NEW YORK – A vast part of the U.S. oil industry was paralyzed on Friday hours before powerful Hurricane Rita’s (search) expected landfall on the Texas coast. The storm, packing 135 mile-an-hour winds, already forced shut 15 big U.S. refineries, adding to the four that had remained shut after Hurricane …
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LOS ANGELES – City officials and union leaders traded accusations over who is to blame for the power outage that shut down elevators, traffic lights and ATMs across much of Los Angeles (search) earlier this week. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (search) said the outage, which affected …
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A water heater exploded in a school cafeteria Friday, critically injuring one worker and sending at least 13 students and a faculty member to a hospital. Students were standing in line to be served in the cafeteria when the explosion occurred, said Richie Brewer (search), assistant principal at Cornersville High …
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DENVER – San Francisco 49ers lineman Thomas Herrion (search) died from heart disease when he collapsed after a preseason game in Denver on Aug. 20, the Denver County coroner said Tuesday. Herrion had ischemic heart disease (search), with significant blockage in his right coronary artery that caused the death of …
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NEW ORLEANS – The suffering of New Orleans, long a culturally rich city, is being felt across the entertainment world. Many celebrities with relatives or other ties to the flooded city and the Gulf Coast have voiced their empathy for those devastated by Hurricane Katrina (search); some have been directly …
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Baytown, Texas – Peg Shepherd, a registered nurse who answers questions on WebMD’s Multiple Sclerosis message board, has been volunteering at a shelter in Baytown, Texas, that’s now caring for refugees from Hurricane Katrina. She filed this report. Spent hours yesterday again at the shelter here in Baytown. I know …
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WASHINGTON – Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward dismissed claims that he should have revealed his role in the CIA leak case when he discussed the investigation on news interview shows. The Post’s ombudsman, Deborah Howell wrote in Sunday’s editions that Woodward erred by publicly commenting on the case on a …
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EAST FISHKILL, N.Y. – Gyms are typically places to sweat, shoot hoops, backflip, benchpress or box. Then there’s the Little Gym. The balance beam here has training rails, flips are done in slow-motion with Mommy holding tight, and the instructor cheers athletes who walk down the big cushy pads without …
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Stopping a speeding truck in its tracks is a daunting engineering task. Unhappy with standard barriers, officials at Andrews Air Force Base have been searching for years for a better way to keep their base safe from vehicle-borne bombs and other threats. Inventor Mike Lamore, a civil engineer from Greensboro, …
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SARASOTA, Fla. – The brother of a man accused of raping and strangling an 11-year-old girl wiped his eyes Wednesday as he recounted how his sibling described sexually assaulting and killing the girl. John Smith testified that his brother, Joseph Smith, told him that he had “rough sex” with Carlie …
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