Louisiana news

• Ringling Bros. circus to close after 146 years

  14-01-2017 21:41 via wbrz.com
  
  ELLENTON, Fla. - After 146 years, the curtain is coming down on "The Greatest Show on Earth." The owner of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus told The Associated Press that the show will close forever in May.The iconic American spectacle was felled by a variety of factors, company executives say. Declining attendance combined with high operating costs, along with changing public tastes and prolonged battles with animal rights groups all contributed to its demise."There isn't any o
  
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• Trump tweets again about 'legitimate president' comment

  14-01-2017 20:26 via wbrz.com
  
  NEW YORK - Donald Trump isn't done with criticizing congressman John Lewis for saying he doesn't consider the president-elect a legitimate president.Trump turned to Twitter once against Saturday night to say of the Georgia Democrat: "Congressman John Lewis should finally focus on the burning and crime infested inner-cities of the U.S. I can use all the help I can get!"Congressman John Lewis should finally focus on the burning and crime infested inner-cities of the U.S. I can use all the help I c
  
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• No plans to digitize Fisher in future 'Star Wars' films

  14-01-2017 16:29 via wbrz.com
  
  LOS ANGELES - Lucasfilm, the company behind "Star Wars," says there are no plans to digitally recreate the late Carrie Fisher to play Princess Leia in future episodes of the movie saga.The Disney-owned Lucasfilm made the rare foray into the world of "Star Wars" speculation Friday night by issuing a statement denying rumors there were plans to digitize Fisher, who died Dec. 27.Fisher, who reprised her role as Leia in 2015's "Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens," had finished shooting "Star
  
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• Maryland school employee fired for tweet aimed at student's spelling

  14-01-2017 16:23 via wbrz.com
  
  FREDERICK - A school system employee in Maryland who had a lighthearted quarrel with a student on Twitter over the student's spelling has been fired.Katie Nash tells The Frederick News-Postthat she was fired on Friday afternoon from her $44,000-a-year job. A Frederick County Public Schools spokesman confirmed that Nash had been let go, without providing details.Nash ran the school district's Twitter account. On Jan. 5, a student tweeted to the account, asking that schools be closed "tammarow."Na
  
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• Penzato elected unopposed to Louisiana appeals court

  14-01-2017 14:28 via wbrz.com
  
  NEW ORLEANS - Judge Allison Penzato of Mandeville has been elected unopposed to an open seat on Louisiana's 1st Circuit Court of Appeal in Baton Rouge.Penzato, who serves on the 22nd Judicial District Court for St. Tammany and Washington parishes, was the lone candidate to qualify for the March 25 ballot. Qualifying ended Friday.NOLA.com/The Times-Picayune reports Penzato, a Republican, will fill the unexpired term of Ernie Drake Jr., who retired Oct. 31. The 10-year term runs through 2024.The 1
  
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• City slammed as it declares Monday 'Great Americans Day'

  14-01-2017 14:23 via wbrz.com
  
  BILOXI, Miss. - The city of Biloxi has sparked a debate about the holiday honoring the late civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. after announcing on social media that city offices would be closed Monday for "Great Americans Day."Monday is federally recognized as Martin Luther King Jr. Day.The Sun Herald reports Great Americans Day doesn't exist as a holiday and is not even recognized by the Mississippi Secretary of State's Office. However, Biloxi City Council passed an ordinance in 1985 d
  
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• Wanted man arrested after fleeing through Southern dorm hall, flipping officer

  14-01-2017 13:48 via wbrz.com
  
  BATON ROGUE - Authorities said a 20-year-old Houma man with multiple warrants through Lafourche Parish was arrested at Southern University after he attempted to flee.According to the East Baton Rouge Sheriff's Office, on Jan. 13 around 2:40 p.m., deputies assisted a local bails bondsman in apprehending the suspect, Akeem Boykin, 20.Boykin has active arrest warrants through Lafourche Parish, according to authorities.Authorities attempted to apprehend Boykin, an
  
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• SpaceX launches first rocket since explosion

  14-01-2017 13:30 via wbrz.com
  
  LOS ANGELES - SpaceX has launched a Falcon 9 rocket for the first time since a fireball engulfed a similar rocket on a Florida launch pad more than four months ago.The two-stage rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, on Saturday morning to place 10 satellites into orbit for Iridium Communications Inc.About nine minutes later, the first stage returned to Earth and landed successfully on a barge in the Pacific Ocean south of Vandenberg.SpaceX officials say they identified al
  
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• House Dems press FBI on Russia, possible link to Trump camp

