Articles written by Cedar Attanasio


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  • A timeline of the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and search for his killer

    MICHAEL R. SISAK and CEDAR ATTANASIO|Dec 6, 2024

    NEW YORK (AP) — The search for UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson 's killer since Thompson was ambushed Wednesday outside a Midtown Manhattan hotel has stretched beyond New York City. While still looking to identify the suspect, the FBI has offered a $50,000 reward for information leading to his arrest and conviction. That's on top of a $10,000 reward offered by the NYPD. The gunman used a fake ID and paid cash during the 10 days he was in the city, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny told reporters Friday. He also kept his face covered e...

  • Man in custody had a gun, mask and writings tying him to killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO, police say

    MICHAEL R. SISAK and CEDAR ATTANASIO|Dec 6, 2024

    NEW YORK (AP) — Police say a "strong person of interest" in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson has been arrested. Thompson died in a dawn ambush Wednesday as he walked to the company's annual investor conference from his hotel to the company's annual investor conference across the street. Officials say the 26-year-old suspect had a gun believed to be the one used in the killing and writings suggesting his anger with corporate America. NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny identified the suspect as Luigi Nicholas Mangione, who w...

  • Fire crews on both US coasts battle wildfires

    CEDAR ATTANASIO|Nov 8, 2024

    RINGWOOD, N.J. (AP) — Fire crews battled small wildfires across the Northeast U.S. on Monday, including a blaze in New York and New Jersey that killed a parks employee over the weekend and postponed Veterans Day plans. A quarter-inch of rain fell overnight from Sunday into Monday in a forest area straddling the border between the two states, giving a slight respite to firefighters. The fire is one of several burning on the East Coast amid a lack of much rainfall since September. An employee of the New York State Parks, Recreation, and H...

  • An abrupt goodbye to a guerrilla goldfish aquarium beneath a leaky Brooklyn fire hydrant

    CEDAR ATTANASIO|Oct 25, 2024

    NEW YORK (AP) — A makeshift aquarium that popped up this summer in a puddle beneath a leaky fire hydrant has been paved over, to the dismay of neighbors who turned the area into a hangout spot and goldfish shrine. The city's Department of Environmental Protection has long said the dribbling hydrant created a safety hazard. Workers filled the earthen area that formerly held the puddle Friday morning, and yellow tape cordoned off a patch of freshly poured concrete around the repaired hydrant, leaving it looking like the city's smallest-ever c...

  • Helene's flooding swept away 11 workers at a Tennessee factory. Now the state is investigating

    JONATHAN MATTISE and CEDAR ATTANASIO|Oct 2, 2024

    NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee state authorities said Wednesday they are investigating the company that owns a plastics factory where 11 workers were swept away by cataclysmic flooding unleashed by Hurricane Helene. As the nearby Nolichucky River swelled from rainfall, employees in the Impact Plastics factory in Erwin, a small community in rural Tennessee, kept working. Several asserted that they weren't allowed to leave in time to avoid the storm's impact. It wasn't until water flooded into the parking lot and the power went out that the p...

  • Bertoletti, Sudo win top dog honors at Nathan's Famous power-eating contest, absent longtime champ

    SUSAN HAIGH and CEDAR ATTANASIO|Jul 5, 2024

    NEW YORK (AP) — Patrick Bertoletti gobbled up 58 hot dogs to win his first men's title Thursday at the annual Nathan's Famous Fourth of July hot dog eating contest, taking advantage of the absence of the event's biggest star. In the women's competition, defending champion Miki Sudo won her 10th title and set a new world record by downing 51 links. Joey "Jaws" Chestnut, the reigning men's champion and winner of 16 out of 17 previous competitions, didn't attend this year over a sponsorship tiff. Instead he competed later in the day against four s...

  • Columbia University threatens to expel student protesters who occupied administration building

    CEDAR ATTANASIO and JAKE OFFENHARTZ|May 1, 2024

    NEW YORK (AP) — Dozens of protesters took over a building at Columbia University in New York early Tuesday, barricading entrances and unfurling a Palestinian flag from a window in the latest escalation of demonstrations against the Israel-Hamas war on college campuses nationwide. The school promised they would face expulsion. The occupation at Columbia — where protesters shrugged off an ultimatum to abandon a tent encampment Monday or be suspended — unfolded as other universities stepped up efforts to clear out encampments. Police swept throu...

  • Columbia University begins suspending Israel-Hamas war protesters after ultimatum to disband camp

    CEDAR ATTANASIO and JAKE OFFENHARTZ|Apr 26, 2024

    NEW YORK (AP) — Colleges around the U.S. implored pro-Palestinian student protesters to clear out tent encampments with rising levels of urgency Monday as police arrested more demonstrators at the University of Texas and Columbia University said it was beginning to suspend students who defied an ultimatum to disband the encampment there. Dozens of law enforcement officers, many in riot gear, confronted protesters who returned to the University of Texas at Austin on Monday. They quickly arrested six demonstrators and took others into custody one...

