Archive By Section - Signal AP
Urban advocates say new gun control talk overdue
For years, voices have cried in the urban wilderness: We need to talk about gun control. Yet the guns blazed on. It took a small-town slaughter for gun control to become a political priority. Now, decades' worth of big-city arguments against easy access to guns are finally being heard, because an unstable young man invaded an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., with a military-style assault rifle and 30-bullet magazines. Twenty young children and six adults ...
Raley's says union workers ratify new contract
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - Officials at grocery chain Raley's say union workers have ratified a new labor contract.
Leagues poised to challenge NJ over sports betting
NEWARK, N.J. (AP) - Four major professional sports leagues and the NCAA are poised to move forward with their legal fight over New Jersey's plans to allow sports gambling.
Conn. town in mourning inundated with gifts, money
NEWTOWN, Conn. (AP) - Peter Leone was busy making deli sandwiches and working the register at his Newtown General Store when he got a phone call from Alaska. It was a woman who wanted to give him her credit card number.
Naomi Watts shared 'Impossible' with family
LOS ANGELES (AP) - To play a mother torn from her husband and sons by the 2004 tsunami, Naomi Watts sure wasn't going Method.
Court blocks California law banning gay therapy
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A federal appeals court on Friday put the brakes on a first-of-its-kind California law that bans therapy aimed at turning gay minors straight.
Parents hesitant about NRA armed schools proposal
MIAMI (AP) - The nation's largest gun-rights lobby called Friday for the placement of an armed police officer in every school, but parents and educators questioned how safe such a move would keep kids, whether it would be economically feasible and how it would alter student life. Their reactions ranged from supportive to disgusted.
CA prison officials revamp isolation cells policy
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Prison officials tossed convicted killer Todd Ashker into California's notorious Security Housing Unit 25 years ago after "validating" him as a member of the Aryan Brotherhood gang.
Interstate 5 in NorCal open, but with restrictions
YREKA, Calif. (AP) - A section of Interstate 5 in far Northern California that was closed because of snow is open again - but only to drivers with snow chains on their tires.
Obama seeks scaled-down 'fiscal cliff' agreement
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama has scaled back his ambitions for a sweeping budget bargain with Republicans. Instead, he's calling for a limited measure sufficient to prevent the government from careening off the "fiscal cliff" in January by extending tax cuts for most taxpayers and forestalling a painful set of agency budget cuts.
Violence baked into popular culture
NEW YORK (AP) - Well aware that the television audience may be particularly sensitive, the Showtime network aired a disclaimer warning audiences of violent content in the season finales of its dramas "Homeland" and "Dexter" last weekend. It was two days after a gunman killed 26 people in a Newtown, Conn., elementary school.
Cruise goes back to what he does best in 'Reacher'
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Just turned 50, Tom Cruise is eligible for membership in the American Association of Retired Persons. Just split from third wife Katie Holmes, Tom Cruise is the object of told-you-so cynics who simply knew that romance wouldn't last. Just finished with his stab at something really different as a heavy-metal rock god in "Rock of Ages," Tom Cruise is coming off one of the lowest-grossing movies in his career.
Rebel Wilson to host springtime MTV Movie Awards
LOS ANGELES (AP) - "Pitch Perfect" star and "Bridesmaids" scene-stealer Rebel Wilson is taking center stage.
Iron Butterfly bassist Lee Dorman dies at age 70
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Lee Dorman, the bassist for psychedelic rock band Iron Butterfly, has died at age 70.
American Legion hosts an end-of-world party
Members of American Legion Post 507 gathered at their headquarters in Newhall Friday night to ensure the purported end of the world was a lively occasion.
Articles by Section - Signal AP
National park cuts detailed in memo
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - The towering giant sequoias at Yosemite National Park would go unprotected from visitors who might trample their shallow roots. At Cape Cod National Seashore, large sections of the Great Beach would close to keep eggs from being destroyed if natural resource managers are cut.
US, NATO, mull Afghan troop strength after combat
BRUSSELS (AP) - Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and his NATO counterparts are considering leaving 8,000 to 12,000 troops in Afghanistan after 2014, but a dispute arose Friday between the U.S. and German defense officials over whether that contingent would be an international force or an American one.
Armstrong lawyers: Justice Dept joining fraud suit
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Justice Department has joined a lawsuit against disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong that alleges the former, seven-time Tour de France champion concealed his use of performance-enhancing drugs and defrauded his long-time sponsor, the U.S. Postal Service, Armstrong's lawyers said Friday.
Maserati driver in Vegas shooting-crash was rapper
LAS VEGAS (AP) - Police searched Friday for a Range Rover with dark tinted windows and custom rims that set off a fiery crash on the Las Vegas Strip when someone in the luxury SUV opened fire on a Maserati driven by an aspiring rapper.
Prosecutor questions woman in Arizona murder case
PHOENIX (AP) - A woman charged in the stabbing and shooting death of her Arizona lover traded barbs with a prosecutor under a withering cross-examination as she struggled to explain why she can recall precise details of her life from years earlier, yet can't remember crucial aspects of the murder case against her.
Car bomb kills at least 53 in Syrian capital
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) - A car bomb exploded Thursday near Syria's ruling party headquarters in Damascus, killing at least 53 people and scattering mangled bodies among the blazing wreckage in one of the bloodiest days in the capital since the uprising began almost two years ago.
Haiti's 'Baby Doc' summoned to court after no-show
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) - A Haitian judge on Thursday summoned Jean-Claude Duvalier to appear in court after the former dictator defied an order to attend a hearing to determine whether he should again face charges for human rights abuses committed during the nearly 15 years of his brutal regime.
Oscar guy MacFarlane aims to perk up stodgy awards
LOS ANGELES (AP) - You think the Academy Awards are boring? Try the nominations. They only last a few minutes, but it's generally a sleepy academy suit and a sleepy starlet droning a list of names at 5:30 in the morning.
Georgia plane aborted landing, hit utility pole
THOMSON, Ga. (AP) - A small private jet carrying a surgeon and members of his clinic staff aborted its landing at a Georgia airport before it hit a 60-foot utility pole and crashed in a flaming wreck, killing five people onboard and injuring two, federal authorities said Thursday.
Pistorius granted bail pending murder trial
PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) - In an agonizingly slow announcement, a magistrate allowed Oscar Pistorius to go free on bail Friday, nine days after the Paralympian was arrested in the Valentine's Day killing of his girlfriend.
Police: Hotel altercation sparked Vegas shooting
LAS VEGAS (AP) - Bullets were flying from a black Range Rover at a gray Maserati as the vehicles raced toward a red light on the Las Vegas Strip.
4 stabbed outside downtown LA nightspot
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Four young adults have been stabbed after a feud spilled out of a downtown Los Angeles nightspot.
More tests needed in LA hotel water tank death
LOS ANGELES (AP) - More testing must be done to determine the cause of death of a 21-year-old Canadian tourist whose body was found wedged in a water tank atop a downtown Los Angeles hotel, authorities said Thursday.