  14-01-2017 12:35 via wbrz.com
  
  WASHINGTON - House Democrats have confronted FBI Director James Comey over his refusal to say whether the FBI is investigating possible links between President-elect Donald Trump's campaign and Russia.The Democrats are still seething over Comey's handling of the election-year inquiry of Hillary Clinton.The strong words came during a closed-door session Friday. Democrats blame Comey in part for Clinton's loss to Trump. In July, Comey announced the findings of the FBI investigation that found Clin
  
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• Judge: Settlement not 'reachable' in 'debtor prison' case

  14-01-2017 12:32 via wbrz.com
  
  NEW ORLEANS - Settlement discussions have failed to bring about a resolution to a federal court case accusing New Orleans criminal court judges of unconstitutionally jailing poor people who cannot afford to pay court fees.The suit was filed in 2015 by six people who said they were locked up for owing court debts. Lawyers are seeking to make it a class action case that could affect hundreds of others.New Orleans criminal court judges are the defendants. U.S. Magistrate Judge Joseph Wilkinson said
  
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• 11 drown, 15 missing after boat capsizes in eastern India

  14-01-2017 12:29 via wbrz.com
  
  PATNA, India - Police say at least 11 people drowned and 15 others are missing after their overcrowded boat capsized in a river in eastern India.Police officer Chandan Kushwaha says the incident took place Saturday as 40 people were returning by the boat after attending a Hindu religious festival in a village across the river near Patna, the state capital of Bihar.Kushwaha says 13 people have been rescued and hospitalized. Rescuers are continuing to search for more survivors.Police say the boat
  
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• Groups celebrate 10-year mark of La. restaurant smoking ban

  14-01-2017 12:24 via wbrz.com
  
  BATON ROUGE - Anti-smoking groups are touting the 10-year anniversary of Louisiana's law banning smoking in restaurants, schools and workplaces.The law, known as the Louisiana Smoke-Free Air Act, took effect in January 2007. It has exemptions that continue today for smoking in bars and casinos, but allowed local municipalities to enact tougher policies. Many of the state's larger cities, including New Orleans, Hammond, Monroe and Alexandria have done so.The Louisiana Campaign for Tobacco-Free Li
  
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• Drone schools look to woo younger pilots for commercial jobs

  14-01-2017 12:21 via wbrz.com
  
  GRAND FORKS, N.D. - Leaders in the unmanned aircraft industry are trying to persuade young people who think drones are cool to consider flying them for a living.Commercial pilots must obtain a Federal Aviation Administration drone license, and some companies that employ such pilots have started selling classes that help students prepare for the FAA test or just figure out whether they would be interested in such a career.SkySkopes, a Grand Forks company that employs unmanned aircraft pilots, is
  
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• Police kill man who fired gun outside Austin church

  14-01-2017 12:13 via wbrz.com
  
  AUSTIN, Texas - A man who Austin police say repeatedly fired an assault-style weapon into the air outside a church has been shot and killed by an officer after he refused to drop the gun.Authorities say the shooting early Saturday in northwest Austin culminated a series of events that included police responding to a robbery call and to a fight in a parking lot at the same location. Police were summoned a third time after reports of a man with a shotgun and assault-style weapon.Assistant Police C
  
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• Military's shift away from oil clashes with Trump's promises

  14-01-2017 12:12 via wbrz.com
  
  TWENTYNINE PALMS, Calif. - The Marine Corps and Navy have led the Department of Defense's unprecedented shift away from fossil fuels under the Obama administration, investing millions over the past decade into everything from hybrid electric ships to wind turbines.It's unclear what will happen under President Donald Trump, who has promised to end policies that "undermine" fossil fuel producers, and chosen a Cabinet with climate change skeptics.His nomination for defense secretary has advocated f
  
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• Thousands expected for Martin Luther King Jr. march

  14-01-2017 12:09 via wbrz.com
  
  WASHINGTON - Thousands are expected in Washington for a march organizers say is designed to "protect the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr." and to "preserve the legacy of President Barack Obama."The National Action Network, the group founded by the Rev. Al Sharpton, is sponsoring Saturday's "We Shall Not Be Moved" march and rally ahead of Monday's Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday.Participants are gathering near the Washington Monument. Organizers' plan is to march down Independence Avenue to
  
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• Supreme Court takes up suit over 2001 detention of Muslims