  • Strong wind gusts expected to fan wildfires in New Mexico

    CEDAR ATTANASIO and SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN|May 8, 2022

    LAS VEGAS, N.M. (AP) — Weather conditions described as potentially historic were on tap for New Mexico on Saturday and for the next several days as over 1,400 firefighters and a fleet of airplanes and helicopters worked feverishly to bolster lines around the largest fire burning in the U.S. Many families already have been left homeless and thousands of residents have evacuated due to flames that have charred large swaths of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in northeastern New Mexico. Residents on the fringes of the shifting fire front were holdin...

  • As wildfire closes in, New Mexico residents prepare to flee

    CEDAR ATTANASIO and SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN|May 1, 2022

    LAS VEGAS, N.M. (AP) — Wind-whipped flames raced across more of New Mexico's pine-covered mountainsides on Monday, closing in on a town of 13,000 people where some residents hurried to pack their cars with belongings, others hustled to clear brush from around their homes, and police were called in to help evacuate the state's psychiatric hospital. Firefighting crews battled on several fronts to keep the fire, the largest burning in the U.S., from pushing into more populated areas as it fed on the state's drought-parched landscape. The fire h...

  • Fires hit Southwest, New Mexico's season 'dangerously early'

    PAUL DAVENPORT and CEDAR ATTANASIO|Apr 24, 2022

    New Mexico faces a long and potentially devastating wildfire season, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said Saturday, as Southwestern wildfires cause destruction and force people from their homes. Hundreds of structures were lost in a growing number of wind-driven blazes across drought-stricken New Mexico, Lujan Grisham said Saturday. Over 20 active wildfires were burning in at least 16 of the state's 33 counties, in the wake of winds that gusted up to 90 mph (145 kph) on Friday, Lujan said during a briefing streamed online. "So half the state has a...

  • Film crew voiced complaints before fatal on-set shooting

    MORGAN LEE and CEDAR ATTANASIO|Oct 24, 2021

    SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Alec Baldwin fatally shot a cinematographer on a New Mexico film set with a gun a crew member had assured the actor was safe, a tragic mistake that came hours after some workers walked off the job to protest conditions and production issues. An assistant director, Dave Halls, grabbed a prop gun off a cart at a desert movie ranch and handed it to Baldwin during a Thursday rehearsal for the Western film "Rust," according to court records made public Friday. "Cold gun," Halls yelled, declaring the weapon didn't carry live r...

  • Assistant director of Baldwin film fired after 2019 mishap

    MORGAN LEE and CEDAR ATTANASIO|Oct 24, 2021

    SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — The assistant director of the movie that Alec Baldwin was making when he fatally shot a cinematographer was fired from a previous job in 2019 after a gun went off on a set and slightly wounded a member of the film crew, a producer said Monday. The disclosure emerged as producers of Baldwin's movie officially halted filming, and court records showed that investigators seized more than two dozen items from the set on the day after the shooting. In an email statement to The Associated Press, a producer for the movie "...

  • Summer camps return but with fewer campers and counselors

    CEDAR ATTANASIO and DAVID SHARP|Jun 11, 2021

    SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Overnight summer camps will be allowed in all 50 states this season, but COVID-19 rules and a pandemic labor crunch mean that many fewer young campers will attend, and those who do will have to observe coronavirus precautions for the second consecutive year. The Southeast is the first region to kick off camps this month, with other parts of the country to follow in July. "Camp might look a little different, but camp is going to look a lot better in 2021 than it did in 2020, when it didn't happen," said Matt Norman of A...

  • 'Godzilla' shark discovered in New Mexico gets formal name

    CEDAR ATTANASIO|Apr 16, 2021

    SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — The 300-million-year-old shark's teeth were the first sign that it might be a distinct species. The ancient chompers looked less like the spear-like rows of teeth of related species. They were squatter and shorter, less than an inch long, around 2 centimeters. "Great for grasping and crushing prey rather than piercing prey," said discoverer John-Paul Hodnett, who was a graduate student when he unearthed the first fossils of the shark at a dig east of Albuquerque in 2013. This week, Hodnett and a slew of other r...

  • New Mexico camp pauses plan to house migrant children

    CEDAR ATTANASIO|Mar 31, 2021

    SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — A private Christian camp in northern New Mexico won’t be hosting immigrant children from the U.S.-Mexico border for the foreseeable future, camp officials said Thursday. “At this point we’re not moving forward as an (Emergency Intake Site) location,” chief financial officer Patrick Price told The Associated Press. Earlier this week, a page on the Glorieta Camps website had stated that the organization was asked by the White House and U.S. Health and Human Services Department to house and feed potentially 2,400 unaccompa...

  • Some veteran teachers skip wave of pandemic-era retirements

    CEDAR ATTANASIO|Nov 8, 2020

    FARMINGTON, N.M. (AP) — At age 86, agriculture teacher Gerald Bonds, of Farmington, New Mexico, has seen plenty of crises during his career. He sees no reason to call it quits over the coronavirus pandemic. Bonds is in his 58th year of teaching at Farmington High School and, like most teachers in his state, has been instructing his students remotely — an arrangement he despises. "I hate it. I want to see the students face to face and talk to them," Bonds said in a video interview. Confronted with the technology headaches of distance lea...

