Articles written by Wayne Parry


Sorted by date  Results 1 - 25 of 29

  • Baby cousin with cancer inspires girls to sew hospital gowns for sick kids across U.S. and Africa

    WAYNE PARRY|Jun 26, 2024

    FREEHOLD, N.J. (AP) — Fighting brain cancer, little Giada Demma was lying in her pediatric hospital bed, her tiny body virtually swimming in a drab green hospital gown. Her cousin Giuliana Demma remembers looking at the 1-year-old and thinking how sad the scene was: a small child awash in an ugly gown several sizes too big for her. "I thought to myself,' 'Why does she have to wear this? Why can't she wear something nicer?'" Giuliana said. Inspired by that moment, Giuliana Demma, 13, and her 11-year-old sister Audrina have sewn and donated m...

  • Voodoo doll, whoopie cushion, denture powder among bizarre trash plucked from New Jersey beaches

    WAYNE PARRY|Apr 5, 2024

    BRICK, N.J. (AP) — Jersey Shore beach season is almost here, and if last year is any indication, it will soon be time to pack the voodoo dolls, whoopie cushions, zip ties and denture powder. Those were just a few of the bizarre items plucked from the sands of New Jersey's beaches last year by volunteers with the Clean Ocean Action environmental group, according to a report the group released Thursday. Nearly 3,700 volunteers picked up and disposed of 176,206 items along the state's 127-mile (204 kilometer) coastline. Many were mundane and s...

  • Punxsutawney Phil, the spring-predicting groundhog, and wife Phyllis are parents of 2 babies

    WAYNE PARRY|Mar 29, 2024

    Now we know what Punxsutawney Phil, the groundhog who predicts whether an early spring will arrive each Feb. 2, does on the other 364 days. The Pennsylvania group that handles Phil, and his groundhog wife, Phyllis, says the couple have become parents. The Punxsutawney Groundhog Club said in a Facebook post Wednesday that Phyllis recently gave birth to two healthy babies. It did not specify their sex or give names for either one. "We're pleased to announce that Punxsutawney Phil has had his first children; we believe there are two baby...

  • Maple syrup from New Jersey: You got a problem with that?

    WAYNE PARRY|Mar 22, 2024

    GALLOWAY TOWNSHIP, N.J. (AP) — Welcome to New Jersey, known around the world for Tony Soprano, Turnpike tolls, chemical plants, and ... maple syrup? If a university in the southern part of the state has its way, the sticky sweet brown stuff you put on your pancakes might one day come from New Jersey. It's part of an effort to use a species of maple tree common to southern New Jersey that has only half as much sugar as the maples of Vermont, the nation's maple syrup capital. The idea is to see if a viable syrup industry can be created in a part...

  • Storm threatens snow in the Midwest, thunder in the South. Other parts of the US dig out

    JIM SALTER and WAYNE PARRY|Mar 22, 2024

    Snow, rain and gusting winds lashed a large swath of the Central U.S. on Monday, dashing spring hopes, as the South braced for thunderstorms and possible tornadoes and as the risk of wildfires in southern Texas reached critical levels. The storm hit with parts of the country still in recovery mode from their own severe weather, particularly in the Northeast. Tens of thousands of people still lacked power in Maine, where a storm coated parts of the state in thick ice. The new storm was expected to bring strong winds, sleet, freezing rain and...

  • The Super Bowl is expected to smash betting records. Nearly 68M US adults plan to wager

    WAYNE PARRY|Feb 7, 2024

    ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — Nearly 68 million American adults — about 1 in 4 — plan to bet on this year's Super Bowl, setting a record by a wide margin, according to the gambling industry's national trade association. Figures released Tuesday by the American Gaming Association include bets placed with legal outlets, as well as with illegal bookies and online operations in other countries. The volume of betting participation is projected to be 35% higher than last year, which was the previous record. Bettors plan to wager an estimated $23.1...

  • As US sports bets boom, internet gambling is slow to expand

    WAYNE PARRY|Apr 21, 2023

    ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — While two-thirds of the country now offers legal sports betting, only six states offer online casino gambling, confounding industry hopes that the rapid growth of sports betting would also bring internet casino wagering along with it. Speaking Wednesday at the East Coast Gaming Congress in Atlantic City, industry executives and legislators from gambling states offered various explanations for why internet gambling has yet to expand beyond a handful of eastern states. Internet gambling is legal in New Jersey, C...

  • Braces, sex pills, fake eyeball among bizarre NJ beach trash

    WAYNE PARRY|Mar 30, 2022

    LONG BRANCH, N.J. (AP) — Volunteers picked up a record amount of trash from New Jersey's beaches last year, with plastic items dominating the haul, and bizarre castoffs including male enhancement pills, a set of braces, a glow-in-the-dark condom and a Turkish Airlines hygiene kit found on the sand as well. The Clean Ocean Action coastal environmental group released its annual report Wednesday on the result of the prior year's beach sweeps. Over 10,000 volunteers picked up over half a million items along the state's 127-mile (204-kilometer) c...

