After a year of increasingly absurd and irrelevant record stunts, we're looking for the brain trust to restore our sanity.
Continue reading What world record would you like to set or break in a car?
What world record would you like to set or break in a car? originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 30 Dec 2016 15:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | CommentsYORBA LINDA, Calif. -- A toucan that became a local sensation while living wild much of the year in Southern California has finally been captured.
The brightly colored female bird named Fern was spotted Tuesday in the rafters of a Yorba Linda auto repair shop.
A service adviser made calls to animal experts including Omar's Exotic Birds, which dispatched an employee who captured Fern.
The bird escaped in May from an aviary in Courtney Chapman's Fullerton home after Fern and a male toucan were delivered by a breeder.
Chapman tells The Orange County Register she had been told the chances of getting the toucan back were slim to none.
Shortly after the escape, Chapman joined a private social network app for neighbors and soon photos of Fern spottings around town were being posted.
BATON ROUGE -- Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards has named a new secretary of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries after its former leader called it "a troubled state agency" and resigned abruptly.
Edwards on Friday announced that State Rep. Jack Montoucet will be the agency's new secretary effective Jan. 16, replacing Charlie Melancon.
Earlier this month, Melancon said that some people in his office were sabotaging recovery efforts from the Gulf oil spill, and that he would resign Dec. 31.
A November audit report raised questions about missing property and millions of dollars in agency spending. The audit found that oil spill recovery money intended for fish testing was used for unnecessary iPads, cameras, boats and now-missing fishing equipment.
Montoucet, a Democrat, was elected to the House of Representatives in 2008.
WICHITA, Kan. -- Records obtained by The Associated Press show that a Mexican national accused of raping a 13-year-old girl on a Greyhound bus in Kansas had been deported 10 times and voluntarily removed from the U.S. nine other times since 2003.
Three U.S. Republican senators demanded this month in a letter that the Department of Homeland Security provide immigration records for 38-year-old Tomas Martinez-Maldonado.
That man is charged with felony rape in the alleged Sept. 27 attack aboard a bus in Geary County in north-central Kansas, where he is now in jail.
Defense attorney Lisa Hamer declined to comment. David Trevino, Martinez-Maldonado's immigration attorney, said that many immigrants have multiple entries without legal permission because they have family members in the U.S.
A status hearing is set for Jan. 10.
Filed under: Acura,Honda,Technology,Coupe,Hybrid,Performance
It could be called RSX again, or ILX Sport, or all sorts of things.
Continue reading Why Acura should build a hybrid Integra successor using NSX tech
Why Acura should build a hybrid Integra successor using NSX tech originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 30 Dec 2016 14:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | CommentsBATON ROUGE -- Baton Rouge Mayor-President-Elect Sharon Weston Broome says she's started searching for replacements for two top jobs in her administration.
Broome says she's reached out to national organizations to help recruit candidates to fill the roles of Police Chief Carl Dabadie and Chief Administrative Officer William Daniel. The Advocate reports () she also said Thursday that all city-parish department heads will take on the "interim" title beginning Jan. 1 as she tries to fill her administration with people of her choosing.
Broome says she has started soliciting feedback from national groups though no search committees have been formed yet.
Elected Dec. 10, Broome will be inaugurated at 5 p.m. Jan. 2 in the Theatre for the Performing Arts at the Raising Cane's River Center. The ceremony is open to the public.
HONOLULU -- President Barack Obama will strategize next week with Democratic lawmakers about how to prevent Republicans from destroying his Affordable Care Act.
He'll also give a speech in Chicago on Jan. 10 that is expected to be his closing message as president.
Obama returns from vacation in Hawaii early next week. The White House says Obama will meet with House and Senate Democrats on Wednesday. An invitation sent to lawmakers says it's a breakfast meeting at the Capitol Visitors Center.
The White House says Obama will also hold a live interview next Friday with news site Vox about "Obamacare."