  • US grants broadband licenses to Native American tribes

    CEDAR ATTANASIO|Oct 23, 2020

    SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — The Federal Communications Commission has granted broadcast licenses ideal for high-speed wireless internet to rural tribal governments in New Mexico, Arizona and elsewhere. The 2.5 GHz licenses have been granted to 154 Native American communities so far, the commission announced in a statement Friday. "Few communities face the digital connectivity challenges faced by rural tribes. By prioritizing tribal access to this mid-band spectrum, we are ensuring that tribes can quickly access spectrum to connect their schools, h...

  • Schools allege overreach by New Mexico education secretary

    CEDAR ATTANASIO|Oct 9, 2020

    SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — A coalition of school districts is challenging the authority of Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham's education secretary to drastically limit in-person instruction, dictate COVID-19 testing procedures and ensure employment for school staff whether they return to work or not. A lawsuit filed Tuesday in state court asked a state judge to limit a litany of measures implemented during the pandemic, from mandating COVID-19 testing of staff to dictating how and when student lunches are distributed. "This is about local c...

  • El Paso shooting victim dies months later, death toll now 23

    Cedar Attanasio|Apr 26, 2020

    EL PASO, Teas (AP) — A man shot in the Aug. 3 attack targeting Hispanics in an El Paso Walmart died after months in the hospital, raising the death toll from the attack to 23, according to a hospital official. "After a nearly nine-month fight, our hearts are heavy as we report Guillermo 'Memo' Garcia, our last remaining patient being treated from the El Paso shooting, has passed away," said Del Sol Medical Center CEO David Shimp. Garcia and his wife Jessica Coca Garcia were fundraising for their daughter's soccer team in the Walmart parking l...

  • Snowfall blankets Texas, Oklahoma; Deep South to see storms

    Cedar Attanasio|Feb 7, 2020

    EL PASO, Texas (AP) — A powerful winter storm in the central United States dropped snow as far south as El Paso, Texas, on Wednesday while areas of the Deep South had severe weather through the night, including tornadoes and torrential rains. Winter storm warnings or advisories were in effect from northeastern Oklahoma to the Great North Woods of Maine, the National Weather Service said. Meanwhile, the Storm Prediction Center forecast storms with the potential of generating hail, 60 mph (95 kph) winds and twisters from Mississippi through A...

  • Snowfall blankets Texas, Oklahoma; Deep South to see storms

    Cedar Attanasio|Feb 6, 2020

    EL PASO, Texas (AP) — A powerful winter storm in the central United States dropped snow as far south as El Paso, Texas, on Wednesday while areas of the Deep South were at risk of severe weather including tornadoes and torrential rains, forecasters said. Winter storm warnings or advisories were in effect from northeastern Oklahoma to the Great North Woods of Maine Wednesday evening, the National Weather Service said. Meanwhile, the Storm Prediction Center said storms that could generate hail, 60 mph (95 kph) winds and twisters were possible a...

  • Mexicans fleeing violence form new encampment on border

    Cedar Attanasio|Dec 6, 2019

    CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (AP) — An exodus of migrants fleeing drug cartel violence and corruption in Mexico has mired hundreds of immigrants in ramshackle tent camps across the border from El Paso and brought new chaos to a system of wait lists for asylum seekers to get into the U.S. Migrant tent camps have been growing in size at several border crossings in Ciudad Juarez, driven by a surge in asylum seekers from regions in southern Mexico gripped by cartel violence. One camp in Juarez is populated by about 250 Mexican asylum seekers, who are l...

  • Walmart hires off-duty officers ahead of El Paso reopening

    Cedar Attanasio|Nov 14, 2019

    EL PASO, Texas (AP) — Walmart has quietly hired off-duty officers at its stores in El Paso, Texas, where a gunman police say targeted Mexicans opened fire in a store in August and killed 22 people. Walmart plans Thursday to reopen the store where the attack happened and amid ongoing lawsuits over safety. Walmart didn’t have a guard in the store the day of the mass shooting. The reopening will happen unceremoniously, Walmart spokeswoman Delia Garcia said, and will follow a brief meeting with employees. She declined comment on security mea...

  • Indian asylum seeker released by US after hunger strike

    Cedar Attanasio|Sep 27, 2019

    EL PASO, Texas (AP) — An Indian immigrant who lost a third of his weight during a 70-day hunger strike over the rejection of his asylum claim won temporary release Thursday after a year in U.S. detention. Ajay Kumar, 33, bowed with his hands clasped together in a traditional Indian greeting as he walked away from a detainee processing center in El Paso, Texas, with a tracking device around his ankle — a condition of his release. He was accompanied by human rights activists, who had been galvanized by medical personnel force-feeding him. The...

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