New Yorkers savor big sodas, the target of a city ban

For two days John McCain and Ted Cruz have been fighting on the Senate floor over the rules for negotiating a budget, but, like so many fights, it's also about so much more. Cruz is being annoying about the budget, but worse, he just doesn't get the Senate. 

By Chris Francescani NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. actress Amanda Bynes was arrested in New York City on Thursday after she allegedly threw a bong out the window of a midtown Manhattan apartment building, a police official said. New York police received a call on Thursday night from an employee at the 47th Street high-rise building where Bynes lives, said NYPD spokesman Detective Brian Sessa. The employee reported that someone was smoking marijuana in the lobby. When police arrived, they were directed to Bynes' apartment, where the actress invited police in, Sessa said. ...

At first I thought the IRS scandal was leaked to distract from the Benghazi scandal. But that didn't make sense because the IRS scandal is a more obvious abuse of power than the White House lying about the murder of four Americans in Libya.Before I had resolved which scandal was distracting from which, we found out the Department of Justice was spying on The Associated Press -- not to protect national security, but to prevent the AP from scooping the White House. Then, this week, it broke that the Department of Justice was also spying on Fox News for reasons that remain unexplained. ...

DEAR ABBY: My husband and I attended the wedding of the son of some old friends in another state. Rather than buy the young couple a gift, we instead gave them a check for $1,000. Imagine our astonishment when a month later the following arrived in our mailbox:"Dear 'Loretta' and 'Evan,'"Thank you for the generous donation. We really enjoyed spending that money. If ever you feel like you have too much of it, we would gladly take it off your hands."Love, 'Mason' and 'Candace'"Abby, my husband and I have worked hard for many years in our business and have been blessed by the Lord. ...

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — A prosecutor says a woman on trial in Tucson contaminated her hospitalized infant daughter's intravenous lines in an attempt to get attention from the girl's father.

May 24 (Reuters) - Former Giro d'Italia winner Danilo Di Luca has been provisionally suspended after testing positive for the banned blood booster erythropoietin (EPO), the International Cycling Union (UCI) said on Friday. Italian Di Luca, who had a previous positive for the same banned substance in 2009, failed an out-of-competition test taken on April 29 at his home, five days before the start of this year's Giro. The 37-year-old Di Luca, who joined the Vini-Fantini team last month, won the Liege-Bastogne-Liege classic and the Giro in 2007. ...