An invitation to Obama's event in Chicago, obtained by The Associated Press, says it will be open to the public. The White House hasn't confirmed that appearance.
NEW YORK -- In the face of heavy criticism, Simon & Schuster is pushing forward plans to publish a book by the conservative provocateur, Milo Yiannopoulos.
Yiannopoulos writes for Breitbart, considered by many as a platform for the so-called "alt-right," a white nationalist movement. Yiannopoulos' Twitter account was suspended earlier this year after a series of racially insensitive tweets to "Ghostbusters" actress Leslie Jones, who is black. Yiannopoulos denies he is a white nationalist.
Simon & Schuster says Yiannopoulos' book "Dangerous" is about free speech and will be published in March. It had already reached No. 2 on Amazon.com's best seller's list by Friday.
The Chicago Review of Books, in response to the book deal, says it won't review any Simon & Schuster books next year because of the publisher's "validation of hate."
LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- The nation's coal mines are nearing a record low mark for on-the-job deaths for the third year in a row and have a chance to keep the number of fatal accidents in single digits for the first time.
With just a day left in 2016, U.S. coal mines have recorded nine deaths. West Virginia had four, Kentucky had two and there was one each in Alabama, Illinois and Pennsylvania. The low number can be attributed to far fewer coal mining jobs and tougher enforcement of mining safety rules.
"We know consistently things are getting better," Mine Safety and Health Administration chief Joe Main said.
Industry cooperation has been crucial to making mines safer, he said, and "the angst that mine operators have with what (violations) we cite is dissipating as well."
Dozens of mines have shuttered in recent years, especially in Appalachia. In 2011, there were about 91,000 working miners in the U.S. compared with 2015 when there were about 66,000, the lowest figure since the Energy Information Administration began collecting data in 1978. The 2016 numbers are not yet available.
Fewer mines and a smaller workforce amounts to fewer deaths and injuries, but Main noted that in 2011 ?€” before employment numbers started to drop ?€” a low mark was set for fatalities at 20. That was also a year after the deadly explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia killed 29 miners.
Previous lows in coal mining deaths were in 2014 with 16, and last year, with 11. For comparison, in 1966, the mining industry counted 233 deaths. A century ago there were 2,226.
Only one fatal accident was attributed to an explosion of gas or dust, which was to blame for the Upper Big Branch disaster. The lone explosion this year occurred July 29 at a Spartan Mining Company mine in Wyoming County, West Virginia.
Donald Workman, 58, and another miner were welding when they came in contact with methane at the surface of the mine, causing an ignition. Workman, who had worked in mines for 40 years, died six days after the blast.
Other deaths this year included wall collapses and a miner who crashed in a personal vehicle on an access road.
There have been 16 fatalities in 2016 in non-coal mines that produce gravel, sand, limestone and mineable metals. That mark also continued a downward trend, with 17 in 2015 and 30 in 2014.
Main said a lot of hard work by inspectors and industry leaders has gone into the three record-setting years. He also appeared to warn the incoming Trump administration against changing the successful formula.
"There's a lot of ingredients that went into the recipe to make the cake that we now have in terms of having the outcomes of the safest years in mining history," Main said. "If you start taking ingredients out of that, the cake's not going to be as good, I can tell you that."
WHITEHALL, Mich. -- Three Michigan firefighters used rope and their wits to rescue a 90-pound retriever that fell through the ice about 100 yards from shore on a western Michigan lake.
Wearing ice rescue gear and tethered together, they carefully walked onto White Lake in Muskegon County's Whitehall and hauled the dog to safety.
White Lake Fire Chief Gregory Holman said the dog was unable to drag itself from the hole in the ice and was in distress when firefighters reached it Wednesday morning.
Holman said his firefighters will do their "best to rescue" a "family pet, like a dog."
The 14-year-old dog was given to an area shelter and its owner was later located. Shelter owner Lana Carson said the dog "kind of wandered off and found itself on the ice."