PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Federal workplace safety regulators have proposed fining Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus $7,000 for an accident during a hair-hanging stunt that seriously injured eight acrobats in Rhode Island.

The proposed fine announced Tuesday by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is the maximum allowed by law.

The acrobats were injured May 4 when a carabiner clip snapped, sending them plummeting 15 feet to the floor. A ninth worker, on the ground, was also hurt.

OSHA says the carabiner was overloaded in violation of industry practice and manufacturer instructions.

The circus’ parent company has 15 days to either pay the fine or contest it.

A spokesman says the circus disagrees with some of OSHA’s findings and has not yet decided whether to appeal.

NEW YORK (AP) — Sting, Idina Menzel and the cast of “Sesame Street” will be among the stars celebrating at Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Macy’s announced Monday that Kiss, Meghan Trainor, Quvenzhane Wallis and Renee Fleming also will be part of the lineup on Nov. 27.

The special will air at 9 a.m. EST on NBC. Macy’s says more than 8,000 people will participate in the event.

Philadelphia’s Taney Dragons will kick off the march with its star pitcher, 13-year-old Mo’ne Davis.

Latin superstar Romeo Santos, Nick Jonas, Miss USA 2014 Nia Sanchez and former NHL players John LeClair and Pat LaFontaine also will take part.

The cast of the “Today” show will host the three-hour broadcast of the 88th annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

WORCESTER, Mass. (AP) — The Massachusetts man suspected of raping a 13-year-old girl, then going on a cross-country crime spree after cutting off his court-ordered monitoring device, has been held without bail.

Gregory Lewis pleaded not guilty Monday to 17 charges connected to the alleged rape and an alleged attack on his stepfather.

He was held pending a hearing scheduled for Nov. 10 to determine whether he’s a danger to society.

His court-appointed attorney had no comment.

Authorities say the 26-year-old Lewis, of Southbridge, spent six weeks on the run after snipping off the GPS monitoring device when he was arraigned in August on charges that included statutory rape of a child.

Authorities say he committed a string of crimes in multiple states before he was captured Oct. 28 in upstate New York.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A spokesman for a terminally ill Oregon woman says she has taken lethal medication prescribed by a doctor and died.

Sean Crowley, spokesman from the group Compassion & Choices, said late Sunday that Brittany Maynard was surrounded by family Saturday when she took the medication. She was weeks shy of her 30th birthday.

Maynard had incurable brain cancer. She said she wasn’t suicidal but wanted to die on her own terms. She moved to Portland from California, a state that does not have aid-in-dying laws.

She became an advocate for Compassion & Choices, which seeks to expand the laws beyond a handful of states.

More than 750 people in Oregon have died using the law since 1998. The state does not track how many of them moved from another state.

Oregon voters approved the Death with Dignity Act in 1994, but opponents persuaded a federal judge to issue an injunction temporarily blocking the law. Voters in November 1997 overwhelmingly reaffirmed the nation’s first aid-in-dying law and it’s been in place ever since.

According to state statistics compiled through Dec. 31, 2013:

— People who have used the law since late 1997: 752 (396 men, 356 women)

— People younger than 35 who have used the law: 6

— Median age of the deceased: 71

— Percentage of the deceased who were white: 97

— Percentage who had at least some college: 72

— Percentage of patients who informed relatives of their decision: 94

— Percentage of patients who died at a home: 95 percent

— Median minutes between ingestion of lethal drug and unconsciousness: 5

— Median minutes between ingestion and death: 25

— Number of terminally ill people who have moved to Oregon to die: unknown

CHICAGO (AP) — The tightrope is waiting for Nik Wallenda in Chicago.

The 35-year-old high-wire artist plans to perform two nail-biting walks that will be televised around the world Sunday.

The Discovery Channel will use a 10-second delay for the broadcast, allowing producers to cut away if Wallenda falls. He plans to perform the walks without a net or harness.

First, Wallenda will walk uphill at a 15-degree angle from the west Marina City tower to the top of a skyscraper on the other side of the Chicago River. Next, he’ll walk between the two Marina City towers wearing a blindfold.

Steven Dahlman lives in the east Marina City tower. He says his neighbors are a little worried, but excited to be “in the middle of a world event.”

MESA, Ariz. (AP) — An Arizona woman is searching for her wedding ring after she says she accidentally gave it away with Halloween candy.

