Report: 5 rockets hit near U.S. Embassy in Iraqi capital
Five Katyusha rockets were fired Sunday night at the heavily fortified Green Zone at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad but did not cause any injuries or serious damage U.S. Joint Operations Command said in a statement. The Associated Press reported that one rocket landed inside the embassy walls. The State...
Report: John Bolton says Trump tied Ukraine funds to Biden probe
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump told his national security adviser he wanted to maintain a freeze on military assistance to Ukraine until it launched political investigations into his Democratic rivals, according to a report in The New York Times on Sunday. The newspaper said John Bolton’s description of his exchange...
Kobe Bryant crash: A boom, then a huge fireball. ‘No one could survive that’Video
CALABASAS, Calif. — Jerry Kocharian, 62, was standing outside the Church in the Canyon drinking coffee when he heard a helicopter flying unusually low and seeming to struggle. “It wasn’t sounding right, and it was real low,” Kocharian said. “I saw it falling and spluttering. But it was hard to...
Suspect in custody in fast-food restaurant robbery, slaying near Edinboro
EDINBORO — A suspect is behind bars in the shooting death of an employee during an attempted robbery of a fast-food restaurant in northwestern Pennsylvania during the weekend, state police said. Officers were called to a Wendy’s in Washington Township near Edinboro shortly after 2 p.m. Saturday and found an...
Who can topple Trump? Dems’ electability fight rages in Iowa
DES MOINES, Iowa — The urgent fight for the Democratic presidential nomination was raging across Iowa on Sunday as the party’s leading candidates and their allies fanned out across the state to deliver closing arguments centered on the defining question of the 2020 primary: Who is best positioned to defeat...
Defense resumes in key impeachment week; Dems seek witnesses
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial enters a pivotal week as his defense team resumes its case and senators face a critical vote on whether to hear witnesses or proceed directly to a vote that is widely expected to end in his acquittal. The articles of impeachment charge Trump...
Trump peace plan could boost embattled Israeli leader
JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu headed to Washington on Sunday vowing to “make history” as he prepared to meet President Donald Trump for the unveiling of the U.S. administration’s much-anticipated plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But the high-profile meeting in Washington looks set to serve mostly as...
Trump suggests Adam Schiff ‘has not paid the price’ for prosecuting impeachmentVideo
President Donald Trump lashed out at Rep. Adam Schiff in a series of tweets on Sunday, saying the California Democrat has “not paid the price, yet” for his role in the impeachment process, a statement Schiff said he viewed as a threat. “Shifty Adam Schiff is a CORRUPT POLITICIAN, and...
Arizona, California cases push U.S. tally of new virus to 5
LOS ANGELES — The U.S. has five confirmed cases of the new virus from China, all among people who traveled to the city at the center of the outbreak, health officials said Sunday. Two new cases were reported Sunday — one in Los Angeles County in California and the other...
Herminie woman loved to nurture others
Nothing made Sara Heckman happier than taking care of someone else. First, it was her husband, John. Their children tell how the two married young — she as 16, he was 19. Then, there were her five children. Finally, there were her 12 grandchildren and five great grandchildren and the...
Pompeo lashes out at journalist; NPR defends its reporter
WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo lashed out in anger Saturday at an NPR reporter who accused him of shouting expletives at her after she asked him in an interview about Ukraine. In a direct and personal attack, America’s chief diplomat said the journalist had “lied” to him and...
General: U.S. committed to Syria fight; Missions up against IS
GREEN VILLAGE MILITARY OUTPOST — U.S. troops at military outposts ín eastern Syria asked variations of the same question to their top commander Saturday: What is our future here? What are the goals we need to think about? Gen. Frank McKenzie, the U.S Middle East commander, knows the future is...
Xi calls situation grave as China scrambles to contain virus
BEIJING — China’s leader on Saturday called the accelerating spread of a new virus a grave situation, as cities from the outbreak’s epicenter in central China to Hong Kong scrambled to contain an illness that has infected more than 1,200 people and killed 41. President Xi Jinping’s remarks, reported by...
