Colorado massacre suspect appears in court looking dazed, sleepy

Colorado massacre suspect appears in court looking dazed, sleepy
NCAA sanctions Penn State for Sandusky scandal
Sally Ride, first U.S. woman in space, dies at 61
Louisiana sets rules for landmark school voucher program
Climber dies in 1,000-foot fall in Grand Teton National Park
Georgia inmate gets stay hours before scheduled execution
Justice Department probes Pennsylvania voter ID law
Muppets dump Chick-Fil-A to support gay marriage
U.S. prosecutors dealt setback in China economic espionage case
Missouri declares state of emergency due to heat, drought
Worker charged in Maine nuclear submarine fire
Colorado massacre suspect looks dazed in first court hearing
Sally Ride, first U.S. woman in space, dies at 61
Heavily armed Maine man arrested, says attended "Batman" with gun
Penn State hit with unprecedented penalties for Sandusky scandal
Death toll rises to 14 in Texas truck crash
Nassau County, NY, cutting 200 jobs to close deficit
No timetable for easing import ban on Myanmar: U.S. official
Texas man calls to confess to 1970s Oregon murders, police say
New trial for priest set on eve of Lynn sentencing in abuse scandal
Analysis: Drought to cause food price spike but not inflation
Internet poker owner handed 14-month prison term
IRS sizes up political groups' tax-exempt status
Trial to start in alleged hazing, death of Asian-American soldier
California parents set to take over failing school
"Do Not Track" Internet spat risks legislative crackdown
Truck crash in Texas kills 11 suspected illegal immigrants
House panel seeks more documents from NY Fed on Libor probe
Midday updates indicate some relief for U.S. crops
Muppets dump Chick-Fil-A to support gay marriage
Colorado massacre suspect appears in court looking dazed, sleepy
Sally Ride, first U.S. woman in space, dies at 61
Louisiana sets rules for landmark school voucher program
Family says NCAA sanctions on Penn State "defame" Paterno's legacy
Penn State penalties threatens to rock local economy
Penalties render Penn State football irrelevant: experts
Colorado massacre suspect looks dazed in first court hearing
Climber dies in 1,000-foot fall in Grand Teton National Park
Georgia inmate gets stay hours before scheduled execution

Posted: 23 Jul 2012 05:53 PM PDT

CENTENNIAL, Colo. (Reuters) - The man accused of killing 12 people in a shooting rampage at a midnight showing of the new "Batman" film in a Denver suburb made his first court appearance on Monday, looking bleary-eyed and emotionless, his unruly hair dyed shades of orange and red. James Eagan Holmes, 24, who was arrested outside the theater after the massacre, appeared groggy during the brief hearing, staring straight ahead and occasionally closing his eyes as if fighting off sleep. He was shackled at the wrists and ankles. ...

NCAA sanctions Penn State for Sandusky scandal

Posted: 23 Jul 2012 05:15 PM PDT

(Reuters) - The governing body of U.S. college sports on Monday fined Penn State University $60 million and voided its football victories for the past 14 seasons in an unprecedented rebuke for the school's failure to stop coach Jerry Sandusky's sexual abuse of children. NCAA President Mark Emmert said the school had put "hero worship and winning at all costs" ahead of integrity, honesty and responsibility. ...

Sally Ride, first U.S. woman in space, dies at 61

Posted: 23 Jul 2012 05:31 PM PDT

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Sally Ride, the first U.S. woman to travel into space and an advocate for science education, died on Monday after a 17-month battle with pancreatic cancer, according to her organization, Sally Ride Science. She was 61. Ride broke new ground for American women in 1983 when at the age of 32 she and four male crewmates blasted off aboard space shuttle Challenger. "The fact that I was going to be the first American woman to go into space carried huge expectations along with it," Ride recalled in a 2008 interview on the 25th anniversary of her flight. ...

