Pat Dollard

PORT FOURCHON, La. (AP) – The Coast Guard is calling off its search for 11 workers missing since an explosion on an oil rig off the Louisiana coast. Rear Adm. Mary Landry calls it a very difficult decision. The Coast Guard said Friday crews had spent three days searching a large area surrounding the rig, [...]

Wallace Bugerstern Politico: A giant New York-based local union is poised to vote to support California labor leader Mary Kay Henry (above) for the presidency of one of America’s largest unions today, three sources familiar with the union said, dealing a stunning rebuff to Service Employees International Union President Andy Stern and his handpicked successor, [...]

NEW YORK (AP) – Riverdale High is getting its first gay character. Archie Comics announced Thursday that in an issue out Sept. 1, the long-running comic will introduce its first “openly gay” character, Kevin Keller. The strapping blond will defeat Jughead in a burger eating contest, win the affection of Veronica and wrestle over how [...]

NEW YORK (AP) – Prosecutors say two al-Qaida leaders met with New York terror suspects in Pakistan and ordered them to conduct a suicide bomb attack on city subways. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Knox identified them as senior operative Saleh al-Somali and Rashid Rauf. Both died in strikes in the past year in Pakistan. Knox [...]

PHOENIX (AP) – Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed into law the nation’s toughest legislation against illegal immigration Friday, a sweeping measure that supporters said would take handcuffs off police but which President Barack Obama said could violate people’s civil rights. The bill, sent to the Republican governor by the GOP-led Legislature, would make it a [...]

Politico: Vice President Biden will travel to Brussels and Madrid from May 5 to 8 and will give a “major address” to the European Parliament, the White House announced. “He will meet with leaders and representatives of the European Union institutions to discuss how the United States and the EU can improve cooperation on counter-terrorism [...]

Obama: Arizona Immigration Bill Threatens to ‘Undermine Basic Notions of Fairness. Shall we review Obama’s long history of respecting “basic notions of fairness”? Our Prez has zero credibility. Fox News: President Obama used a naturalization ceremony in the Rose Garden to lash out at the Arizona Legislature for passing a bill requiring proof of legal [...]

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) – A Delta Air Lines flight from Los Angeles to Florida was diverted to Albuquerque early Friday after a passenger sprayed the first-class cabin with a water bottle, tried to open a cabin door and threatened to blow up the aircraft. Crew members and passengers on Delta flight 2148 to Tampa subdued [...]

The Hill: Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) Friday issued a subpoena to Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin (D) to testify at his corruption trial. NBC Chicago reported that Durbin, the second-ranking Senate Democrat, said that the former governor, who was removed from office in Jan. 2009, demanded that he testify. Durbin revealed the subpoena after [...]

The Hill: Vast tax increases will be inevitable under President Barack Obama’s budget blueprint, the nation’s largest business groups complained on Friday. The groups blasted tax increases on businesses and wealthy individuals and families in the budget in a letter to members of the House and Senate, while warning that escalating public debt threatened the [...]

Jerusalem Post: WASHINGTON – Vice President Joe Biden said Thursday that Israel would not attack Iran without consulting the United States and that Jerusalem clearly saw sanctions as the next step to deal with Teheran’s nuclear program. “Everyone from the Israeli prime minister straight through to the British prime minister to the president of Russia [...]

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — NATO’s top official said Friday the 28-nation alliance is on track with its new strategy for winding down the war in Afghanistan next year, despite security setbacks and a continuing shortage of foreign trainers for the fledgling Afghan police and army. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen offered a mostly upbeat [...]

WASHINGTON (AP) — A potentially deadly strain of fungus is spreading among animals and people in the northwestern United States and the Canadian province of British Columbia, researchers reported on Thursday. The airborne fungus, called Cryptococcus gattii, usually only infects transplant and AIDS patients and people with otherwise compromised immune systems, but the new strain [...]

Coachella…

WASHINGTON (AP)– Senior staffers at the Securities and Exchange Commission spent hours surfing pornographic websites on government-issued computers while they were being paid to police the financial system, an agency watchdog says. The SEC’s inspector general conducted 33 probes of employees looking at explicit images in the past five years, according to a memo obtained [...]