Campaign crunch time forces progressives to eye private jets
DES MOINES, Iowa — Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have spent the past year courting the Democratic Party’s base with appeals to the working class and sweeping promises to curb climate change. But as they balance their responsibilities to participate in the Senate’s impeachment trial and rally voters on the...
Woman kills retired trooper, self at Chicago-area cigar bar
LISLE, Ill. — A woman fatally shot a retired Illinois State Police trooper and wounded another retired state trooper and an off-duty trooper Friday night before turning the gun on herself at a cigar lounge in the Chicago suburbs, police said. The shooting at the Humidor Cigar Lounge in Lisle...
Salma Hayek apologizes for praising controversial new novel
NEW YORK — Salma Hayek is apologizing for promoting a controversial new novel, Jeanine Cummins’ “American Dirt,” without actually reading it. “American Dirt,” published Tuesday, tells the story of a Mexican woman and her 8-year-old son fleeing to the U.S. border after numerous family members are murdered in drug cartel-related...
Rare copy of a Christopher Columbus letter stolen in Venice is recovered by authorities in Delaware
PHILADELPHIA — Sometime in the mid-1980s, someone made their way into the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana in Venice, Italy, and walked out with a 500-year old Latin copy of the first letter Christopher Columbus wrote to Ferdinand, King of Spain, describing the wonders he beheld in the Americas. This week, after...
Campaigning heats up in Iowa as caucus voting approaches
DES MOINES, Iowa — With President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial keeping them on Capitol Hill for part of Saturday, several Democratic candidates trying to oust him in November will challenge the reality that even would-be presidents can’t be in two places at once. Their method: flood the early nominating states...
Trump defends Sanders, stoking Democratic divisions
WASHINGTON — As tensions between Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren rose earlier this month, Sanders found himself with an unusual ally: President Donald Trump. During a raucous campaign rally in which Trump critiqued some of his Democratic challengers, the president launched into an unprompted defense of Sanders....
Trump lawyers argue Democrats just want to overturn election
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s lawyers plunged into his impeachment trial defense Saturday by accusing Democrats of striving to overturn the 2016 election, arguing that investigations of Trump’s dealings with Ukraine have not been a fact-finding mission but a politically motivated effort to drive him from the White House. “They’re...
Senate floor belongs to Trump team as defense case opens
WASHINGTON — The floor of the Senate now belongs to President Donald Trump’s lawyers as they push the Republican-led chamber for his impeachment acquittal on charges that he abused his power and obstructed Congress. The president’s lawyers planned to begin their arguments Saturday in the impeachment trial and were expected...
Jeff Sessions stresses Trump loyalty in Alabama Senate race
VESTAVIA HILLS, Ala. — Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, giving a recent campaign speech to a suburban Republican club, recalled his 2016 decision to endorse then-presidential candidate Donald Trump at a time when many party members were uncertain about the bellicose outsider. “‘Jeff, are you sure?’” he said, recalling questions...
Spacewalking astronauts plug leak, finish fixing cosmic ray detector
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Spacewalking astronauts plugged a leak in a cosmic ray detector outside the International Space Station on Saturday, completing a series of complex repairs to give the instrument new life. The $2 billion Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer could resume its hunt for elusive antimatter and dark matter by...
Woman charged with killing kids faced child-welfare scrutiny
PHOENIX — A woman charged with murder in the deaths of her three young kids in Phoenix was the subject of several home visits by police and child-welfare authorities when she previously lived in Oklahoma, according to police reports. The reports released Friday by police in Prague, Oklahoma, say a...
NYPD officer charged in the death of his 8-year-old son
CENTER MORICHES, N.Y. — A New York Police Department officer and his fiancee left the officer’s 8-year-old son in a garage overnight in freezing temperatures and then did nothing to help him as he died of hypothermia, prosecutors said Friday. “They evinced no regard for this child’s human life,” Suffolk...
