SWITCH: Mobile | ePaper | Subscribe

Homes Rentals Jobs Autos Contests

Meghan Barr

(WILFREDO LEE/The Associated Press) A section of steel from the World Trade Center is shown on display at the Patriot Memorial, Sunday, Sept. 11, 2011 in Wellington, Fla. Hundreds of little memorials to Sept. 11 have bloomed across the country in the intervening years since the terror attacks. But in some towns like this one, what began as a simple tribute to the dead turned into an expensive headache as the cost of building the memorial kept rising and the economy deteriorated.

Small cities struggle to pay for 9/11 memorials

Last updated Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - 7:24am

The memorial started with a steel beam salvaged from the World Trade Center — a small piece of the terrorist attacks that the city of Pembroke Pines, Fla., was determined to honor in its own way.

Economy, September 11, Memorial, National Read more Comments

Stranded by trains, planes after Northeast storm

Chris Hawley, Meghan Barr, The Associated Press

Last updated Tuesday, December 28, 2010 - 10:56am

NEW YORK -- When Angela Madsen was pulled off her plane and her wheelchair stayed on board, she knew she was in for a rough night. The paraplegic athlete struggled to get into the bathrooms at Kennedy Airport. Turning the wheels on her borrowed wheelchair strained her shoulders. Sleeping was impossible.

"I actually got out of it and laid on the floor," Madsen said.

It was, she said, a miserable time -- one that was shared by millions of people on Monday, in travails big and small, serious and surreal, after the blizzard of December 2010 sucker-punched the northeastern U.S. during one of the busiest travel days of the year.

Air travel in the nation's busiest airspace nearly shut down, and thousands of stranded passengers turned terminals into open-air hotels while they waited for planes to take off and land on plowed runways. Flights slowly resumed, although experts said it would likely take several days to rebook all the displaced passengers.

Airline Travel, Storms, Weather, National Read more Comments

False alarm led to Ohio NASA lockdown

Meghan Barr, The Associated Press

Last updated Friday, November 5, 2010 - 11:27am

CLEVELAND -- A lockdown and reports of a gunman at a NASA research facility on Friday resulted from a false alarm, a misunderstood message sent during a test of the facility's automated emergency notification system, authorities said.

"There was not a shooting," said Lori Rachul, a NASA Glenn Research Center spokeswoman, adding that an employee thought there was.

False alarm, NASA, National Read more Comments

(The Associated Press) School buses are shown after being tossed by a tornado in the parking lot of damaged Lake High School in Lake Township, Ohio on Sunday.

Ohio tornado kills 7, wrecks cop cars, graduation

John Seewer, Meghan Barr The Associated Press

Last updated Sunday, June 6, 2010 - 9:56pm

SLIDESHOW: Midwest Storms

MILLBURY, Ohio -- A tornado unleashed a "war zone" of destruction in northwest Ohio, destroying dozens of homes and an emergency services building as a line of storms killed at least seven people and briefly threatened the Northeast on Sunday.

Weather, National Read more Comments

(The Associated Press) Students enter Hocking Heights residence hall at Hocking College Wednesday, in Nelsonville, Ohio. Two black students have withdrawn from the Ohio technical college and several others plan to miss class after a message scrawled in a dormitory bathroom made a racial threat. The message found Friday in a men's residence hall at Hocking College said black students would be killed on Feb. 2.

Racial threat puts Ohio college on alert, on edge

Meghan Barr The Associated Press

Last updated Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - 7:21pm

NELSONVILLE, Ohio -- An attacker could find many places to hide at Hocking College, a campus carved into a forest in the Appalachian foothills. And with the threat of a mass killing looming over black students at the community college, Allen Edwards is steering clear of the trees.

Crime, Safety, College Read more Comments

Snow pushes east after fatal course across Midwest

James MacPherson, Meghan Barr The Associated Press

Last updated Friday, January 8, 2010 - 1:56pm

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- A broad snowstorm pushed eastward early Friday ahead of a powerful cold front, complicating the morning rush and closing schools a day after contributing to a crash in Ohio that killed four people in a van carrying disabled adults.

Weather, National Read more Comments