UN peacekeeper killed, 8 seriously injured in northern Mali attack
UNITED NATIONS — Attackers killed one U.N. peacekeeper and seriously injured eight others Friday in Mali’s northern Timbuktu region, an area where extremists continue to operate, the United Nations said. The peacekeepers, all from Burkina Faso, were part of a security patrol that was targeted first by an improvised explosive...
4 kids lost in the jungle for 40 days after plane crash found alive in Colombia
BOGOTA, Colombia — Colombian President Gustavo Petro said Friday that authorities found alive four children who survived a small plane crash 40 days ago and had been the subject of an intense search in the Amazon jungle that held Colombians on edge. The children were alone when searchers found them...
Pa. Turnpike to gradually eliminate paper towels at all 17 of its service plazas
The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission has a plan to become America’s First Sustainable Superhighway by 2040. “Protecting the environment through sustainability has been a guiding principle,” Mark Compton, CEO of the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission, said in a news release in April. As part of that plan, the turnpike plans to convert...
Beware of fake rental listing scams, Pa. Attorney General says
The Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office is warning of a growing number of scams in which fraudsters alter rental property listings to get personal information and money from their victims. In a warning issued this week, PA Attorney General Michelle Henry said that scammers are taking legitimate real estate listings but...
Judge in FTX bankruptcy rejects media challenge, says customer names can remain secret
DOVER, Del. — The names of individual customers of collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX Trading can be permanently shielded from public disclosure, a Delaware bankruptcy judge ruled Friday. Following a two-day hearing, Judge John Dorsey rejected arguments from lawyers for several media outlets and for the U.S. bankruptcy trustee, which serves...
DeSantis faces balancing act in backing Trump, experts say
ORLANDO, Fla. — Given the chance to pounce, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is instead backing his rival Donald Trump, accusing the U.S. Department of Justice of partisan bias in charging the former president. For political analysts, DeSantis’ unwillingness to attack Trump over his legal problems showcases the influence Trump retains...
Backlash prompts Bishop Zubik to cancel Mass planned in solidarity with LGBTQ+ community
A Sunday Mass at Duquesne University’s chapel that had been planned in solidarity with LGBTQ+ Catholics was canceled at the request of Pittsburgh Bishop David A. Zubik because of an angry backlash including threats, officials confirmed Friday. The Mass on the Catholic campus was arranged by Catholics for Change in...
Trump case assigned to judge who faced criticism over her ruling in his favor in Mar-a-Lago search
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The historic federal criminal case against former President Donald Trump has been assigned to a judge he appointed who faced blistering criticism over her decision to grant his request for an independent arbiter to review documents obtained during an FBI search of his Florida estate. A...
Donald Trump stored, showed off and refused to return classified documents, indictment says
MIAMI — Donald Trump improperly stored in his Florida estate sensitive documents on nuclear capabilities, repeatedly enlisted aides and lawyers to help him hide records demanded by investigators and cavalierly showed off a Pentagon “plan of attack” and classified map, according to a sweeping felony indictment that paints a damning...
Trump faces unprecedented legal peril, but will it hurt his standing with Republican voters?
DES MOINES, Iowa — In March, when Donald Trump became the first former president in U.S. history indicted on criminal charges, his reelection campaign saw a huge surge in donations. Even political rivals rushed to support him. There was no dent in his front-runner status after the state charges in...
Chief suspect in Natalee Holloway disappearance pleads not guilty to extortion charges
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Joran van der Sloot, the chief suspect in the 2005 disappearance of Natalee Holloway, pleaded not guilty on Friday to charges that he attempted to extort money from the missing teen’s mother. Van der Sloot was extradited to the United States on Thursday from Peru, where he...
Putin says Russian tactical nuclear weapons to be deployed to Belarus next month
MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that Moscow will deploy some of its tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus next month, a move that the Belarusian opposition described as an attempt to blackmail the West. Putin said during a meeting with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko that work on building...
Supreme Court sides with Jack Daniel’s in dispute with makers of dog toy
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday gave whiskey maker Jack Daniel’s reason to raise a glass, handing the company a new chance to win a trademark dispute with the makers of the Bad Spaniels dog toy. In announcing the decision for a unanimous court, Justice Elena Kagan was in...