  • Oh! Christmas tree? Cardboard display is the talk of a town

    WAYNE PARRY|Nov 28, 2021

    ASBURY PARK, N.J. (AP) — It has been called beautiful, awesome and brilliant, a transcendent work of art that reimagines the holiday experience with local touches of the Jersey Shore. It also has been called ridiculous, ugly and hideous, something akin to a pile of Amazon shipping boxes or a giant cat-scratching post. Good grief! A fresh-cut natural Christmas tree usually graces the Grand Arcade at Convention Hall on Asbury Park's historic boardwalk. But this year, in its place is art made of cardboard in the shape of a tree that also i...

  • Foes gear up for newest fight against NJ/NY gas pipeline

    WAYNE PARRY|Mar 31, 2021

    The seemingly never-ending fight over an Oklahoma company's plan to build a natural gas pipeline through New Jersey into New York is on again. Tulsa-based Williams Companies is asking federal regulators for a two-year extension to build its proposed Northeast Supply Enhancement Project, which has had a long and contentious regulatory history. In May 2019, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission authorized Williams to build the project by May 3, 2021. Last month, Williams asked the agency for a two-year extension for the project, which was...

  • Pizzeria borrows to keep workers on job, spurs donations

    Wayne Parry|Mar 29, 2020

    BELMAR, N.J. (AP) — This is a story about bosses and their workers, in the dark days of COVID-19. It's also a story about how one good turn deserves another and yet another. And this being New Jersey, it's also a story about pizza. Bryan Morin and his brother Michael operate Federico's Pizza in this Jersey Shore town. In the summer, they deliver cheese steak pizzas and 12-inch subs and garlic knots directly to the beach, a few blocks away. In winter, customers flock to the cozy, black-and-white tiled restaurant on Main Street. But across the o...

  • Wanna cover Miss America? Buy a ticket, 3 media outlets told

    Wayne Parry|Dec 8, 2019

    ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — The Miss America Organization has denied credentials to at least three media outlets seeking to cover this year's competition, including its longtime hometown newspaper, The Press of Atlantic City. Others who received denials in recent days include The Washington Post and Bravura, a lifestyle magazine. No reasons were given for the denials, which were communicated by email to the media outlets. The emails also suggested representatives of affected outlets attend events that are open to the public. In a statement, t...

  • Shell shock: Giant invasive mussels eradicated from US ponds

    Wayne Parry|Nov 29, 2019

    FRANKLIN TOWNSHIP, N.J. (AP) — Most Americans know mussels as thumb-sized shellfish that occasionally adorn restaurant dinner plates. But a colony of mussels as big as the dinner plates themselves has recently been wiped out from a New Jersey pond, where they had threatened to spread to the nearby Delaware River and wreak ecological havoc, as they already are doing in other parts of the world. Federal wildlife officials and a New Jersey conservation group say they're confident they have narrowly avoided a serious environmental problem by e...

  • NJ will trap turkeys troubling Jersey Shore neighborhood

    Wayne Parry|Nov 14, 2019

    TOMS RIVER, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey has drumsticked up a plan to deal with flocks of wild turkeys that are ruffling some feathers in a Jersey Shore neighborhood. And it doesn’t involve them winding up on dinner plates in two weeks. The state Department of Environmental Protection will trap scores of turkeys that have descended on a retirement community in Toms River and relocate them. The move comes as some residents say large flocks of turkeys have invaded the area, pecking at cars, and at some people who venture too close. “I had a small...

  • Firm revokes application to build pipeline, but will refile

    Wayne Parry|Oct 25, 2019

    MIDDLETOWN, N.J. (AP) — It will be a while longer before a hotly contested natural gas pipeline gets a yes-or-no decision from New Jersey environmental regulators. An Oklahoma company on Friday withdrew permit applications with New Jersey regulators that it needs to build a pipeline from Pennsylvania through New Jersey and into New York. But Tulsa-based Williams Companies said it will refile the applications in the next few days. The company's Northeast Supply Enhancement Project would expand the existing Transco pipeline infrastructure in N...

  • 'A floodier future': Scientists say records will be broken

    Wayne Parry|Jul 11, 2019

    ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — The federal government is warning Americans to brace for a "floodier" future. Government scientists predict 40 places in the U.S. will experience higher than normal rates of so-called sunny day flooding this year because of rising sea levels and an abnormal El Nino weather system. A report released Wednesday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts that sunny day flooding, also known as tidal flooding, will continue to increase. "The future is already here, a floodier future," said William Sweet...

  • Firm to reapply for permits to build northeast gas pipeline

    Wayne Parry|Jun 7, 2019

    MIDDLETOWN, N.J. (AP) — An Oklahoma company says it will reapply to build a hotly contested pipeline that would carry natural gas from Pennsylvania through New Jersey, and under a bay and the ocean to New York. Tulsa-based Williams Companies says it will reapply for key environmental permits that were rejected Wednesday night by New Jersey regulators. The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection rejected the permits without prejudice, meaning the company can reapply. On Thursday morning, the company said it would do just that. "We a...

  • Brother charged with family mansion deaths, fire

    Wayne Parry|Nov 30, 2018

    FREEHOLD, N.J. (AP) — A New Jersey technology executive was charged Thursday with killing his brother and the brother's family over a business dispute, and then setting fire to their mansion and his own house in an attempt to cover up the crimes. Paul Caneiro, 51, was charged with four counts of murder, as well as arson and two weapons violations, in the death of his 50-year-old brother, Keith, along with Keith's wife, Jennifer, and their two children, at their Colts Neck estate, about 50 miles south of New York City. They were shot, stabbed o...

  • 4 in New Jersey mansion fire killed by 'homicidal violence'

    Wayne Parry|Nov 22, 2018

    COLTS NECK, N.J. (AP) — A family of four whose remains were found at the burned-down ruins of their New Jersey mansion was slain before the home was set ablaze, authorities said Wednesday, hours after the mansion owner's brother was arrested on suspicion of arson at his own house. Prosecutors sought to reassure the public that a random killer was not on the loose in the affluent community of Colts Neck, which is also home to some celebrities. "We believe that this family in some form or fashion was targeted," Monmouth County Prosecutor C...

  • Miss America: Leadership bullied, manipulated, silenced me

    Wayne Parry|Aug 17, 2018

    ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — The reigning Miss America says she has been bullied, manipulated and silenced by the pageant's current leadership, including Gretchen Carlson. In a letter sent Friday to former Miss Americas, Cara Mund says she decided to speak out despite the risk of punishment. Her letter is reminiscent of the movie "Mean Girls," in which characters Gretchen and Regina bully the heroine and make her life miserable. That's what happened to her in real life, Mund wrote. Gretchen Carlson is chairwoman of the Miss America O...

  • Report: US high-tide flooding twice what it was 30 years ago

    Wayne Parry|Jun 7, 2018

    ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — A new report finds that high-tide flooding is happening across the United States at twice the rate it was just 30 years ago and predicts records for such flooding will continue to be broken for decades as sea levels rise. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Wednesday that high-tide flooding, sometimes called sunny-day or "nuisance flooding," tied or set records last year in more than a quarter of the 98 places the agency monitors around the country. The report found Sabine Pass, Texas, had 23 d...

  • Miss America drops swimsuit portion and won't judge on looks

    Wayne Parry|Jun 6, 2018

    ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — When the Miss America pageant started in 1921, having young women parade around in bathing suits seemed like a great way to get tourists to come to the Atlantic City Boardwalk after Labor Day. But how America views women has changed drastically since then, and the Miss America Organization is run by women who don't think it's such a hot idea. Accordingly, when the pageant is held this September, nearly a year into the #MeToo era, it will no longer have a swimsuit competition. "We're not going to judge you on your a...

  • Jersey man joins internet gambling, wins $194K on 1st spin

    WAYNE PARRY|Mar 29, 2018

    ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — A New Jersey man who signed up for internet gambling has won nearly $194,000 on his very first spin of an online slots game. Anibal Lopes, of Woodbridge, said he was bored after work Monday night, so he created an account on the playsugarhouse.com website on his smartphone. Choosing a slots game called Divine Fortune, the 33-year-old won its Mega Jackpot on his very first spin. "I thought, 'This is not happening,' " he said. "I couldn't believe I won that much money. I told my wife: 'I don't feel well. My legs are s...

  • New Jersey recalls med waste harm in opposing oil drilling

    WAYNE PARRY|Jan 5, 2018

    New Jersey fears the damage from an offshore oil spill would be much worse than the hit its tourism economy took from a spate of medical waste wash-ups in the 1980s. Incoming Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy, who made opposing many of President Trump's policies a cornerstone of his campaign, pledged Friday to help lead opposition to the Republican president's plan to open nearly the entire U.S. coastlines to drilling. He appeared at a news conference at a popular oceanfront restaurant in Long Branch with fellow Democrats U.S. Sen Bob Menendez and...

  • 3 Miss America officials resign, 1 apologizes to ex-winner

    WAYNE PARRY|Dec 24, 2017

    ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — The top leadership of the Miss America Organization, implicated in an email scandal that targeted past pageant winners for abuse based on their appearance, intellect and sex lives, resigned on Saturday, with the outgoing president apologizing to a winner whose weight he ridiculed. The president, Josh Randle, told The Associated Press his comment responding to an email to his private account about the physical appearance of 2013 winner Mallory Hagan came months before he started working for the Miss America O...

Page Down

Rendered 11/13/2024 01:25