islam course

Posted: 20 Jun 2012 07:58 AM PDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The instructor of a college course that taught top military officers the United States was at war with Islam has been relieved of teaching duties and the course ordered redesigned to reflect U.S. policy, a military spokesman said on Wednesday. The elective course at the National Defense University's Joint Forces Staff College included a slide that asserted "the United States is at war with Islam and we ought to just recognize that we are war with Islam," Pentagon officials said in April as they launched a review of the course. ...

Power companies ready for Northeast heat wave

Posted: 20 Jun 2012 07:27 AM PDT

(Reuters) - As a heat wave bears down on the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, demand for power is expected to be high but not reach record levels, as homes and businesses crank up the air conditioners. The grid operators that run the electric systems in PJM, New York and New England said they expect to have more than enough power resources to meet the forecast demand on Wednesday and Thursday. "We expect to have sufficient power supplies and the reserves are covered for the day," Ray Dotter, spokesman for PJM told Reuters. ...