Some in Georgia GOP seek purity test as Trump appears at convention
ATLANTA — Georgia’s state Republican convention gets underway Friday with Donald Trump still expected on Saturday, even as a right-wing party faction seeks to punish GOP officials it considers ideological traitors by banning them from future primary election ballots. Trump could feed an air of vengeance after announcing Thursday that...
France hails hero with a rucksack who intervened in knife attack on children
LE PECQ, France — The attacker slashed at the 24-year-old man with the knife that he used to savagely stab one young child after another. But rather than run, Henri held his ground — using a weighty backpack he was carrying to swing at the assailant and parry his blade....
A dam collapses and thousands face the deluge — often with no help — in Russian-occupied Ukraine
KYIV, Ukraine — For days, the Ukrainian teenager has waited in the attic, just down the street from the cemetery of her flooded town, marking time with her 83-year-old grandfather and two other elderly people and hoping for help to escape the deluge of a catastrophic dam collapse. But help...
Climate activist Greta Thunberg won’t be school striking after graduation but vows to still protest
STOCKHOLM — Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg said Friday she will no longer be able to skip classes as a way to draw attention to climate change because she is graduating from high school. Thunberg, 20, started staging Friday protests outside the Swedish parliament building during school hours in 2018....
In bold move challenging the United States, Cuba agrees to host a Chinese spy base
In a move underscoring its geopolitical ambitions in the Western Hemisphere, China is going to establish an espionage base in Cuba just 90 miles from Florida, for which the Chinese government will reportedly pay billions of dollars to the cash-strapped Caribbean nation. According to the Wall Street Journal, which first...
James Watt, sharp-tongued and pro-development Interior secretary under Reagan, dies at 85
CHEYENNE, Wyo. — James Watt, the Reagan administration’s sharp-tongued, pro-development interior secretary who was beloved by conservatives but ran afoul of environmentalists, Beach Boys fans and eventually the president, has died. He was 85. Watt died in Arizona on May 27, son Eric Watt said in a statement Thursday. In...
Trump indicted: What to know about the documents case and what’s next
Donald Trump’s indictment on 37 counts of mishandling classified documents at his Florida estate represents the most serious legal jeopardy so far for Trump, coming less than three months after he was charged in New York with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Here’s a look at the charges,...
Trump charged over classified documents in 1st federal indictment of an ex-presidentVideo
MIAMI — Donald Trump said Thursday that he has been indicted on charges of mishandling classified documents at his Florida estate, igniting a federal prosecution that is arguably the most perilous of multiple legal threats against the former president as he seeks to reclaim the White House. The Justice Department...
Main suspect in 2005 disappearance of Natalee Holloway arrives from Peru to face chargesVideo
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Joran van der Sloot, the chief suspect in the 2005 disappearance of Natalee Holloway, arrived in the United States from Peru on Thursday to face charges that he attempted to extort money from the missing teen’s mother. An FBI-operated plane carrying van der Sloot landed at Birmingham’s...
Supreme Court rules in favor of Black Alabama voters in unexpected defense of Voting Rights ActVideo
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday issued a surprising 5-4 ruling in favor of Black voters in a congressional redistricting case from Alabama, with two conservative justices joining liberals in rejecting a Republican-led effort to weaken a landmark voting rights law. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh...
‘Zombie Hunter’ who beheaded Cumberland County woman sentenced to death
It took three decades, but the heinous, murderous acts of Bryan Patrick Miller — aka the Arizona “Zombie Hunter” — have finally caught up with him. And they will cost him his life. An Arizona superior court judge on Wednesday sentenced Miller, 50, to death for the brutal, bloody first-degree...
Florida woman who fatally shot neighbor appears in court, sheriff releases details of racist threats
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — A white Florida woman accused of shooting and killing her Black neighbor told investigators she had been threatened by the victim for months leading up to the slaying, according an arrest report released Thursday that detailed allegations of racist epithets and physical threats to the victim’s...