Mesa resident Brooklin Yazzie says she mistakenly handed out the ring Friday during a mix-up.

Yazzie says she placed her wedding ring in a candy jar while helping her daughters carve pumpkins, and when the night became hectic she absentmindedly dumped the contents of the jar into the candy bag.

She says there were also plastic rings inside the candy bag.

Yazzie says she is hoping someone has the ring because it isn’t worth much money but has more value to her.

UNION GROVE, Wis. (AP) — The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee is leading a new study on whether music can help dementia patients.

Similar studies will be done in Utah and Ohio on the Music and Memory program, which is in hundreds of nursing homes across the U.S. and Canada. The study in Wisconsin is the largest in the program.

Researchers are monitoring the responses of 1,500 Alzheimer’s and dementia patients who were given iPods at Wisconsin nursing homes through the program.

Their mental state will then be compared to the same number of people in 100 other nursing homes who haven’t received iPods.

Program founder Dan Cohen says he hopes the study will inform the health care system, but also encourage families and friends to visit dementia patients more often.

FORT KENT, Maine (AP) — All but daring Maine health authorities to go to court to have her confined, nurse Kaci Hickox went out on a bike ride Thursday in defiance of the state’s voluntary quarantine for medical workers who have treated Ebola patients.

It was the second time in two days that she left her home in remote northern Maine, along the Canadian border. On Wednesday evening, Hickox came out and briefly spoke to reporters, even shaking a hand that was offered to her.

State officials planned to go to court Thursday to have her confined against her will in what is shaping up as the nation’s biggest test case yet in the struggle to balance public health and fear of Ebola against personal freedom.

Hickox, 33, told reporters that she hoped for a compromise with health officials, but her actions indicated she had no intention of remaining in isolation for the remainder of the 21-day incubation period for Ebola that ends on Nov. 10.

“I really hope that we can work things out amicably and continue to negotiate,” she said as she and her boyfriend rode on a dirt path in this town of 4,300 people.

A state police cruiser followed Hickox on her hour-long bike ride, but police could not take action to detain her without a court order signed by a judge.

After returning from Africa, where she treated Ebola victims in Sierra Leone, Hickox stepped into the media glare last week when she became subject to a mandatory quarantine in New Jersey.

After being released from a hospital there, she returned to this small town, where she was placed under what Maine authorities called a voluntary quarantine.

She said she is following the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendation of daily monitoring for fever and other signs of the disease. But she said she is no threat to others because she has no symptoms.

“I’m not willing to stand here and let my civil rights be violated when it’s not science-based,” she said Wednesday evening.

States have broad authority under long-established law to quarantine people to prevent the spread of disease. But legal experts said there are differences here that could work in Hickox’s favor in court: People infected with Ebola are not contagious until they have symptoms, and the virus is not spread through casual contact.

In Hickox’s case, she has tested negative for Ebola so far. But it can take days for the virus to reach detectable levels.

CANADENSIS, Pa. (AP) — There won’t be any trick-or-treating in the northeastern Pennsylvania area where authorities continue searching for suspect accused of killing a state trooper.

Officials in rural Barrett Township canceled the beloved Halloween ritual and the annual parade because of the police manhunt for Eric Frein (freen).

But kids did get to “trunk or treat” over the weekend. The event held at a school parking lot included candy, a costume contest and car trunks decorated for the spooky holiday.

Organizers called it a success, saying hundreds of children and adults attended. Still, Halloween parade chairwoman Betty Oppelt says the community is missing a major tradition this year.

Frein is charged with opening fire outside the Blooming Grove barracks on Sept. 12, killing Trooper Bryon Dickson and seriously wounding Trooper Alex Douglass.

 

GORHAM, Maine (AP) — Police say a Maine woman who was pulled over while wearing a Hello Kitty costume was arrested on a drunken driving charge.

Gorham police say officers stopped 37-year-old Carrie Gipson, of Westbrook, at about 2 a.m. Sunday because she driving in the wrong lane.

They say she refused to take a breath test and was arrested for operating under the influence. She was taken to the Cumberland County jail.

Her police mugshot shows her wearing a red and white Hello Kitty costume, minus the doll’s mammoth head.

There was no immediate response to a phone message left by The Associated Press at a residence believed to be Gipson’s.