  14-01-2017 12:02 via wbrz.com
  
  WASHINGTON - Ahmer Abbasi speaks softly as he describes the strip searches, the extra shoves, the curses that he endured in a federal jail in Brooklyn following the Sept. 11 attacks.Abbasi tells The Associated Press in a telephone interview from his home in Karachi, Pakistan, that he doesn't "think I deserved it."Abbasi's quiet, matter-of-fact tone belies his determination, 15 years after his detention, to seek justice in American courts - provided the Supreme Court will let him.The justices on
  
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• 'We waited for decades': Polish govt welcomes US troops

  14-01-2017 11:57 via wbrz.com
  
  WARSAW, Poland - Polish leaders are holding a ceremony to welcome U.S. troops to their country, a deployment that Russia calls a threat to its own security.The ceremony Saturday in the western Polish town of Zagan comes 23 years after the last Soviet troops left Poland. It also marks a new historic moment - the first time any Western forces are being deployed on a continuous basis to NATO's eastern flank.Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo stood before U.S. and Polish soldiers and called it "an i
  
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• Trump unleashes Twitter attack against congressional critic

  14-01-2017 11:53 via wbrz.com
  
  NEW YORK - Donald Trump is lashing out at a Georgia congressman who described the Republican as an illegitimate president.Trump tweeted on Saturday that Democrat John Lewis "should spend more time on fixing and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling apart (not to mention crime infested) rather than falsely complaining about the election results."Trump - who'll be sworn in this coming Friday - continues to use Twitter to attack his adversaries as he did throughout the campai
  
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• Germany mulls parliamentary inquiry over Berlin truck attack

  14-01-2017 11:50 via wbrz.com
  
  BERLIN - A senior ally of German Chancellor Angela Merkel says he's open to launching a parliamentary inquiry into whether authorities made mistakes in handling the Tunisian man who drove a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin.Attacker Anis Amri had been rejected for asylum in Germany but authorities had been unable to deport him. Amri, who had used at least 14 different identities since coming to Germany, also was on their radar as a potential security risk.Volker Kauder, the caucus leader o
  
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• Kansas making new guidelines for handling wildlife pets

  14-01-2017 11:44 via wbrz.com
  
  TOPEKA, Kan. - Kansas is working on new guidelines for how to handle situations where a wild animal is being kept as a pet after game wardens were criticized for shooting a family's pet deer.It is illegal in Kansas to keep a wild animal as a pet. Wildlife officials said they shot the Mark and Kim Mcgaughey family's deer out of concern it could hurt people or spread disease.The Wichita Eagle reports that Robin Jennison, secretary of the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism, says the s
  
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• 19 dead in multiple-vehicle collision in Ecuador

  14-01-2017 11:40 via wbrz.com
  
  QUITO, Ecuador - Authorities say at least 19 people have been killed and more than a dozen injured when a long distance passenger bus collided with an off-duty school bus along a highway in Ecuador.The accident took place Friday night on a road near the Pacific coastline. Authorities say it was raining heavily at the time of the crash after 10 p.m. local time (0300 GMT Saturday) and that a slick surface and poor lighting may have contributed to the accident.Children were among the dead. Rescue a
  
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• 'Miracle on the Hudson' legacy: 70,000 slain birds

  14-01-2017 11:38 via wbrz.com
  
  NEW YORK - Birds took the blame for bringing down the jetliner that "Sully" Sullenberger landed on the Hudson River eight years ago this weekend, and they have been paying for it with their lives ever since.An Associated Press analysis of bird-killing programs put in place around New York City-area airports in response to the 2009 accident found that nearly 70,000 geese and other birds have been slaughtered.But it is unclear whether the killings have made the skies over the city any safer.Federa
  
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• South African abducted in Syria by armed men, aid group says

  14-01-2017 11:33 via wbrz.com
  
  JOHANNESBURG - An aid group says a South African has been abducted by armed men in Syria while traveling with aid workers to the border with Turkey.The Gift of the Givers group said Saturday that Shiraaz Mohamed was kidnapped on Tuesday afternoon near a medical facility operated by the South African aid organization.Imtiaz Sooliman, founder of Gift of the Givers, says the kidnappers blindfolded Mohamed and two aid workers and drove with their captives for an hour.Sooliman says the gunmen then fr
  
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• Obama urges public to embrace the 'work of citizenship'

  14-01-2017 11:29 via wbrz.com
  
  WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama is calling on all Americans to "throw ourselves into the work of citizenship," regardless of party.In the final radio and internet address of his presidency, Obama says the country's success depends on everyone participating - not just at election time, but during the course of one's lifetime.Obama said Saturday that every American holds the title of "citizen," despite their many differences. He adds that "citizen" is a title he's looking forward to reclaiming
  
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