The Blue Ridge Times

The blare of car horns still shows the support for picketing Verizon communications and electrical workers four weeks after they went on strike. A major sticking point: how to adjust to American households hanging up on landline service and going wireless. Long gone are the days of needing an extra landline in the house for dial-up internet service and more. “I remember the days of the teenager line. When as soon as someone reached a certain milestone age, say 15 or 16 and they got their own phone. Those days are gone at this point. It seems that people at a much younger age wind up getting a cell phone,” said Senior VP of National Operations Support for Verizon, Tom Maguire. A national study shows the percentage of households with landlines and no cell phone is shrinking while the percentage of wireless-only households is growing. Verizon says in the last five years, it lost nearly eight million landline customers, some to wireless, some to competition. “The unions are well a...

A week-long manhunt for a suspect who wounded an Illinois police officer ended Sunday in a shootout more than 200 miles south that wounded an FBI agent and left the suspect dead. Police in southern Illinois said that after the shootout, a police robot entered an abandoned house in near Eddyville, Ill., near the Kentucky border, and found the body of Darcy “Clint” Pendleton on the second story. Officials did not immediately say whether he was killed by police or himself. "Darcy Clint Pendleton is no longer a threat," Illinois State Police Captain Bill Sons told reporters Sunday afternoon. The manhunt began May 7, after Pendleton allegedly shot a police officer in the arm in Mahomet, Ill., near Champaign, during a traffic stop. Police said a fleeing Pendleton got an assault rifle from his home, stole a truck from a rock quarry and drove south into the Lusk Creek Wilderness area in southeast Missouri. The search focused on the Shawnee National Forest are...

The woman who went missing Friday from the Carnival Liberty cruise ship, had climbed up on a deck railing and fell backwards into the Gulf of Mexico, the cruise line said today. After Samantha Broberg, 33, was reported missing by her travel companions, a ship-wide search was conducted and the ships camera footage was reviewed, Carnival said. "Based on the video analysis, we can confirm that it appears she climbed up and sat on a deck railing and subsequently fell backwards," Carnival spokeswoman Jennifer De La Cruz said. Carnival Liberty departed from Galveston, Texas, on a four-day Mexico cruise on Thursday and is scheduled to return on Monday morning. Broberg had not been found as of midday Sunday, despite a search by the Coast Guard. The video shows that she fell into the Gulf of Mexico from the 10th deck of the ship at approximately 2 a.m. Friday, but the Coast Guard was not contacted until 5 p.m. Friday, when her disappearance had been confirmed. "Autho...

On Fox News Sunday, Reince Priebus promised that Donald Trump will “bring an earthquake to Washington.” At the least, he’s put the RNC chairman on shaky ground. Priebus, the top official in the Republican Party, has a conundrum. His party’s presumptive nominee is making it extremely hard for him to attack Hillary Clinton, as Priebus’s most recent Sunday morning TV tour made excruciatingly clear. For years, the Republican Party has been developing talking points and strategic attacks to use against Clinton. And one by one, Trump seems to be rendering them useless. Priebus’s walk of Sunday shame came in the wake of a brutal few days for Trump. The Washington Post  produced audio of Trump allegedly pretending to be his own PR flack, The New York Times  released a scorching report about Trump’s creepy and predatory treatment of pageant contestants and female employees. On top of that, Trump spent the week arguing that he doesn’t have a r...