HOLLYWOOD, Fla. – Republican Party leaders turned aside an effort Thursday to change the rules at their national convention to make it harder for the GOP to choose a fresh presidential candidate, a prelude to what may be sharper battles ahead.
The showdown, which pitted the top echelons of the Republican National Committee against a renegade party committeeman from Oregon, came at a time when many in the GOP believe that top presidential contenders Donald Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz are likely losers in this November’s general election. Some have been hoping a new candidate will emerge at the party’s gathering in Cleveland, a scenario that has drawn the wrath of Trump and Cruz backers and many of the party’s grassroots conservatives.
WASHINGTON – After two straight years of ties, the Scripps National Spelling Bee is adding more sting: The championship rounds will last longer, and the words will be harder.
The bee, now televised in prime time by ESPN, has exploded in popularity over the past two decades. And the spellers have gotten increasingly savvy. So instead of sticking to a list of 25 “championship words” selected weeks earlier, the final rounds could have as many as 75 words. And the organizers can choose harder words on the fly if the spellers don’t appear to be struggling.
Current and former spellers applauded the changes, saying the hardest words should be last.
WINDSOR, England – Fate unexpectedly made her queen. Duty and endurance have made her an institution and an icon.
Queen Elizabeth II turned 90 on Thursday as Britain’s oldest and longest-reigning monarch, drawing crowds of well-wishers and floods of tributes to the stamina and service of a woman who can claim to have given her name to the age.
The queen usually spends her birthday privately, with most of the pomp and ceremony reserved for an official birthday that’s marked in June. But Thursday’s milestone brought an outpouring of public goodwill.
The queen will receive more birthday greetings on Friday, when she hosts U.S. President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle Obama for lunch at Windsor Castle.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – A U.S. Navy officer relieved of commanding a Persian Gulf patrol ship allegedly failed to maintain equipment to the point of exposing “his crew to unnecessary risk,” interfered with an inquiry into his actions and once slept drunk on a bench at a Dubai port, according to a naval investigation.
The accusations against Lt. Cmdr. Jeremiah Daley saw the Navy on March 12 remove him from the USS Typhoon, a Manama, Bahrain-based vessel patrolling a region crucial to global oil supplies where American forces routinely have tense encounters with Iranian forces.
Daley, now assigned to Task Force 55, is on leave and was unavailable for comment Thursday, according to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, which is based in Bahrain and oversees the task force. Later reached by The Associated Press, Daley said he was challenging the report and appealing his punishment as a “good number of things are 100 percent not true.”
The 300-page investigative report into Daley’s actions, obtained by the AP through a Freedom of Information Act request, shows his crew also complained about his poor management style, with one sailor saying morale aboard the ship was the “worst” the sailor had seen in a 28-year career.
MEXICO CITY – An explosion killed at least 13 people and injured dozens at a petrochemical plant on Mexico’s southern Gulf coast, forcing evacuations as a fire billowed a toxin-filled cloud, officials said Thursday. Eighteen workers were reported missing.
The head of Mexico’s civil defense agency, Luis Felipe Puente, wrote on his Twitter account that emergency personnel had been able to enter the burned-out plant and found 10 bodies. Three other workers had been reported dead immediately following the blast Wednesday afternoon.
One area of the plant was still too hot to enter, so the death toll could rise
Around 136 workers were injured in the blast in the industrial port city of Coatzacoalcos. Twenty-four of the injured remained hospitalized.
Associated Press
