U.S. News Headlines

GRAPEVINE, Texas (Reuters) - A five-day manhunt for a Florida fugitive who escaped from prison transport officers in Texas ended early on Saturday when he was shot and killed by law enforcement a few miles from the parking lot where he first got away, police said. Alberto Morales, who had stabbed one of the transport officers …

WALTON, Kansas (Reuters) - The first clue is a sign "Fresh Eggs for Sale" in front of the school. There is a sheep pen on the baseball field and the sounds of farm animals greet pupils every morning. This is not your ordinary elementary school. It is the Walton Rural Life Center, a kindergarten-through-fourth grade charter …

SAN BERNARDINO, California (Reuters) - A fugitive former policeman whose charred remains were found in a burned-out cabin in the mountains above Los Angeles following a shootout with sheriff's deputies died from a possibly self-inflicted gunshot wound, officials said on Friday. An autopsy on Christopher Dorner, 33, found …

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama marked a poignant moment in his push to curb gun violence as he awarded presidential medals posthumously on Friday to six educators killed in the Newtown school massacre, saying they gave their lives to protect "the most innocent and helpless among us." Consoling tearful relatives …

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Crisis-hit San Bernardino, California, picked a new city manager on Friday at a critical time in its quest to get bankruptcy protection from a federal court. San Bernardino was forced to look for a new city manager after its acting city manager, Andrea Travis-Miller, quit. Her resignation coincides …

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York City's teacher pension fund has sold its stocks of publicly traded firearms manufacturers, becoming the largest U.S. public pension fund to do so in response to the school shootings in Connecticut, the city's top financial officer said. The $46.6 billion fund divested all its holdings in five …

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A strike by New York City school bus drivers ended on Friday, capping a five-week-long transit nightmare for 152,000 students in the largest public school system in the United States. Students will get back on the yellow buses when classes resume on Wednesday following a February break cut short to …

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Two fifth-grade boys are in custody in Washington state after they brought a knife and gun to school with the goal of killing a schoolmate in a foiled murder plot that shocked their rural town because of their youth, prosecutors said on Friday. The boys, accused of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder …

DETROIT (Reuters) - German automaker BMW is recalling 30,265 of its X5 utility vehicles from model years 2007-2010 to correct a brake vacuum pump leak, according to U.S. safety regulators. BMW, in notifying the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said only vehicles equipped with V8 engines are affected. BMW, …

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Crisis-hit San Bernardino, California, picked a new city manager on Friday at a critical time in its quest to get bankruptcy protection from a federal court. San Bernardino was forced to look for a new city manager after its acting city manager, Andrea Travis-Miller, quit. Her resignation coincides …

CLEVELAND (Reuters) - An Ohio man arrested after he brought a handgun and knives to a late night showing of the Batman movie, "The Dark Knight Rises", two weeks after the Colorado theater mass shooting last summer was acquitted on Friday of a felony weapons possession charge. Prosecutors had accused Scott A. Smith, 38, …

ATLANTA (Reuters) - Two Georgia college students who sneaked into the Super Bowl without tickets say Beyonce's half-time performance provided a distraction that helped them enter through a loading dock. They also hope a video they took of their experience might help the Superdome improve security, though neither the New …

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A child-care worker accused of disguising herself in traditional Muslim clothing to abduct a 5-year-old girl was arraigned on Friday on rape and kidnapping charges and held on $4 million bail. Seized as a key piece of evidence in the case was a multi-colored macaw that the child told authorities …

(Reuters) - A Maine newspaper's request for information about gun permit owners ignited such an outcry among gun-rights advocates and state lawmakers that on Friday the newspaper withdrew it. In a repeat of an uproar that occurred in a New York City suburb last month, The Bangor Daily News had asked for public records that …

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer has been dead for more than 18 years, but the murders and dismemberments of the 17 boys and men he killed, and sometimes ate, still haunt the living. Documentary "The Jeffrey Dahmer Files," which opens in limited release in U.S. movie theaters on Friday, focuses on the …

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Roman Catholic bishops stepped up their battle against President Obama's contraceptives policy on Friday by urging Congress to use its fiscal debate to free religious employers from a mandate requiring insurance coverage for birth control. In a letter to all 535 members of Congress, Archbishop …

(Reuters) - As Hurricane Sandy bore down on the replica HMS Bounty off the coast of North Carolina last fall, the crew battled 12-foot (3.5-meter) seas, 90 mile per hour winds, faltering pumps and failing engines. The crew lost, and everyone was sucked into the Atlantic Ocean, third mate Daniel Cleveland told federal investigators …

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Farmland values in the U.S. Plains states jumped more than 20 percent in the fourth quarter from a year earlier as farms sold at record-high prices, the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City said on Friday. Irrigated cropland attracted the most interest, given the worst drought in 50 years in the world's …