Gas price rises in US

Gas price rises in US

CAMARILLO, Calif.

The average U.S. price of regular-grade gasoline shot up 8 cents a gallon over the past two weeks to $2.74.

Industry analyst Trilby Lundberg said Sunday the increase was driven primarily by rising crude oil prices.

The current gas price is 30 cents above where it was a year ago.

The highest average price in the contiguous 48 states was $3.63 in the San Francisco Bay area. The lowest was $2.37 in Baton Rouge, La.

Syrian news reports missile attack; US denies it fired them

BEirut

Missiles struck an air base in central Syria early today, its state-run news agency reported. Although the agency said it was likely “an American aggression,” U.S. officials said the U.S. had not launched airstrikes on Syria.

The missile attack followed a suspected poison gas attack Saturday on the last remaining foothold for the Syrian opposition in the eastern suburbs of Damascus. At least 40 people were killed, including families found in their homes and shelters, opposition activists and local rescuers said.

SANA reported that the missile attack on the T4 military air base in Homs province resulted in casualties.

Earlier, President Donald Trump had promised a “big price to pay” for the suspected chemical attack. After the airstrikes were reported, however, Pentagon spokesman Christopher Sherwood said, “At this time, the Department of Defense is not conducting airstrikes in Syria.”

The U.S. launched several Tomahawk cruise missiles at a Syrian air base last year after a chemical attack in the northern Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun killed dozens of people.

The suspected poison gas attack Saturday came almost exactly a year after the U.S. missile attack prompted by the Khan Sheikhoun deaths.

Trump once fought sprinkler measure

NEW YORK

The 50th-floor apartment in Trump Tower where a man was killed in a raging fire did not have sprinklers – a requirement Donald Trump once fought as a powerful real-estate developer.

Todd Brassner, 67, died at a hospital Saturday after a fire ripped through his apartment in the high-rise, which opened in 1983 at a time when building codes did not require the residential section to have sprinklers.

Subsequent updates to the codes required commercial skyscrapers to install sprinklers retroactively, but owners of older residential high-rises are not required to install them unless the building undergoes major renovations.

Some fire-safety advocates sought a requirement that older apartment buildings be retrofitted with sprinklers when the city passed a law requiring them in new residential high-rises in 1999, but officials in the administration of then-mayor Rudolph Giuliani said that would be too expensive. Trump was among the developers who spoke out against the retrofitting as unnecessary and expensive.

He later changed his views, saying sprinklers made tenants feel safer.

Cocaine in purse? Woman blames wind

FORT PIERCE, Fla.

Authorities say a Florida woman is blaming a windy day for the cocaine that police found in her purse.

WPLG reported Kennecia Posey was one of two passengers in a car stopped by Fort Pierce police in late March. Police say an officer smelled marijuana and that, after searching the car, cocaine and marijuana in separate bags were found inside a purse Posey had on her lap.

Authorities questioned Posey about the drugs. According to the police report, Posey said: “It’s a windy day. It must have flown through the window and into my purse.”

Posey was charged with a felony count of cocaine possession and a misdemeanor count of marijuana possession.

Associated Press