Louisiana sets rules for landmark school voucher program

Posted: 23 Jul 2012 05:25 PM PDT

(Reuters) - State money will continue to flow to scores of private and religious schools participating in Louisiana's new voucher program even if their students fail basic reading and math tests, according to new guidelines released by the state on Monday. The voucher program, the most sweeping in the nation, is the linchpin of Louisiana's bold push to reshape public education. The state plans to shift tens of millions of dollars from public schools to pay not only private schools but also private businesses and private tutors to educate children across the state. ...

Climber dies in 1,000-foot fall in Grand Teton National Park

Posted: 23 Jul 2012 04:09 PM PDT

CODY, Wyoming (Reuters) - A mountain climber in Grand Teton National Park in northwest Wyoming fell 1,000 feet to his death while descending from a summit, officials said on Monday. Justin Harold Beldin, 27, and two climbing partners had reached the summit of the 12,804-foot Middle Teton and were beginning to descend at about noon on Sunday when the accident occurred, said officials with the National Park Service. Another group of climbers saw Beldin fall and alerted park rangers and his climbing partners, who did not witness the accident. ...

Georgia inmate gets stay hours before scheduled execution

Posted: 23 Jul 2012 03:57 PM PDT

ATLANTA (Reuters) - The Georgia Supreme Court on Monday granted a stay of execution to a two-time murderer hours before he was due to become the state's first inmate to undergo lethal injection using one drug instead of three. The court said it would decide whether the recent decision by the Department of Corrections, switching the lethal injection process from three drugs to one, violated the state's Administrative Procedures Act. The act requires a 30-day public comment period before a change in procedure is allowed. ...

Justice Department probes Pennsylvania voter ID law

Posted: 23 Jul 2012 03:56 PM PDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Department of Justice is investigating whether Pennsylvania's new voter identification law discriminates against minorities, according to a letter released on Monday. In a step toward a possible federal lawsuit under the Voting Rights Act, the Justice Department sent a letter to Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Carol Aichele asking for data on the state's registered voters. Passed in 1965 during the peak of the civil rights era, the Voting Rights Act bans rules that make it more difficult for minorities to vote. ...

Muppets dump Chick-Fil-A to support gay marriage

Posted: 23 Jul 2012 06:09 PM PDT

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Muppets are ending their relationship with fast food restaurant chain Chick-Fil-A in a show of support for gay marriage, the creators of the puppet troupe said on Monday. "The Jim Henson Company has celebrated and embraced diversity and inclusiveness for over fifty years and we have notified Chick-Fil-A that we do not wish to partner with them on any future endeavors," the company said in a statement posted on their official Facebook page. ...

U.S. prosecutors dealt setback in China economic espionage case

Posted: 23 Jul 2012 03:16 PM PDT

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A U.S. judge ruled prosecutors had not properly notified China-based Pangang Group Steel Vanadium & Titanium Co Ltd of a criminal indictment over allegations it conspired to steal trade secrets from chemical giant DuPont. The opinion on Monday from U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White in San Francisco deals a setback to federal prosecutors as the United States has identified industrial spying as a significant and growing threat to the nation's prosperity. White gave the government until August 16 to say how they intend to proceed with its case. A spokesman for the U.S. ...

Missouri declares state of emergency due to heat, drought

Posted: 23 Jul 2012 02:42 PM PDT

(Reuters) - The governor of Missouri on Monday declared a state of emergency due to the drought and prolonged severe heat of this summer, which has so far been blamed in the deaths of 25 people in the state. "The high temperatures and dry conditions across the state are taking their toll on Missourians," Governor Jay Nixon said in a statement. "Our farmers are suffering tremendous losses in crops and livestock, and we're seeing more heat-related deaths and emergency room visits, particularly among seniors. ...

Worker charged in Maine nuclear submarine fire

Posted: 23 Jul 2012 02:45 PM PDT

BOSTON (Reuters) - A 24-year-old civilian worker was arrested and charged on Monday with setting the fire on a U.S. nuclear submarine at Maine's Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in May that caused an estimated $400 million in damage. Casey James Fury started the blaze on the USS Miami "to get out of work," a Navy investigator said. Fury, a painter and sandblaster, was charged in federal court in Portland, Maine, with arson for the May 23 blaze. The Miami was in the shipyard in Kittery, Maine, for repairs and retrofitting. ...

