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Donald Sterling hands control of L.A. Clippers to wife: source

Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling, banned from the NBA for racist remarks, has handed controlling interest in his team to his wife, the co-owner, and she is negotiating with the league to sell the club, a source with knowledge of the situation said on Friday. National Basketball Association Commissioner Adam Silver said this week he would prefer to let the Sterlings sell the team "on a reasonable timetable" rather than proceed with trying to forcibly terminate their ownership. Donald Sterling, controlling owner of the Clippers for 33 years, came under fire four weeks ago when TMZ.com posted an audio recording of him berating a female friend for publicly associating with black people, including NBA great Earvin "Magic" Johnson. His comments sparked widespread outrage from fans and NBA players and led several commercial sponsors to sever ties with the team. In response, Silver declared Sterling banned from the NBA for life and called on the 29 other tea

Warehouse of chemical company near Atlanta goes up in flames

Flames engulfed a warehouse outside of Atlanta late on Friday, prompting an evacuation of nearby businesses, but firefighters kept the blaze from spreading to other structures, and no injuries were reported, emergency management officials said. _0"> The fire erupted at about 8:30 p.m. local time in the warehouse of Amrep, a chemical supply company in a small industrial park off Cobb Parkway in Marietta, about 25 miles northwest of Atlanta, the state capital. A dispatcher for Cobb County emergency communications said there were no homes close enough to be threatened by the blaze and that despite the presence of some chemicals stored in the warehouse, the fire posed no environmental hazard to the area. Neel Patel, the night desk manager at the Sun Inn, a small hotel a quarter-mile southwest of the fire, told Reuters he saw flames shooting about 40 feet into the air from the fire, the biggest he has seen in 20 years of working in the area. "There were several large fire

California mother charged with stabbing three young daughters to death

A California mother was charged on Friday with first-degree murder in the stabbing deaths of her three daughters - all younger than 3 years of age - at their home in a working-class suburb of Los Angeles, prosecutors said. _0"> Carol Ann Coronado, 30, was arrested on Tuesday evening after police were called to the home by relatives who found her lying on a bed covered in blood beside the bodies of the three girls, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. Coronado, who also was charged with attempted murder of her own mother, was taken to a hospital after her arrest to be treated for self-inflicted stab wounds, the sheriff's office said. Authorities have not said if Coronado's mother was actually injured by her daughter and have revealed few other details except to say that the three girls were killed with a knife, and that they ranged in age from about 2 months to 3 years old. The Los Angeles Times, citing accounts of relatives, has reported t

Republican star Mia Love gets second chance to make political history

Utah's Mia Love, a Republican darling who could become the first conservative black woman elected to U.S. Congress, is getting a second, and likely better, chance to make history after narrowly losing to a popular incumbent Democrat in 2012. Love, 39, is a Mormon mother of three who is upending stereotypes about the state and its predominant faith. She locked up her party's nomination to vie for an open seat in Utah's 4th District at a state convention last month with an overwhelming 78 percent of the vote. The seat became available when Jim Matheson retired after seven terms in Congress as the heavily conservative state's lone Democrat in Washington. Two years ago, the politically savvy son of a beloved Utah governor beat Love by fewer than 800 votes.   true       If Love wins this time, she would become an unlikely champion in Washington of staunchly conservative views - limited government, fiscal discipline and state's rights. The daughter of Haitian immigra

Teen accused of killing Pennsylvania cabbie for taking long route

A teenager who thought a Pennsylvania taxi driver was taking a long route to charge him extra money has been accused of killing the cabbie, police said. _0"> Aazis Richardson, 16, was charged with murder and robbery after admitting the crime to police, according to a criminal complaint filed on Friday by the Scranton, Pennsylvania, police. Officers found the teen hiding in an attic with bloodstains on his jeans, according to the complaint. The body of Vincent Darbenzio, the driver, was found in his taxi with bullet wounds to his head, police said. He was discovered by a fellow driver who had become alarmed by Darbenzio's radio silence early on Friday morning. Police went to an address given to Darbenzio's dispatcher when the taxi was booked and found Richardson in the attic with a handgun believed used in the shooting, the complaint said. Richardson told police that Darbenzio had ignored his suggested short cuts. The teen "started to get mad and felt the cab

Obama pledges to uphold 'sacred trust' with U.S. veterans

At the end of a week rocked by allegations of mismanagement and cover-ups at the Department of Veterans Affairs, President class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Barack Obama used his weekly address on Saturday to vow again to make sure veterans get the necessary medical care. _0"> "Let's keep working to make sure that our country upholds our sacred trust to all who've served," Obama said in his address, which aired on Memorial Day holiday weekend, when Americans honor their war dead. "In recent weeks, we've seen again how much more our nation has to do to make sure all our veterans get the care they deserve," he said.   true       The VA said on Saturday it is taking steps nationally and locally to ensure veterans receive timely care, including providing access to private facilities when necessary. "Each of our facilities is either enhancing their clinic capacity to help veterans get care sooner, or where we cannot increase capacit

Gunman kills six in drive-by shooting in California college town

A gunman killed six people and wounded seven others in a drive-by shooting in a Southern California college town, spraying bullets from his car until it crashed and he was found dead inside, authorities said on Saturday. Authorities were investigating a possible link between the Friday night shooting in the town of Isla Vista near the campus of the University of California at Santa Barbara and a threatening video posted online. In the YouTube video, which Santa Barbara Sheriff Bill Brown said appears to have been made by the suspected gunman, a young man bitterly complains of loneliness and rejection by women and says he plans to kill people. Witnesses to the violence reported seeing someone driving a black BMW through the streets and shooting at people in Isla Vista, a beachside community where many college students live. "It's obviously the work of a madman," Brown told a news conference. "There's going to be a lot more information that will come out that