National News

Mark Twain’s 180th birthday to be celebrated in Hannibal

HANNIBAL, Mo. (AP) — Mark Twain's 180th birthday is being celebrated this weekend in his boyhood hometown. The Hannibal Courier-Post reports that a mustache competition and a masquerade mask art show are among the activities planned for Saturday at the Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum. The attraction is located in the northeast Missouri town…
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Meet John Howland, a lucky Pilgrim, and maybe your ancestor

BOSTON (AP) — As Americans sit down for Thanksgiving dinner, they should give thanks to one of the original Pilgrims for their very existence. John Howland may not be as famous as William Bradford, John Carver or Myles Standish, yet he probably had a greater impact. And he almost never made it. Howland fell off…
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Obama: No credible intelligence about plot against US

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama says there's currently no specific, credible intelligence that would indicate a potential terrorist plot in the U.S. during the holidays. Obama says his administration is taking "every possible step" to keep the country safe. He says that if there were to be a credible threat, the public will be…
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Rubio finesses abortion stance criticized by Democrats

WASHINGTON (AP) - When Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio staked out a hard-line position on abortion in the first GOP debate, Hillary Rodham Clinton took notice. The Democratic front-runner quickly blasted Rubio's assertion that he did not support abortion exceptions for victims of rape and incest as "offensive and troubling." At Clinton's Brooklyn campaign headquarters,…
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EPA nixes approval of new weed killer for engineered crops

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Environmental Protection Agency has withdrawn approval of a controversial new weed killer to be used on genetically modified corn and soybeans. The EPA announced the decision after receiving new information from manufacturer Dow AgroSciences that a weed killer called Enlist Duo, a combination of two popular older herbicides, is probably more…
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