Colorado massacre suspect looks dazed in first court hearing

Posted: 23 Jul 2012 04:44 PM PDT

CENTENNIAL, Colorado (Reuters) - The man accused of killing 12 people in a shooting rampage at a midnight showing of the new "Batman" film in a Denver suburb made his first court appearance on Monday, looking drowsy and emotionless, his unruly hair dyed shades of orange and red. James Eagan Holmes, 24, who was arrested outside the theater immediately after the massacre, appeared groggy during the brief hearing, staring straight ahead and occasionally closing his eyes as if fighting off sleep. He was shackled at the wrists and ankles. ...

Sally Ride, first U.S. woman in space, dies at 61

Posted: 23 Jul 2012 04:48 PM PDT

Heavily armed Maine man arrested, says attended "Batman" with gun

Posted: 23 Jul 2012 02:40 PM PDT

(Reuters) - Maine police arrested a heavily armed man driving on the state turnpike who carried clippings about the cinema massacre in Colorado and claimed he attended the new "Batman" film with a loaded gun, authorities said on Monday. Timothy Courtois, 49, was driving 112 mph on the Maine Turnpike with an AK-47 assault weapon, four handguns and several boxes of ammunition in his car when state police pulled him over about 10 am on Sunday, said Maine Department of Public Safety spokesman Steve McCausland. ...

Penn State hit with unprecedented penalties for Sandusky scandal

Posted: 23 Jul 2012 01:25 PM PDT

(Reuters) - The governing body of U.S. college sports fined Penn State University $60 million and voided its football victories for the past 14 seasons in an unprecedented rebuke for the school's failure to stop coach Jerry Sandusky's sexual abuse of children. NCAA President Mark Emmert said the school had put "hero worship and winning at all costs" ahead of integrity, honesty and responsibility. ...

Death toll rises to 14 in Texas truck crash

Posted: 23 Jul 2012 02:25 PM PDT

EDINBURG, Texas (Reuters) - Fourteen people died after a pickup truck jammed with 23 suspected illegal immigrants veered off a rural South Texas highway on Sunday and struck a tree, police said on Monday. Eleven people were killed on impact and three died at area hospitals, police said. The nine other people in the truck were injured. The one-vehicle crash Sunday on Highway 59 south of San Antonio near the Gulf of Mexico coastline is believed to be the second fatal accident in the past three months in the region that involved human smuggling. ...

Nassau County, NY, cutting 200 jobs to close deficit

Posted: 23 Jul 2012 02:24 PM PDT

(Reuters) - New York's cash-poor Nassau County will cut 200 jobs and $19 million of capital improvements to close a $45 million budget deficit without raising property taxes, County Executive Edward Mangano said on Monday. The plan by Mangano, a Republican, also calls for the cancellation of $3.8 million of discretionary contracts and $12.2 million of purchases by county departments, and the end of evening hours at the county's social services and traffic violations agencies. ...

No timetable for easing import ban on Myanmar: U.S. official

Posted: 23 Jul 2012 03:21 PM PDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is encouraged by economic and political reforms underway in Myanmar but needs to see further progress before easing a long-time ban on U.S. imports from the resource-rich Asian country, a top U.S. official said on Monday. ...

Texas man calls to confess to 1970s Oregon murders, police say

Posted: 23 Jul 2012 02:32 PM PDT

EDINBURG, Texas (Reuters) - A 63-year-old registered sex offender in Texas was arrested over the weekend after he called police to confess to two unsolved murders that took place more than three decades ago in Portland, Oregon, authorities said on Monday. Portland homicide detectives arrested Jeffrey Paul Cutlip in Brownsville, Texas, where he called police on Saturday to admit his role in slayings that occurred in 1975 and 1977, according to a Portland police statement. Police said further details on the cases, including the names of the victims, would be disclosed "at a later time. ...

New trial for priest set on eve of Lynn sentencing in abuse scandal

Posted: 23 Jul 2012 02:17 PM PDT

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Prosecutors said on Monday they would retry a key figure in the child sex abuse case involving Monsignor William Lynn, the most senior clergyman convicted in the U.S. Roman Catholic Church scandal. A new trial for the Reverend James Brennan, 49, on charges of attempted rape and child endangerment was announced on Monday before Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina. On Tuesday, Sarmina will sentence Lynn, 61, who faces up to seven years in prison for child endangerment. He has been in jail since his conviction on June 22 after a three-month joint trial with ...

Analysis: Drought to cause food price spike but not inflation

Posted: 23 Jul 2012 01:52 PM PDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Americans face higher food prices at the supermarket because of a drought this summer, but the increase will not have a lasting impact on inflation or the Federal Reserve's thinking on monetary policy. Corn and soybean prices on the futures market have surged to record highs amid the worst drought in half a century, with new crop contracts for corn rising 50 percent since early June and soybeans increasing about 35 percent. "It's kind of like a transitory oil price spike. ...

Internet poker owner handed 14-month prison term

Posted: 23 Jul 2012 02:21 PM PDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - An owner of Absolute Poker, one of the three largest Internet poker companies, was sentenced to 14 months in prison on Monday after admitting to deceiving banks over the processing of gambling proceeds. Brent Beckley, 32, joined Costa Rica-based Absolute Poker in 2003 and became its head of payment processing. Last December, he pleaded guilty in Manhattan federal court to conspiring to break U.S. laws against gambling on the Internet. He also pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and wire fraud. U.S. ...

IRS sizes up political groups' tax-exempt status

Posted: 23 Jul 2012 01:44 PM PDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Internal Revenue Service may be weighing changes to how it polices tax-exempt political groups amid charges the tax agency has been lax on enforcement for a new breed of campaign funding organizations with vast resources. Tax-exempt groups are raising and spending record amounts of money in attempting to sway the November 6 elections, bolstered by the Supreme Court's landmark "Citizens United" ruling in 2010, which lifted some political contribution limits in federal elections. ...

Trial to start in alleged hazing, death of Asian-American soldier

Posted: 23 Jul 2012 12:46 PM PDT

WINSTON-SALEM, North Carolina (Reuters) - The first of eight service members charged in the alleged hazing and death of a 19-year-old Asian-American soldier faces court-martial this week in a case activists say highlights the need for reforms in the military to prevent racial abuse. The U.S. Army charged the soldiers after officials said Private Danny Chen, born in New York City to Chinese immigrant parents, committed suicide by shooting himself in a guard tower in southern Afghanistan on October 3, 2011. ...

California parents set to take over failing school

Posted: 23 Jul 2012 11:20 AM PDT

(Reuters) - Parents in the impoverished desert community of Adelanto, California, will become the first in the nation to seize control of a failing public school under a controversial "parent trigger" law, the parents announced Monday. The Adelanto School District had fought to preserve control over Desert Trails Elementary School. But on Friday, Superior Court Judge Steve Malone ruled that the parents had met all the requirements under the trigger law by gathering signatures from the legal guardians of at least half the students at Desert Trails. ...

"Do Not Track" Internet spat risks legislative crackdown

Posted: 23 Jul 2012 01:07 PM PDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House wants a "Do Not Track" option put on websites to give consumers greater control of their personal information online but Internet companies and privacy groups are at odds on how tight the controls should be. The stalemate could lead to a legislative crackdown on Internet privacy if left unresolved. That has firms like Google Inc and Facebook Inc that rely heavily on collecting user data worried that any legislation could lead to cuts in online advertising that would eat into their profits. The U.S. ...

