Boston Red Sox manager Alex Cora will not attend the ceremony at the White House on Thursday honoring the 2018 World Series champions. Cora cited the Trump administration’s response to Hurricane Maria in his native Puerto Rico as the reason for his decision. “The government has done some things back… Read More

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… Read More

Are you interested in a $200 jar of poop from 1997 Kentucky Derby winner Silver Charm? If so, the jars by Kentucky for Kentucky went on sale May 1. The Lexington Herald-Leader reports artist Coleman Larkin is the mastermind behind the expensive crap. Sales from the “Derby Turds” will go toward Old… Read More

A pair of Florida teens saw their prayers answered after becoming stranded about 2 miles (3 kilometers) from shore. News outlets report that 17-year-olds Tyler Smith and Heather Brown were swimming at Vilano Beach near St. Augustine during a senior skip day last month when strong currents pulled them out… Read More

Sri Lanka’s Catholic cardinal received “foreign information” that attempts would be made this week to attack a church and another church institution, according to a letter he sent Thursday to church officials that later appeared on social media. Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, the archbishop of Colombo and an outspoken critic of… Read More

A federal judge in Los Angeles ruled Tuesday that a Spanish museum that acquired a priceless, Nazi-looted painting in 1992 is the work’s rightful owner, and not the survivors of the Jewish woman who surrendered it 80 years ago to escape the Holocaust. Although U.S. District Judge John F. Walter… Read More

Police in Maine say a man who robbed a bank used his unwitting father as a getaway driver. An affidavit written by a police detective says Keith Tilton dropped his 39-year-old son, Joseph Donald Tilton, at a Lewiston bank Tuesday afternoon, believing his son needed to cash a check. In… Read More

Authorities say a western Pennsylvania man flushed his grandparents’ ashes down a toilet after his mother kicked him out of her home. The Tribune-Review reports that Thomas Wells was arraigned Monday on two counts of abuse of a corpse and a criminal mischief charge. McKeesport police say the 33-year-old Pittsburgh man… Read More