New York – New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio will announce this month whether he is joining the growing list of candidates seeking the Democratic nomination for president, he said Thursday. “I’m going to make my decision in the month of May and as soon as we have something to tell you we’ll tell [...]

New York – The increasing challenges posed by the New York area’s aging rail infrastructure came into sharp focus Thursday as a congressional delegation prepared to get a firsthand look at the country’s busiest station on the same day commuters learned about summer schedule disruptions due to track repairs. It’s the second time in three [...]

Beijing – Recent visitors to the bay surrounding a submarine base on the southern coast of China’s Hainan Island describe a curious nocturnal phenomenon. Powerful spotlights are sometimes trained directly on the ocean frontages of neighboring hotels at night, making visibility out to sea virtually impossible. Some of the lights are mounted on land and [...]

Columbus, OH – A Muslim-American radio host can recover monetary damages against a neo-Nazi website operator who falsely accused him of terrorism, a federal judge ruled without deciding on a dollar amount. SiriusXM Radio show host Dean Obeidallah is seeking more than $1 million in damages against The Daily Stormer founder Andrew Anglin, who hasn’t [...]

Jerusalem – Israel says it has uncovered a network of bots and fake Twitter accounts urging a boycott of the upcoming Israeli-hosted Eurovision song contest. Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs said Thursday the Palestinian-led movement that promotes boycotts against Israel is behind the effort. Twitter confirmed it suspended “a small network of accounts” in response [...]

New York – Cocaine deaths have been rising in the U.S., health officials said Thursday in their latest report on the nation’s deadliest drug overdose epidemic. After several years of decline, overdose deaths involving cocaine began rising around 2012. And they jumped by more than a third between 2016 and 2017. The increase at least [...]

Washington – The grounding of Boeing 737 Max jets likely means that fare increases this summer will be larger than already expected and airlines will struggle to handle disruptions such as storms that shut down hub airports. With Max jets grounded after two deadly accidents, U.S. airlines will operate about 200 fewer daily flights than [...]

Bohemia, NY – Three teenagers on Long Island have been arrested on charges they plotted to build and detonate a bomb at their school. Suffolk County police say officers responded to Connetquot High School in Bohemia Thursday morning after a school administrator reported that multiple students overhead the three 16-year-olds discussing the plot on a [...]

New York – Maine could soon prohibit parents from citing religious or personal beliefs to avoid vaccinating their children, making the U.S. state one of a half dozen cracking down during the nations’ largest measles outbreak in 25 years. State legislatures in New York, New Jersey, Oregon, Vermont, Minnesota and Iowa, are looking at similar [...]

Washington – Two survivors of the Poway synagogue shooting in California were honored Thursday at the White House by President Trump, who thanked the two for their heroics during the attack at a press conference. Border Patrol agent Jonathan Morales, who was at the synagogue during the shooting and fired at the shooter, striking his [...]