Truck crash in Texas kills 11 suspected illegal immigrants

Posted: 22 Jul 2012 11:08 PM PDT

EDINBURG, Texas (Reuters) - A pickup truck jammed with suspected illegal immigrants crashed into a tree along a rural Texas highway on Sunday, killing 11 passengers and injuring 12 others, police said. The one-vehicle crash on Highway 59 near Goliad, Texas, some 80 miles south of San Antonio near the Gulf of Mexico coastline, was the second fatal accident in the past three months that involved human smuggling in the region. In April, nine of 17 illegal immigrants in a packed minivan were killed when the vehicle rolled over while being pursued by U.S. ...

House panel seeks more documents from NY Fed on Libor probe

Posted: 23 Jul 2012 10:38 AM PDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. House panel on Monday asked the New York Federal Reserve for a second round of documents as part of an investigation into possible manipulation by top banks of a benchmark interest rate known as Libor. The House Financial Services Committee asked the Federal Reserve Bank of New York for all communications going back to August 2007 with the banks that help set Libor. The committee is investigating how the New York Fed, which oversees the banks, responded when it first learned about the possible manipulation. ...

Midday updates indicate some relief for U.S. crops

Posted: 23 Jul 2012 10:23 AM PDT

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Midday weather updates still indicate some rains for corn and soybean crops in the northern U.S. Midwest this week and there is a better chance for crop-friendly weather in the extended outlooks, an agricultural meteorologist said on Monday. "There will be some rains in the north early this week and the southwest should see some light rain late in the week, which would be the first significant rain since June," said Andy Karst, meteorologist for World Weather Inc. ...

Muppets dump Chick-Fil-A to support gay marriage

Posted: 23 Jul 2012 06:09 PM PDT

Colorado massacre suspect appears in court looking dazed, sleepy

Posted: 23 Jul 2012 05:53 PM PDT

Sally Ride, first U.S. woman in space, dies at 61

Posted: 23 Jul 2012 04:48 PM PDT

Louisiana sets rules for landmark school voucher program

Posted: 23 Jul 2012 05:25 PM PDT

Family says NCAA sanctions on Penn State "defame" Paterno's legacy

Posted: 23 Jul 2012 05:05 PM PDT

(Reuters) - The family of Joe Paterno on Monday said the sweeping penalties handed down against Penn State University by the National Collegiate Athletic Association "defame the legacy and contributions" of the late Penn State football coach. The family decried the NCAA's decision to base their penalties, which included voiding 14 seasons of victories for the football team, on the substance of a recent report by former FBI director Louis Freeh. "The release of the Freeh report has triggered an avalanche of vitriol, condemnation and posthumous punishment on Joe Paterno," the statement said. ...

Penn State penalties threatens to rock local economy

Posted: 23 Jul 2012 05:05 PM PDT

(Reuters) - For as long as business owners in State College, Pennsylvania, can remember, home games for Penn State University's beloved football team meant big crowds, packed hotels, busy restaurants and cash registers flush with visitors' dollars. But the announcement on Monday that the National Collegiate Athletic Association had imposed historic penalties on the university for its failure to report child sex abuse by former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky has potentially damaged the Nittany Lions brand, and with it the local economy. ...

Penalties render Penn State football irrelevant: experts

Posted: 23 Jul 2012 05:05 PM PDT

STATE COLLEGE, Pennsylvania (Reuters) - The governing body of U.S. college sports refrained from delivering the "death penalty" to Penn State's storied football program on Monday, but it effectively put it into a coma that will last half a decade or longer, college football experts said. "They don't matter anymore after these sanctions today," said Jed Donahue, owner of The Pennsylvania Sports Network and a radio sports talk host for 20 years. ...

Colorado massacre suspect looks dazed in first court hearing

Posted: 23 Jul 2012 04:44 PM PDT

Climber dies in 1,000-foot fall in Grand Teton National Park

Posted: 23 Jul 2012 04:09 PM PDT

Georgia inmate gets stay hours before scheduled execution

Posted: 23 Jul 2012 03:57 PM PDT