NEW YORK – The winners of the 2014 George Polk Awards in Journalism include reporters for The New York Times and the Miami Herald. The Times’ Rukmini Callimachi won for international reporting for her account of how European nations secretly paid ransoms to free hostages held by the Islamic State …
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BUDAPEST, Hungary – If “king for a day” sounds too majestic, a small Hungarian village will let you become deputy mayor for a few days. The village of Megyer, population 18, has put itself up for rent to companies and tourists. T For 210,000 forints ($750; 690 euros) a day, …
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A gay Louisiana high school student says she is going to skip her prom because the school’s principal will not let her wear a tuxedo. Claudettia Love is a senior and one of the top students in her class at Carroll High School in Monroe. Love said she was planning …
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CHICAGO – Mayor Rahm Emanuel and several Chicago aldermen are offering what they call a reparations package for the victims of torture under the city’s former police commander, Jon Burge. The city said Tuesday that the package will include an apology, a $5.5 million fund and city services, such as …
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CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – The deaths of 389 fish at the Texas State Aquarium are being blamed on a mislabeled chemical container. A statement posted Tuesday on the aquarium’s Facebook page says what staff members thought was an anti-parasite drug was actually a poisonous chemical used in film processing, as …
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NEW YORK – The personal flight logs of the co-pilot of the U.S. warplane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima 70 years ago didn’t sell at an auction of World War II artifacts and memorabilia. Bonhams in Manhattan says bidding Wednesday for the two log books belonging to Enola …
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LOS ANGELES – Wells Fargo Bank employees driven by strict sales pressure issued unwanted credit cards and opened unauthorized accounts that charged customers fees and damaged their credit, according to a lawsuit filed by the city of Los Angeles. The civil complaint filed Monday contends the largest California-based bank violated …
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MOUNT MORRIS, N.Y. – Authorities say a trail of macaroni salad leading away from a western New York restaurant helped police track down three burglary suspects. The Democrat and Chronicle of Rochester reports (http://on.rocne.ws/1EtKA8S ) that the owners of Build-A-Burger told the Livingston County Sheriff’s Office that their surveillance system …
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MORELIA, Mexico – A Mexican prosecutor says DNA tests on Alondra Diaz match the U.S. mother who has been searching for her for eight years. Jose Martin Godoy Castro says tests show that Alondra is the daughter of Houston woman Dorotea Garcia, who has searched for the girl since Alondra’s …
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FERGUSON, Mo. – A plaque and metallic likeness of a dove have been installed in Michael Brown’s memory near the spot where the unarmed, black 18-year-old was shot and killed last summer by a white Ferguson police officer. Crews installed the plaque and dove Thursday hundreds of feet apart on …
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