Cheryl K. Chumley

Islamic State touts $250M year-end budget surplus; opens bank

Terrorists with the Islamic State say that when 2015 wraps, they'll have an estimated $250 million left over from their $2 billion budget — and that the extra money will go to help fund their war against the West and western allies.

January 5, 2015

Sailor Gutzler, 7, tells rescuers: Maybe mom, dad ‘sleeping,’ not dead

Sailor Gutzler, the little 7-year-old sole survivor of the Kentucky plane crash, initially told emergency responders that she thought her parents, sister and cousin were dead — but that perhaps they were just "sleeping" among the wreckage, police said.

January 5, 2015

Ashraf Ghani, Afghanistan president: Obama should ‘re-examine’ withdrawal

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said during a televised interview that perhaps President Obama ought to think twice about withdrawing all troops from his country by 2016.

January 5, 2015

Ben Carson: It’s a ‘bunch of crap’ that Obamacare can’t be reworked

Noted conservative commentator and talked-about Republican presidential contender Ben Carson cut to the chase about the fate of Obamacare, saying there is absolutely no reason politicians can't unravel, reinvent or outright repeal the health care plan — and those who say otherwise are selling a lie.

January 2, 2015

‘Seinfeld’ makes splash as psychiatry professor’s teaching tool

"Seinfeld" — the long-running sitcom billed as being about nothing — has resurfaced at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital as a psychiatrist's teaching tool to help students identify certain disorders.

January 2, 2015

Paul Krugman, liberal columnist: ‘You have no idea which party I favor’

Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, one of the liberal world's most-noted columnists, nonetheless claimed that readers typically don't know who he supports in general elections — Republican versus Democrat — and that he was one of the only writers to maintain a journalistic level of skepticism about President Obama at a time when the left totally embraced him.

January 2, 2015

Selena Gomez angers Muslims with photo flash of ankle inside Abu Dhabi mosque

Muslims are up in arms over a photograph that singer and actress Selena Gomez posted — and shortly after removed — on her Instagram account of herself inside a mosque in Abu Dhabi, showing off her bare ankle.

January 2, 2015

South Africa’s partying parents leave 70 kids on beach: ‘What kind of parenting is this?’

Dozens of children were abandoned on the beaches of Cape Town, South Africa, during New Year's Eve celebrations that saw partying parents forget their responsibilities — and go home without their children.

January 2, 2015

Florida courthouses stop all weddings to avoid performing gay ceremonies

Several counties in Florida have put the kibosh on performing any weddings as a sort of duck and dodge against serving gays — the logic being that clerks with religious objections to homosexual marriage aren't breaking any laws if they don't offer services to anyone.

January 2, 2015

Christian Gomez accused of beheading mom in New Year’s attack

A Florida man, 23, has been arrested and charged with first-degree murder after his brother called 911 to report the beheading of their mother, police said.

January 2, 2015

U.S.-led coalition jets attack Islamic State stronghold in Syria

Coalition jets led by the U.S. military launched more than a dozen attacks on Islamic State stronghold areas in northeastern Syria overnight in what's being billed as response raids to the terror group's capture of a Jordanian pilot last month.

January 2, 2015

Mike Gravel, ex-Alaska senator, to lead up marijuana company Kush

Former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel, 84, is going into the marijuana business, announcing just this week that he's en route to taking over the leadership role in Kush, a company that creates and markets products from cannabis.

January 2, 2015

U.S. veteran: Going to Syria to fight ‘like booking flight to Miami Beach’

A U.S. military veteran known only as "John" said he was recruited to fight on the front Syrian lines against the Islamic State, and the whole process was about as easy as booking a flight to Florida for vacation.

January 2, 2015

Pope Francis’ New Year’s wish: ‘That there will never be more wars’

Pope Francis said his wish for the new year was clear and simple — that the world never see another war.

January 2, 2015

Robert De Niro urges gifts to slain policemen’s fund: ‘They’ve done their duty’

Hollywood bigwig Robert De Niro said New Yorkers and others ought to donate to the fund for family members of slain Officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos — it's an obligation, he said.

January 2, 2015

Marco Rubio guesses new sanctions on Iran are on the way

Sen. Marco Rubio said the New Year's new Republican majority in the Senate was more than likely to bring something else new: more sanctions on Iran.

December 31, 2014

Michigan university votes on ‘banished’ words: ‘Swag,’ ‘foodie,’ cra-cra,’ ‘hack’

Michigan's Lake Superior State University just released its list of overused and misused words, saying the likes of "polar vortex," "hack," and "skill set" ought to be outright banned from use.

December 31, 2014

Creationists reveal ‘Thank God for Freedom’ billboard to counter ‘intolerant liberals’

Those of faith have shelled out the money needed to rent billboard space in Times Square for a New Year's message aimed at who they've deemed the "intolerant liberals" — one that bluntly thanks God for America's freedoms.

December 31, 2014

GAO to feds: Bring your own plastic forks — taxpayers shouldn’t buy them

The U.S. Government Accountability Office sent a message to federal employees who brown-bag their lunches: Bring your own forks to eat with — it's not the taxpayer's job to provide them.

December 31, 2014

Jonathan Gruber in 2009: Obamacare’s unaffordable and that’s ‘a major issue’

Jonathan Gruber, the White House adviser infamously captured on video crediting Obamacare's passage to the "stupidity" of the American people, admitted in a 2009 policy brief that the health care package was unaffordable — and the way to trim costs was to make the insured pay for expensive treatments.

December 31, 2014