AP PA Headlines
MECHANICSBURG, Pa. (AP) — A nurse put her expertise to work over the weekend when she went into labor and delivered her own baby in her car outside the hospital where she’s employed. Katie Michael says her water broke during evening rush hour on Oct. 27. The Mechanicsburg couple says she knew the baby was going to be born in that car while they were on the way.
She’s a nurse at the Harrisburg hospital they were heading toward, and delivered the baby girl outside in her car while her husband George Michael ran inside for help. Katie Michael says she works in various specialties and units in the hospital, but can now add “Labor and Delivery” to her resume. The Michael family says baby Ella Katherine is happy and healthy.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The first new candy bar to carry the Hershey’s name in more than two decades is set to hit shelves next month. The Hershey, Pennsylvania-based candy maker says Hershey’s Gold will go on sale Dec. 1. It’s described as a caramelized cream bar embedded with salty peanut and pretzel bits. Hershey’s says the bar is a response to trends that it says show “the rising popularity of crunchy multi-textured candy.”
Hershey’s Gold will be the fourth bar for the brand and the first new one since Hershey’s Cookies ‘n Creme was introduced in 1995. The original Hershey’s bar was released in 1900 and was followed up by the special dark variety in 1939.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Philadelphia’s mayor is taking steps to have the city take control of the public school system after 16 years of state oversight. Mayor Jim Kenney said in a speech Thursday that it’s time for the city to be accountable for the education of its 200,000 schoolchildren. The governor, a fellow Democrat, supports local control. So, the commission that now governs the nation’s eighth-largest school system is expected to be dissolved by the end of the school year.
Philadelphia schools face a $100 million deficit in the next fiscal year. More than a third of the students have been siphoned off by charter schools, which get public funds. Kenney wants the city to cover the deficit and appoint school board members. He says mayoral control has benefited school districts in New York, Boston and Washington.
Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved
Features
NORTON, Mass. (AP) — Officials at a Massachusetts college are investigating after students said a female soccer player attended an on-campus Halloween party with darkened skin to portray a character from the movie “White Chicks.” The Sun Chronicle reports a photo taken Friday shows the woman with her skin darkened by makeup, a drawn-on goatee and a bald cap.
A Wheaton College spokesman called the costume “offensive and racist.” Officials at the college in Norton have met with students. The college’s Black Student Association is demanding campus-wide racial awareness training. Administrators say the student didn’t play in a soccer game this week but hasn’t been officially disciplined. In “White Chicks,” two black men disguise themselves as white women. Students say the soccer player was portraying a character played by Terry Crews
NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump returned to familiar territory by granting an interview Thursday to Laura Ingraham of Fox News Channel, by far his venue of choice when he chooses to answer questions one-on-one.
That makes 20 interviews he’s given to Fox as president, including three to the Fox Business Network and one to Fox Radio. It’s more than double the number of interviews he’s given to all other television networks combined, said Mark Knoller, CBS Radio White House correspondent, the press room’s unofficial record-keeper. NBC News, with three, is the next closest network. CNN, a frequent target of the president’s ire, has had none.
NEW YORK (AP) — Midway through a season remembered for its protests by some players during the national anthem as much as bone-crunching hits, viewership for NFL football games is down 5 percent from last year. The NFL has slowed a decline that was more pronounced in 2016, and the erosion is actually less than it is for other forms of television programming. Yet Wall Street analysts have noticed the trend and sports programmers are searching for reasons. The NFL’s aura of invincibility as an entertainment product has taken a hit.
“It’s certainly not cause for panic,” said Rick Gentile, a former CBS Sports executive and now a Seton Hall University professor, “but they like to keep going up.” The average NFL game this season has attracted 14.8 million viewers, down from 15.6 million at the same point last year, the Nielsen company said. The decline was 14 percent between the 2015 and 2016 mid-seasons, although more people returned when election year politicking left the airwaves.
BILLUND, Denmark (AP) — Lego is having a sleepover at its newly-opened Lego House in Denmark.
In a bid to revive flagging sales, the Danish toy company has teamed up with Airbnb to allow one family to stay the night at its new attraction — a 12,000 square-meter (129,167 square-feet) building filled with 25 million colorful plastic bricks.
There’s a parents’ bedroom that features a Lego cat, slippers, a coffee pot, and even a newspaper made from the bricks. In the children’s bedroom there’s a Lego teddy bear, lamp and story book. Towering above the child’s bed is a six-meter (20-foot) tall Lego brick waterfall, surrounded by a seemingly bottomless pool of — you guessed it — Lego bricks.
CYBERSPACE (AP) — A Twitter customer support worker who was on his or her last day on the job managed to do something that even President Donald Trump seemed able to do: curb his use of Twitter. Just before 7 p.m., word got out that Trump’s personal account was unavailable; users saw an error message saying the user “does not exist.” The account was restored by 7:03 p.m. Twitter later informed the world — via tweet, of course — that the account was “inadvertently deactivated due to human error.” Twitter says the worker was on the employee’s final day on the job.
SAUKVILLE, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin woman is facing charges after her 9-year-old son was tied to the roof of their minivan to help hold down a plastic pool. Prosecutors allege 28-year-old Amber Schmunk had her son hold down the molded pool they’d just purchased because it wouldn’t fit inside the van. WISN-TV reports a witness called police after seeing what was going on. Police documents allege that Schmunk told an officer she thought it was OK because her father allowed her to do similar things when she was young. She’s Schmunk is charged with recklessly endangering safety, which is a felony.
Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved
